booksarelife | Recent Entries

Has anyone around here watched The Expanse because I’d love someone to have flaily feelings at and shout about the show with!

I’ve just finished season 2 and it’s so very good and I can’t believe I haven’t watched it before because it is super my thing and I have so many feelings

Can I just say, pizza is amazing! (Sorry for the complete radio silence for...a while, college was happening and then the pandemic and then job searching)

So, life update: I have an actual full time job, which I really like so far. I’m working in a research lab at a medical school, doing partly work with mice and partly lab bench work. I have three great housemates and I live close to work and not too far from home, so that’s nice.

I want to try to post here semi-regularly to record just some of the stuff I’ve done and the passage of time

I went to the movies for the first time since February 2020 (when I went to go see Birds of Prey) and this time went to go see In the Heights, which was very fun!

(And about the first line of the post-I was having an annoying afternoon and then I had pizza for dinner and it made things much better)

Hi all, I got inspired to actually do a post here since it’s been way too long since I did anything on this journal. So I’m not really up for posting any actual words-and don’t really have any being actively worked on, but I am working on a fic for Sholio where I get to give Jack Thompson a boyfriend, in the 1940s/50s, which means I’m doing more research than I’ve actually done for a fic so far. I’m actually quite excited about it, and have a bunch of ideas for plot bits already, and finally have a name for Jack’s boyfriend (thanks to the Social Security baby name website), and I promise it’s not going to be a sad fic.

If anyone has any sources about the Lavender Scare or being gay in the late 1940s/early 1950s they recommend-including books since I have access to lots of academic libraries, let me know!!

I actually also again have fic I’m working on (go check my AO3, I have Whumptober stuff up) so have six teaser-y sentences from a fic I’m writing, also for Whumptober, for the show FBI:

“Dana asked, "have you tried to get information on him, to at least check if he's still alive?"

Maggie froze, and then Quinn said, "They said they weren't going to kill him, at least not yet, when I asked a few hours ago when they were trying to recruit me, they said they had some questions for him. And then it felt like a good idea to change the subject. I have to go, I think someone's coming in."

Maggie was seething, quietly, and Dana said, "Jubal, Maggie, my office"

When they were all in with the door closed, Dana asked "Maggie, what's going on?"”

This will get posted at some point soon, I promise

What was that dude cutting through over the window??

What was that guy in the coffee shop? I have a feeling he’ll be important again somehow

Sad, Maggie and OA didn’t get their coffee!!

Oof, that was awkward

They should not have thrown away that book, should they?

Why is she pausing for so long?

Ohh, it was the screen on the window

This is too easy, but they don’t usually do simple misdirections

I do not like this guy at all, but it’s still too easy

This is not good for you, dude

As much as I don’t want to believe you, I do, only because this episode is too long for him to be very involved!!

Also, Crebbins, you’re disgusting

Creeeepy!!!

I’m very suspicious about them getting such an exact location off a 6 second call based on having seen Criminal Minds and other things

Maggie was totally valid and right, I think, to not tell them that the call might be fake

If your kid just got abducted, don’t lie to the FBI!!

“They are vetted marketing partners” and we’re the FBI!!

I like Isobel more now

So maybe the dad is innocent

Or maybe not,

So the phone used to make the call was bought by the dad? (I’m also suspicious of Ian getting that number off the phone call but whatever)

Dude, why do you need a new phone every 6 months?

Dude, really???

So apparently it’s not so far fetched that someone could know about the junk drawer

There’s still a lot of time left in this episode, but I’m optimistic that Ian’s found something!

Ooh, maybe a lead

No wonder he’s going to a gentlemen’s club, he’s not happy in his marriage

The gang’s all here!!!

Kristen, you’ll get it soon, I’m sure! (Also, wouldn’t she know this already?)

I love Maggie and OA jumping over the machine thingy

Oooh, what’s about to happen?

I hope Kristen isn’t being pushed aside

What are OA and Maggie doing?
Oh, that

What’s going on???

So was she not actually pregnant??

So he’s not her biological kid, interesting

So having a surrogate isn’t “down to earth and relatable”?

So it seems the biological mom is behind it?

Splitting up the team? I’m nervous!!

Maggie, don’t get shot!!!

Maggie!!!

Maggie!!!

Oh god, I’m really nervous!!!

He’s ok, yay!!!

I hope Scola’s not lying about what Jubal did

That was so good!!!!

I love having a show currently airing, it’s such a great feeling!

I’m super excited for FBI this week and very intrigued by the preview!! I hope we get something carried over in OA and Maggie’s relationship or in how OA is doing his job from the previous episode and that we get more good, emotional character beats!!

So I’m doing this at the suggestion of a friend and also because I don’t know anyone, that I can remember, who’s into the show.

So this episode is already amazing and sad and I love it.

Also, yay, more OA backstory and emotions!!

I’m slightly suspicious of the waiter who told everyone to get out because of how tv works

Also, I really hate Stuart Scola so far-I thought one of the rules was no lying to people, though that might just have been in interrogations

Justin is so slimy and I hate it and I hate him so much, but it can’t be this easy-there’s too much time left

(Putting more in comments)

I’m going to try and post on here more, maybe I’ll try to do Whumptober snippets or something (also, anyone who has anything specific they’d like to see from one of those prompts, hit me up, and I can try to make it happen).

I’m also attempting to actually write an article for the Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures (that the OTW runs), and I’m putting it here as a kind of accountability thing because I wanted to get it written for the special issue coming out in December but life. The article’s going to be about the 2009 tv show Kings and how it portrays David and Jonathan and also the fic that people have written for the series and I’m actually very excited so let’s hope this will actually help that happen.

Also, I have a carrel in my college library this year and I’m probably going to put up some pretty nature/scenery pictures on the wall space, for which I need to figure out how to get things off my google photos, but that shouldn’t be that hard

That’s all the update for today, except for everyone should go listen to recessional’s podcast “Feather Summarizes the Silmarillion” because it’s amazing and very funny

This is probably a random place to do this, but I’m doing it here anyway. I’m thinking about going to library science school (other main option at the moment is getting a job as some kind of science research technician/assistant for a few years to figure out if I want to do science things/get an advanced degree in biology) and I’d love to hear about anyone’s experiences with that (preferably in the US).

Thanks in advance!!

Also, I now have a tumblr: Dragonsthough101 (sorry for the lack of link, I’m really bad at doing links on mobile)

I’m on vacation this week, but my brain’s being annoying and I’ve been emotional several times most days since Sunday (during which I wasn’t emotional at all in spite of getting about 3-4ish hours of sleep on a plane), so that’s been annoying, and people are hard, especially family sometimes. I’ve also had very little WiFi today which has been really annoying I’m abroad so no data, but hopefully tomorrow will have better WiFi

I’m not sure what this is, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out and put down somewhere besides texts.

If any OTW Slack people are reading this, if anyone’s come across any really good Good Omens (or other) meta or fic recently, I’d love to see it!

Current Mood: tired

I'm participating in Fandom Trumps Hate, offering fic from Leverage, Agent Carter, Kings, or Flashpoint, as well as betaing or culture picking fic up to 10k

So I totally planned to do a 2018 year in review kind of post, but then I got sucked into house cleaning and the massive effort of getting ready for and packing for study abroad, so that post isn’t happening. There is probably a post about me and my relationship with/feelings about religion (specifically Protestant Christianity and a bit about Judaism) coming at some point soon (probably some time a week from now when I’m missing the mostly student run, very casual Shabbat services our Jewish Student Union would hold, and maybe a post about me trying to work out some of the “oh god what do I want to do with my life after school”, but no guarantees on either.

I do have a question though: I’m going to be studying abroad in Athens, Greece this semester and I’m planning on at least trying to keep a journal. Would anyone following this blog like to see those “what I did today/this week” posts or would you like me to continue with just the sporadic stream of random things that this journal is so far?

If I do post more “daily journal-ish” posts, I will endeavor to tag them and use cuts so people can avoid them if they want.

I got Hamilton tickets for Christmas!!!!!!

I forgot how much I don't like blow drying my hair!! I don't do it at school because there aren't any convenient outlets and I usually end up showering at night and towel drying it a bit and then going to sleep and it's also just extra effort and time that I don't need to put in but today I had to be ready to go out at a certain time and my hair hadn't dried all the way so I had to blow dry it.

On the up side, my parents just finished having the bathroom next to my sister's room and my room redone, so now there are two sinks so I wasn't taking up all the space, which was good.

I also have something stuck in my head that I don't think I've heard in about a month, it's the version of Tzadeek katamar that the Jewish Student Union at my college does when this song is part of the Shabbat service. (I'm not Jewish, but I have a bunch of Jewish friends and since their services are open to everyone, I had been meaning to go for a while, and only got around to it last year, when they did a Shabbat directed at/focused on LGBTQIA Jews and the intersection of those identities, and I've been going basically every week I'm at school and not literally doing something during that time, and it's been really nice. At the last Shabbat of the semester, I figured out that I'd, without intentionally trying, memorized the candle blessing enough to cover my eyes during it.) And I don't have the whole of Tzadeek katamar running through my head, I have bits of it running through my head, usually just one or two lines. It's one of those things where I don't mind it being stuck in my head, I like the song (is it called a song?), but brain, why this? I think something about the way most of the things sung during Shabbat have a really easy to learn and remember rhythm, combined with the fact that in many cases lines are repeated more than once, that makes them really susceptible to being snatched up by my brain and repeated over and over. (Also the JSU at school often repeats Tzadeek katamar several times, each time faster and faster to see how fast we can go within reason, so it's probably extra ingrained in my brain.)

I saw Bohemian Rhapsody last night with my family and it was amazing!! I don't know much about Queen or Freddie Mercury, so I can't comment on the accuracy of anything, but I really liked the movie, even when it was sad, and the LiveAid concert part was really spectacular! In another case of my brain being weird, the part that stuck in my brain the most was the about 10 seconds of Under Pressure that played, because it reminded me that when I was in high school, I spent about a couple months on the drill team at the barn I rode at (basically we rode horses in unison in fancy patterns, with a couple people holding flags and banners, and the one performance I rode in we picked Under Pressure and something else I can't remember for our music and half of the 8 of us, I think, dressed up as Freddie Mercury. So somewhere there are pictures or videos of me riding a horse dressed in a white tank top, white jeans (that were on the edge of being too small because they were from Walmart or something), a leather jacket and fake mustache.

I'm so sorry that yet again this post is so ridiculously late. My only excuse is that I descended into the craziness of finals and not having the best planning for a while and then got sucked into being home and doing nothing/holiday things, but here it is finally, I am talking about clouds!
I'm the most likely person in my family to take pictures of cool clouds and maybe send them to the family group chat, I think mostly because I notice things a lot, and I'm in college, which means lots of walking around outside. There are also several good spots on campus where you can get a really good sky view: outside the library and on the main green, and at my old first year dorm which is sort of on a hill. I really like big puffy clouds and tiny little wispy clouds and clouds that have been turned pink or purple by the setting sun, and clouds illuminated by the moon!
I'm going to be studying abroad next semester, so I'll have to see if I see different clouds than at home or school.
Thanks for the prompt Dough!

I'm so sorry this so late, I meant to do it and then time got away from me and something would distract me every time I went to go do it, but here it is, finally! So, spoilers for the whole Wayfarers series, but any spoilery discussion of Records of a Spaceborn Few will be behind a cut.
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is up there on the list of my favorite books ever, because it is so hopefully and nice and interesting and inclusive and diverse and very much developed and I have a real soft spot for found family as a trope. I also love the emphasis on friendship and many kinds of romantic love, which I really love and appreciate as an aromantic asexual person who sometimes gets really annoyed by all the romance centric media (I can easily count on one hand the number of rom coms I've watched, ever).
I adore the worldbuilding and all the little details of clothes and references and all the background world/ship/universe details that make the story work! I love how we slowly learn more backstory about everyone as it becomes relevant! I really love Kizzy and Jenks' relationship and Sissix and Rosemary, and really all the cast and I have so many flail-y feelings!!
A Closed and Common Orbit is probably my least favorite of the three books, and it's still great, I just miss the comfort feeling I got from the first book and Sidra's journey was more stressful for me, but I loved getting to know Pepper and Blue more and learning about life on a planet! I don't really have a lot of articulateable feelings about this one.
( Spoilers for Records of Spaceborn Few below )

Current Mood: tired

Since I seem to actually have subscribers and people following DW now, I'm going to try a talking meme. Comment with a day and something you want me to talk about, and I will endeavor to do so

Current Mood: Cautiously excited

Anti-Semitism is really bad, people. Also, if you meet a Jewish person, do not ask them their opinion on Israel, please.
This has been a PSA

Current Mood: angry

Hi everyone, this is my first post here on this journal! I'm K (or Vita if you have too many Ks in your life), I'm a white, cis, asexual and aromantic US college student at a historically all women's college (we have lots of nonbinary/gender non conforming people, and if any trans guys transition while they're here, they can stay), I have ADHD and I probably give off a picture of having my life together more than is actually the case, I love dragons, books, fantasy, science (especially biology), libraries, Tamora Pierce, Leverage, ace/aro characters in media, language(s), ancient things (especially of the ancient Greek, Latin, or Egyptian varieties, and a whole range of other things. I'm also a complete nerd. Please respectfully let me know if I've done something wrong or offensive or if I haven't tagged for something.

I was having some thoughts based on reading some of recessional's awesome posts about mental health/disability/neuroatypical brain stuff, and I was going to comment over there in reply to something I wrote, but couldn't find the post and remembered I have a space to put random thoughts. I'm realizing several things, but one of the more prominent ideas that recently popped into my head was that since I got to college I've been a lot more comfortable with intrinsically/instinctively thinking of myself as at least a little bit disabled and as someone who has different capabilities than other people and that's totally cool, and I can work with and around that to accomplish what I need.

I was diagnosed with ADHD around 4th grade and I have a counselor person for organizational/ADHD management things who I've been seeing since, I think, close to the beginning of high school, but it feels different in college. I think there are several factors to all of this: having friends who were unapologetically diabled, who had mental health issues that they acknowledged and talked about and had accepted as really part of them (there weren't any people like that at my high school who were open about having mental health issues), the fact that colleges on the US are required (I think) to have some kind of disability office, and ours is actually pretty good and tries to make a community, especially for first years, the fact that I was now encountering other people with extended time and different room accommodations for exams, as opposed to in high school where I would take at least part of the test with the class and then finish at some other time that I arranged with the teacher and where I for the most part tried to hide my extra time because it wasn't "normal", the fact that I'm in control of my life in college, and I have time to do things that aren't homework and that I can plan out my day and when to do things how I want (and that I don't have all my classes every day), and the fact that there isn't a really any busywork and there's no grade checking system that my mom is checking, so if I mess up a little thing, or several little things, it's ok.

I apologize for the huge run on sentence, I'm on my phone so I can't actually see the whole thing and I tend to write long sentences anyway.