Okay, so French presentation on Robespierre today. Was all prepared, wasn't even really nervous since I know the material I have on my slides, almost well enough to do the fucker from memory. Almost. Not quite. It was on my computer, which has a 17in screen and lots of character (kinder way to say lovely ghetto laptop of doom which has gone through everything - trust me, this laptop wants to live, regardless of the fact that its hinge is no longer existent on one side), but one of the things that doesn't work is the battery. We carry this thing up to the front of the class, plug it into the wall socket, plug the connection to the projector into this fucker and turn it on: nothing, well other than a brief flash of my background (plz note: change that on the smaller laptop called Gigi by Monday, otherwise I will have to explain it to the class). So we stand there for a few seconds, staring at the thing, and try to turn it on again. Nothing. We pull the plug on the projector cord, thinking that maybe that's got something to do with it. Nope. We finally, after I look like I'm about to start crying, go back to our seats to try to send this to another computer. I plug it into the outlet by my seat: it works. The presentation comes up and everything, but no internet. Gah! By this point, we have a few options, one being that the screen is big enough to present from, but of course, that would mean having everyone gathered around our seat while doing the presentation and the teacher's already continuing on with the lesson. So we will go Monday. Monday. The same day I have my other presentation, the presentation I was supposed to do this week that ended up with my partner not being in class to do it, and started with several emails saying, "Hey, what should I do?" to which, on the Saturday before it was due, he responds, basically everything that he doesn't want to find out from his brother, and that on top of the two French papers I had to write by Tuesday. Grr. Grr! So Monday. Shifting focus to the LSAT until Saturday, then I'll worry about crying.

In retrospect, I might have said something like, "Les Thermidorians n'essayaient pas de finir la Terreur. Ils etait, dans plusieurs cas, culpable pour les pire exces d'elle. Ils essayait de preserver ses vies, parce que les Comites allaient les (try), et les aurait trouve culpable et les guillotine. Peut-etre on ne peut pas trouver les culpable parce qu'ils essayaient de se protecter, a la difference des personnes qui, hier, prendre des principles contre etre reelus et ont decide de la reelection doive gagner, pas meme segurite des vies." (Editing would be needed, my facts are faulty, and it just wouldn't go over well.)

Which brings us into the topic that I was just ranting about. WTF!!!! You choose reelection over principles; you look sheepish because you feel you wouldn't be reelected rather than stick up for any principles called, you know, the pursue of happiness and freedom of religion and just wee little things like that! What the hell? Do you have fewer principles than Fouche? Do you even have enough of a care about the world around you to realize that people are suffering the feelings of being second-class citizens because they can't get the basic human right to marry the person they love? Must you place your own fear of not getting reelected against this? You ought to be ashamed, ladies and gentlemen of the New York Senate. You are the reason for the continuation of the belief that politicians have all made Faustian deals involving giving up any principles for the sake of playing at politics. Ladies and gents, you make me sick.

Oh, and guess what we're covering on Tuesday in Human Genetics? The ethics of stem-cell research, with a bunch of conservative pricks in the class. Great. Abso-fucking-lutely wonderful.

Happy Birthday, nirejseki!

Actually, my problems with the way that socialist and communist parties are being run right now, which I am writing down so it doesn't end up in a paper I have to write for class.

1) You say "we don't need to discuss reform techniques with people. We just need to tell them we are here and to convince them that if they throw in their lot with us, everything will be fine." Okay, so in other words, you're doing nothing to convince people to vote for you. Well, other than spelling out Marx's theory of scientific communism.

2) You say "we can't plan anything for after the Revolution but must instead convince them to revolt then let them decide what to do afterward." Okay. Cannot even begin to tell you how bad an idea this is, not because people are inherently untrustworthy, but because people don't trust themselves, and particularly with Marx's theory of alienation that capitalist labor has even alienated people from their sense of responsibility, freedom, pride, adulthood, etc, they shouldn't immediately. Marx even suggests a vanguard of the proletariat to help them along. But that vanguard needs to be a vanguard if it is to work, if it is to let people back onto the fact that they don't need to be sipping from sippy cups and eating from dribble spoons. It needs to have plans so that people can be convinced to put their weight behind it, even if it's only a "you will then be able to do this and humanity will then be able to do that because of such and such reason which exists now." Of course it would be better if you actually had plans on how to get there and what the steps would be to this utopia instead of just saying "Revolution because that's what our party line is" (or alternatively "Revolution because everything good will come after it and nothing good will come before." People like it when they know their officials' plans. I don't even believe a vanguard party to the extent that history has meant it would be a good idea, and I can tell you that. So plans, plans are a good thing.

3) Not everyone considers the economic situation the first and foremost of the causes of misery, though many would agree it's way up there. Education in many case won't teach people that thinking another cause is more important is wrong. Sometimes another issue is more important within a person's heart than their economic status. Try as you might, it won't work to educate these people that their first and only cause is socialism when that also means calling this issue that is close to their heart a secondary issue. People do not like it when you do that. Also, if some agree to join you, you can't tell them that they're going to be screwed on the economy either way the election goes so who really cares who's in charge when their "secondary" issue is something that there is a huge difference on, and when they feel their very lives might be theatened should the left-leaning candidate lose the election. These people are your allies. Do not alienate them!

And those three for now.

So at any rate, nano's going to be here at the end of the month (and I have no idea why my keyboard's malfunctioning so bear with me here). This year, I'd rather like to finish Nano, which means I have to throw Chris Baty's advice out the window and research the fucker a lot, and by a lot I mean a shitload. Last year's wasn't completed because I realized quite the amount of research I had set myself up for. So this year, research must occur. Fortunately, the research is stuff I'm reading anyway.

It's going to involve Camille and Marat being time-jumpers. And Camille accidentally panicking and pulling Robespierre with them. After yelling at Camille a little, Marat places Robespierre's spirit into a child's body a few years into the future, after burying his memories so that he doesn't remember them. Then, Marat and Camille keep time-jumping.

Jump to the 1960s, where there is this third-grade teacher named Maxime, who lives with his father (a pediatrician) and mother (a frail and beautiful woman), five siblings, two sibling-in-laws, and nine nieces and nephews, of varying ages, including one whom he adopted when his childhood girlfriend-made-fiancee died. Marat becomes a doctor at the school where Maxime teaches, while Camille is in an organization with one of Maxime's two 17-year-old nephews (who live in the family's attic with Maxime's 17-year-old brother, and plot exciting things up there in their fort). Maxime's de facto son, the most like him in the family, starts to get an inkling as to who his father might have been.

So, things to research include, Paris in the 1960s, because one of the 17-year-olds is politically involved and is going to come in one day in the spring of 1968, saying, "There might be a revolution going on outside."
And things to think about include, what is the driving plot other than Maxime finding out who he was?

At least I have two months to decide this before Nano is over.

So I got an internship with Pando Networks this past week. What Pando does is facilitate game delivery downloads by making them faster, which means a higher completion rate, and cheaper for the game company in question by using a cloud. Problem is, I don't really know what games are available, popular, dowloadable and relatively large ( > 1GB in size). dalen_talas and kittiethedragon, this particularly goes out to you, but anyone can help.

New York Times today sent out that:
'Iran's Supreme Leader Calls Election Fair

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, angrily warned
opposition leaders Friday to stay off the streets and denied
opposition claims that last week's disputed election was
rigged.

In a stern and lengthy sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran, he
also called directly for an end to the protests that have
brought hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets
to back demands for a new election.

"Street challenge is not acceptable," he said. "This is
challenging democracy after the elections."'


This is certainly going to rouse Iranians to greater rage after such an obviously rigged election, particularly due to the fact that declaring the election void and retaking it was one of the actions that an intelligent person would have taken to avoid throwing Iranians closer to revolution. So anyone want to predict what will happen?

Ok. Just checked New York Times and came across this:

"U.S. Could Let Detainees Plead Guilty Without Trials

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law
for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death
penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid
airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It
could also allow the five detainees who have been charged
with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of
pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom."

...

Double-plus-ungood is my only response at the hour. Particularly as "The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques." I could be wrong, but I think that people want some accountability.

So following a day of being varnished into headache (they were doing maintenance on the room across the hall, and still having not figured out how to open the windows and it being a crappy day out, I decided to stay in. Bad idea as I later had to go out a get some fresh air.) Still, my headache hadn't exactly gone away, so I decided to close my door and put a filter of down comforter between myself and the smell. This worked, and now the smell is for all practical purposes gone.

Now the question is: why am I awake at three? My suitemate and her boyfriend went to a party and got gloriously drunk. Actually, beyond gloriously. I've been listening to her boyfriend vomit while she is on again off again in the shower for the past fifteen minutes. I've been trying to decide between warring instincts of going to help and asking him how much he had to drink, potentially calling an ambulance if he has alcohol poisoning; going out there and strangling him, as I have to wake up early for a volunteer project tomorrow and actually did everything in my power short of going to sleep with headphohes in, which doesn't aid in hearing my phone alarm bright and early at 7:20 (I know, bitch and moan, right? But hey, I went to sleep at eleven!); or rolling over, putting on peaceful music and going back to sleep. Probably the last one will be what I end up doing.

Oh fuck. My dad lost his job earlier this month and was waiting until I got home to tell me. We were eating lunch in Subway yesterday, then, bam, he just comes out with it.

Now, he's considering retiring (he's going to be 65 in two months) and my mom might or might not get another job. I'm suddenly having to think about life outside university, like the cost of fucking Cobra and what I'm doing afterwards. My dad says I have to decide what I'm doing, and is trying to convince me to go to law school, but then says my siblings are still in debt from there grad school (this is more impressive when you realize my sister is nearly 43). I don't want to be, but I need to be in order to get a decent job once out of school... but then I would essentially need to do something I don't like so I can pay off my debts?

It doesn't make sense! Not to mention that I am not ready to be dealing with this to be dropped in my lap all at once.

Does anyone have a Guide to Living in this Country 101 book or something like that because I think I need one?

The Results of a Pseudonym ~ Combeferre/Enjolras/Marianne Michel
Summary: Laurent "Combeferre" Demahis has introduced Enjolras and Marianne Michel, one of the servants of his father's house, hoping the two will get along (she has a crush on Enjolras from what she's heard from Combeferre and has requested Combeferre do this for her). The evening turns into a threesome, and a child is born out of it. Combeferre agrees to say the child is his, meanwhile trying to convince Enjolras to settle down and raise the child.

Disclaimers: Characters from Les Miserables belong to Victor Hugo. Historical people like the Demahis family and the Michel family and their events belong to history, including the fact that Louise Michel was friends with Victor Hugo and signed a few poems as Enjolras.

( Chapter: 1830: Baby )

Why do we live in a world where being a good human being (jobs typically called volunteering) isn't enough to put food on the table? What kind of fucked up system is this that puts basic human compassion at war with one's need to survive? Yes, under certain regards, I am suggesting why is everything in our current system based so much on greed, but it isn't even on that level of thought. It's just on a level of pain. These things we learn in kindergarten... Why would they teach kindergartners these values if the kindergartners must later forget them to live? I didn't. Does this make me a bad person? It must, otherwise it would put food into my stomach as well as feel so right. If it doesn't, I should be able to dedicate my life to volunteering. But I can't. Because I need a paying job, not just volunteering. But paying jobs in non-profits won't hire me, because I haven't worked with a non-profit yet, (similar reason why I can't get an internship - one needs to have experience in a non-profit to get a non-profit internship) or because I don't have legal training, or html/css programming skills, or a working knowledge of housing policy, or hiv policy, or immigration policy. And besides, that's working in an office. That is not reading to kids at a transitional shelter and seeing that expression of delight or helping others get jobs so they can one day afford to pay the rent for a roof over their heads. Or giving additional money to a person who needs it to get a meal or a bus or subway ride home. What kind of shitty system do we live in that tells people helping others is wrong? Because, by the values of our system, the selfish and the greedy win out, and so are good. But I wouldn't that make me a shitty person by normal values?

So on Monday, I had my last final... celebrate! Well, not really, try to get myself a job and an internship in the next few weeks, which I currently have a few things sent out to do. Also, now comes the waiting for the grades. One is a B, it was one of the first tests I had - Int'l Politics. (Well, the first class I had a test in needs to go through several bureaucratic processes before I get it so it probably won't be here for a while.)
( Grades )

On another note, as soon as the final was over, I think I began to suffer from exhaustion. Tomorrow, I should be back to semi-normal, and by Thursday, hopeful, I should be back to normal, if a somewhat still weak, tired and somewhat feverish normal (the only point in time I get fevers is when I'm exhausted. It's annoying.). Sigh, another side effect is that I ramble aimlessly. I'll shut up now.

On entirely different note, things seem to be going well for nirejseki. Ask her about it. Particularly about what she did for fandom!secrets and why Princton Review hates her and all but kicked her out of LSAT class (two entirely separate subjects, not to worry).

So yes, overall, I'd say it has been a successful year.

I get songs stuck in my head all the time. Usually, these songs happen to be of the new generation of musical (which will unfortunately never come to Broadway, as serious musicals tend to fair horribly around the happy children who are now apparently watching the most musicals according to Broadway, leaving us to watch relatively crappy clips of these on youtube).

I recently found out about a new book-based-musical sharing the same title as the book: aka Rebecca. It has one of the creepiest Mrs. Danvers ever. I swear she gave me nightmares. Also, the songs are damn addictive. "No Escape, Some Are British, Rebecca, Stranded Goods, and Manderley in Flames" are amazing, particularly "Stranded Goods or Manderley in Flames." I highly suggest listening to them, with warnings that they are very addictive.

There is apparently such a thing as a cat cafe now in Tokyo where people drink tea and play with cats. Don't believe me? See for yourself: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/090406/tokyos-cat-cafes

Now the only question is: how to start one up in NYC? Because one of these things needs to exist here. See icon for why.

So someone did a typical "if you don't like Harry Potter I judge you" secret on fandom secrets. I have but one response to that (but it's not being posted there:

Dear OP,
While it is true that I don't regard the books as shit, I regard them as one more piece of the mediocre (at best) nonsense that is taking over future generations storytelling ability (which it is by forcing books whose authors know how to write out of bookstores and print). Explaining to them that these books are good is not going to help the almost-lost art of storytelling therein contained come back if it costs thirty dollars to get one of these mind-encompassing books. The novels I like: they are not perfect, it is true. But Rowling's writing is just painful, it has no emotion nor poetry nor delight anywhere in sight nor even a real purpose for writing it, and this it makes it largely unbearable. Stories are designed for a purpose, and this purpose is to entwine the hearts of humanity in delight as the telling of the story unfurls. Picture wandering into a fairy bower and finding oneself listening to two fairies argue out through a dual of words who's fault their fight is, as Shakespeare shows us. Picture journeying through time and space of a unicorn's back and being as delighted as is the child on the unicorn's back, as L'Engle describes. Picture the insides of a barricade and having the author explain to you the answer to the question of "but why," which Hugo calls his audience to ask time and time again with his descriptions. Or just picture the main characters wandering around a world they've never seen before and seeing and feeling descriptions of the world's changing magnificence around them and their complete horror at seeing its destruction, as with Clive Barker's Weaveworld or Thief of Always. Rowling does not capture nor describe the emotions of her characters (other than their unending amounts of emo) well enough to be considered a good storyteller. She does not wind her novels through a fabric of reality strong enough that only when a chapter break occurs does one find oneself holding one's breath in wonder or terror, on the opposite end of a night from where he or she started reading with tears of the same anguish the characters is feeling pouring from one eye and tears of delight for the fabric of the world so well construct out of a sheet of paper from the other. Rowling does not do that. No, Rowling is not a piece of shit writer. But she is mediocre at best by comparison.

Sigh, the reason I hate Harry Potter is not because I feel it caused this, but because it is just one more sign of the death of the delight of storytelling.

The best thing about starting from scratch? The starting from scratch. You move somewhere else, you work in a bar getting to know people and commiserate with them or you move to a small town and teach.

The important thing is, you leave behind all the times you've embarrassed yourself, no one would know about any of them; no one would know about the number of times I've stuck my foot so far down my throat that there was really no saving the situation.

Best of all, though, there are no expectations of anyone's to live up to, other than your own. Imagine teaching at an elementary school. Imagine starting a local little volunteer organization, a town-grown food garden. But important thing is that I could live without the weight of expectations, so that then I can deal more with with the future than with my own personal petty issues.

Of course, I'm probably idealizing the situation too much.

So I was checking my email, and Amazon,com sent me something entitled "Amazon Kindle: Download Sci-Fi in Under a Minute," which is nice as I'm going to buy a kindle at some point off in the distant future: it's not very high on my priorities right now. So I clicked on it... the picture of the Kindle had the cover of Twilight on it. I feel disgusted with Amazon. A) since when is Twilight sci-fi? B) Since when is Twilight even remotely good enough to encompass all of sci-fi in the image that Amazon puts out about itself? I feel like writing them a letter and explaining these two points. It could just be me, but I feel like some crucial part of my childhood has just been violated.

On another note, I have my presentation on Louise Michel in French class today. Public speaking usually makes my heart pound so fast that I run the risk of passing out. Furthermore, my heart's already pounding at super-speed at the thought of presenting. All I can say is Eep!

So... 10 different spices (five of which we had to buy because what the fuck else are you going to use saffron and turmeric for?), 8 eggs, 1 chicken, a very tasty crepe recipe (because like hell I was following the exact recipe surrounding the phyllo dough), some honey and five hours later, we have the insides of a rather tasty dish called bastilla. What is bastilla, you ask? Well, it's tasty and Moroccan for starters, and it tends to be covered in cinnamon and sugar and have chicken, eggs and cinnamon in it, and did I mention the tasty? Unfortunately, even without messing with the phyllo dough, it was still hard. I knew this going into it. What spawned this endeavor, you ask? Well, the fact that I was craving it, because typically, we had it twice a year back in the early years of high school and before (after that we had it once a year, for my birthday). At any rate, a lot of the Moroccan restaurants on the southern half of Manhattan are closed for renovation right now, and are likely to be for a while. There's one that isn't, however, it's bastilla was too dry and tasted a tad burnt. Yuck, in other words. Also, tiny much? My palm is bigger than the thing! What finally decided me on the fact was that that thing that was smaller than my palm was expensive! Now this one, even with the spices purchased at Whole Foods (surprisingly a cheaper place to get said spices, at least than the place we normally do our shopping, which is terribly expensive for spices - cough cough, how much do you want me to pay for saffron?! Yeah, heck no!), is still expensive. However, now that I know I can make it; now that I know the recipes work (with minor tweaking to make them taste better), now that I know I should cook the crepes and the bastilla stuffing simultaneously, I can make it for much cheaper and much less time. Yay!

PS. Changes made, add cinnamon and orange peel to crepe recipe. No you are not making a mistake, there is no sugar in a crepe recipe.
Then, with the stuffing itself: No, despite what the copy of the recipe says, a quarter cup of cilantro is too much. Try a tablespoon for better results. And if you still don't like onions, you're not going to like them any better when you have to pick them out of the stuffing. Add a shake of coriander (it makes the gravy grander! ^____^). Cinnamon equals good. Almonds can be bought roasted to save time, also less of them, please. And, last but not least, chicken should be cut up ahead of time.

So yes, another evening in the kitchen of Kate. This one of the better successes.

See icon. It's a cat holding tea with a purr grin on its face. It looks a lot like me with tea. It is also the nearest cat to my daemon (from His Dark Materials) I, or my friend who saw my daemon once while dehydrated, can come up with.