prison for jerks

Happy birthday to me, folks! I got a blender and some gift certificates and a game of Monopoly from my family, and from fangirls I got snow kisses and MORE snow kisses and OTP picspam and a Santa-fied Fraser icon and good wishes, and there was lots of family and rummy playing and a German chocolate cake. But the very best present I got this year? My grades for this quarter, the quarter I dreaded and hated and have been putting behind me already and stop panicking? B+, B, B-, nice solid 3.0 GPA to grow on and improve for the next quarters. YAYS.

For my birthday day, I shall say nice things about thefourthvine. I can't imagine how any of you cannot be reading her already, but if you're not: go over and check out her journal, because TFV runs my favorite rec journal ever. My fandoms don't overlap with hers, totally (though I squee when I see DS recs slipping through), but she writes the sort of rec entries that are totally full and satisfying pieces of writing in and of themselves. Really, the links to the great stories is practically icing on the cake, sometimes.

Don't tell aerye, you guys, but due south seekrit santa stories are due THIS SUNDAY OMG WHYYYYYYYYYY. *flails slightly* Dear brain, please learn to organize your deadlines better, thank you, love me.

That's still plenty of time to write something that I'll like, and that I think my recipient will like, but I kind of have a choice between writing something easy and something that's more of a stretch, and I'd really like to make myself do the latter. Hmm.

Also this weekend: meeting liviapenn and ficbyzee for my birthday celebration, aka drunken sentinel night. LJ, please advise: most of my drinking has been on the level of frozen daiquiris, wine coolers, and hard lemonade, and I haven't gotten at all accustomed to the actual taste of alcohol. What would you recommend in the "super-girly or tasty" range to facilitate the getting smashed for proper appreciation of Jim and Blair? Not needing a blender is a plus.

What is more fun than working on cleaning up your room so you can pack and go away for a few weeks and going through the laundry basket full of clean clothes that's been sitting on your floor for a few weeks because you never bothered to put away and discovering it is full of ants?

I vote nothing. This is the pinnacle of fun. You're all totally jealous.

Appreciating people! I missed yesterday's because, uh, I basically missed yesterday -- I was sickly and sleepy and in bed the entire day. So, pretend it is still Sunday, because I want to say something about basingstoke. Bas is a crazy good writer, and this seems to be equally true in all of her dozens of fandoms. Furthermore, she also comes across as just a fairly kick-ass person in all the other ways there are to be kick-ass, as well. Really, she is the sort of person who makes me sad that "gnawing on other people's brains" is such a socially unacceptable activity these days, because ... nummy. (Also, I never get sick of using her fic to explain skull-fucking to people. <3<3<3)

And for the eleventh day of December! sophia_helix is interesting, and thoughtful, and cool. Also, Sophia is really honest and open about her neuroses, which I appreciate a lot because, um, hi, I am also super neurotic! It's nice to know others freak out about the same stupid things! We haven't quite been in the same fandom at the same time -- although we both certainly appreciate the incesty goodness of Royal Tenenbaums and Arrested Development and such, and share some other loves. Plus, fandoms with girls in them = HEART.

Today is the birthday of fox1013. It's cheating, maybe, to mention her, since I let her and the world know on a regular basis just how much I love her, but I cannot resist. I love her because she is brilliant and funny and adorable and understanding; I love her because she's one of the best friends I've ever and I feel lucky to know her; I love her for every good thing and every bad thing I know about her, and every one she knows about me; I love her for every single stupid in-joke we share.

Amy, darling? You light up my life. Happy birthday.

So, thete1. What to say about Te? I can still totally remember the very first time I ever got feedback from her (on some random porny Smallville story I am too embarrassed to look at now) and, man, it was so exciting! This continued to be true just about any time I got feedback from her, up to the current day. Hee. The things that most embody Te-ness to me, I think, are a) her looooooooove; b) her righteous rage; and c) her commitment to porn. Some of the most entertaining conversations I have ever had on AIM were with Te, listening to her go off about things of awesome. Some of the most thoughtful lj entries I've read were her rants and rage -- on TV shows, on fans, on race, gender, comic books, even the government. And as for porn... Well, if you don't know already, Te loves porn, and porn loves her back. Te writes too deep into character voices for me to be able to read her fic much when it's not a fandom I'm in love with, but those times when we're in the same place at the same time are brief shining moments indeed. (Now I just need to wait for her to get back from her gafiating so I can poke her about Batgirl/Robin porn. Mmmmm, otp of so many permutations.)

I didn't start working on my linguistics paper until close to 2:30 (BAD) but then I managed to get the first 1200 words done by 5:00 (GOOD). I am taking a break now to watch a half hour or so of Return of the King and write up my December 3rd appeciation.

This is rather apropos, actually, because watching LotR makes my thoughts turn to hobbits, and whenever my thoughts turn to hobbits, I think tend to think of monkeycrackmary. Compared to my first two days people, Mary is not as all someone I know very well, or whom I've had much fandom contact with; we've never quite been in the same fandom at the same time. But I have been reading her journal since sometime in 2002, and that is long enough to want to give her all the appreciation I can. Mary has some of the purest love ever, the kind that makes other people love things more just by witnessing it. Hobbits! Rosie Cotton! Jason Todd! Steph Brown! Supernatural! She loves, she tells you why you should love, too, and she creates things of awesome. And all of that is not evening mentioning the coolness that is Girl Wonder dot Org.

Now I think I shall order food of some kind. What shall it be! Oh, the excitement.

Pumpkin cheesecake is a food of the gods, yo. Especially when it's nice and heavily spiced without being overpowering. Mmmm. The grocery store did go a little overboard with the whipped cream, but that's easily fixed.

This term is almost over; it was a particularly disappointing one for me, so I'm already looking ahead to the start of new classes next month. Winter term starts January 8th, and goes through mid-March. The problem that's been fucking me up really badly has always been my horrific attendance rates. I'm trying to think of ways to improve this, because it's ridiculous, and I'm sick of not doing well when I should be acing everything. If nothing else, at least if I can get back on track for the next two quarters, it might at least show on my transcript that I am able to work to a high standard, and that I was committed to turning my grades around: if I ever want to go on to anything else, I'll really need that.

Do you guys have any advice on the subject? So far I'm thinking my strategy will probably be two-fold. On the one hand, I need to keep careful track of how much class I attend, and I want to make sure I keep myself accountable for it -- so you might be seeing a lot of "However-much/16 hours attended this week" on Friday entries in those months. On the other hand, I think positive reinforcement could be really helpful, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Anything food-related is out, completely -- making food into a reward will fuck up my eating habits even more than they already are -- and I can't afford to really spend money, because I am a scrimping student. Any thoughts?

On another note, I've been thinking for the last week or so about something I want to do this month. December is, for me, not only Christmas and the end of the calendar year, but the end of a school term, and the end of a year of my life when my birthday comes around. It's a special month! And the internet is full of special people! So I decided every day this month I'm going to make this a project, to pick someone off my friends list and say something, just a couple of sentences about why they're so awesome.

Today is December 1st, and I want to say nice things about katallison. Kat Allison writes really amazing fic, and her Fraser voice is maybe the best I've ever read, but that is not why you should love her. You should love her because she is kind, and intelligent, and compassionate, and wise, and thoughtful, and interesting. She is one of the people who make the idea of being a grown-up much less scary, because it offers the chance that I might grow up to be a little bit like her.