QueenAlatariel

I got a dailyDev! And...didn't even realize it until a month after I got it.   Someone, please smack me when cool things happen to me and I don't realize it.

I'm sifting through messages now...and...a month after it happened, it's new to me, so I'm still a bit stunned. Especially for a story I posted here in 2005. Thank you, ever so much, everyone who reviewed, and to WordCount and GunShyMartyr for suggesting and featuring me! *is proud of her girls*

I'm still fuddling my way through the favorites and such. Sorry for the delay to anyone who reviewed. Until about an hour ago I had no idea I'd been featured! I'm rarely on this site anymore, due to real life busyness, though I'm certainly still deeply honored by getting featured here!

Again, thank you!

Long time no see, everyone!

And for the most part, that seems to be how it will stay. I'll still be dropping by every blue moon or so to browse through and see if anything important has been left for me, but real life has been filling up my, well, life. So, instead of having a very old journal entry gathering dust and spiderwebs, I thought I'd post a note saying that I'm around, more or less, but it may take some time for me to get back to you if you try to contact me via devart.

In regards to my fiction/fics/art - all of my original fiction is up here (at least what will go online).

If you are interested in my fanfic, most of which are incomplete on this site only, please go to my fanfiction.net page here: www.fanfiction.net/~queen … you will find fully completed fanfiction.

See you all next blue moon.

So, has anyone else been watching Heroes?

Hmm...a couple weeks ago I went to Yokohama with the Boy. Well, I went to Tokyo to visit the Boy, and we spent one of the days in Yokohama, which is a lot closer to Tokyo than I realized. (Only about 15 minute train ride. I knew it was close, but I figured it was more a thirty or forty minute ride....) We went to Chinatown, which was so packed...of course, being a Chinatown, there were dozens of restaurants eveywhere...and we arrived just at lunchtime. Lines out the doors. We ended up at a fun little 'food court' style restaurant, which had the best gyoza ever. Gyoza are a type of pork dumpling. So very good. We also went to the Landmark Tower, the highest building in Japan. The western view from the tower has an absolutely magnificent view of Mount Fuji.

While we were in Tokyo, though, we went to an art exhibit...any photographers out there, you may want to take a look: www.ashesandsnow.org/ &nb… only saw the preview for this one, Ashes and Snow, but we're going to go see the full exhibit during Golden Week. Gorgeous work. I bought a copy of the soundtrack that goes with the 'movie'...some lovely work by Lisa Gerard. Very peaceful. The regular exhibit that we saw was based on Laughter in Japanese Art...some very interesting stuff, ranging from old haniwa figurines to some very odd contemporary art.

Ahhh...and I'm getting nervous. Next Saturday...I'm testing for my black belt. There's so much to remember...I've been studying...hope I'm ready.

I've been reading a lot of Arthurian again recently. I finished reading The Mabinogion and now I'm on to Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave series, based on Merlin's story. Also pulls a LOT from The Mabinogion.  Almost done with the second book. I began to notice, in the first volume...women seem to get portrayed...rather negatively. I'm still trying to figure out why, exactly...the author is a woman, so...why make so many of the female characters so manipulative...in a negative sense? It makes me a little uneasy, reading it...there's a very clear double standard for the women in the books. I'd expect such portrayals of characters like Morgan from mediaeval texts, but from something written in the 70's? It's at it's clearest comparing Uther and Ygraine...Uther sends his son away, he's being kingly, even if he's willing to forget about Arthur if he has another boy. Ygraine agrees to send her son away, she's a big bloated pregant woman who doesn't care about her kids, only about being Queen.

It's probably bothering me since I know the author is female...granted, she's writing from Merlin's 'male' perspective, but even there she's doing some rather funky stuff with his sexuality. I don't usually read books searching for the 'human sexuality' angle, but in some Arthurian (coughMistsofAvaloncough) it's hard to miss. The books are well written and interesting...but this is just niggling at me. Hmm, maybe I can find some sort of information on Mary Stewart or some sort of essays on the books. It just strikes me as odd.

Hmm...well, now that I've babbled and probably bored you all with my book musings, I'll be moving along.

I know, I know. According to devArt, it's been around four months or so since I posted here.   Do forgive, life is busy, and though I'm not dead it seems like my 'net based social life is.

Hmm, though the good news of the day is...when I got online this morning, I saw my first news of the new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I'm telling you...Amazon Japan had better deliver fast. And I'm so going to miss not going to a midnight Harry Potter party for the final book. I was Tonks for Half Blood Prince...used my old Ayanami Rei wig for it and all. But either way...can't wait. Going to be a big HP summer, with Order of the Phoenix coming out in the movies the week before the new book is out. Fun times.

In other news, I went to hell last month. Really. I was there. Didn't see Dante or Virgil though. Did see some crocodiles. And the oni there snore. About a three hour train ride north of here, there's a small city called Beppu, famous for it's 'Jigoku', which translates to 'Hells'. There's several of them. After I got back from visiting my family in the US, I went with the Boy up to Beppu and we walked around the Jigoku. The White Pond Hell was particularly beautiful - the white turns a light sky blue on the surface-  but I think my pictures from the Red Blood Pond Hell came out best. The mud of the jigoku is red, so the water appears a deep red color. There's also a lot of steam rising, and a nice, twisted old tree creeping out over the water. Really beautiful, even if it was hell. Oh, and the eggs they cook in the jigoku are really tasty.

For today's epsiode of Let's Learn English! I was walking in to the dojo, and the earlier class was walking out. A little girl, about four or so, comes up to me, smiles and says:
Her: Three.
Me: ...?
Her: Three...three...one, two...three...three...
Me: Four?
Her: < smiles > Four...one...two...three...three...three....

I'm guessing all the English she knew was how to count to three, so she decided that was how she was going to say hello.

And...one month from now I've got my black belt test. Wish me luck.

So I'm getting down to business as far as this...possible...grad school thing is going.

Spent all day yesterday going through websites to different Chicago-area schools, then hit up the Princeton Review and a college search database, which were...somewhat helpful. I found a few schools, two of which are in Chicago, University of Chicago and Loyola, that have English + medieval studies programs. Of course I still need to get IN to the schools...AND actually have enough money to attend. And, well, eat. And not sleep on a park bench. But right now I'm just looking for places to go...graduate programs, mainly. As I really can't go back and start at English 101, first year. Also a program that lets me in with an English Education degree, and not a straight English one.

I really wish my old professor would get back to me again. :sigh: After I returned her first email I haven't gotten anything back. I need more information and I can't exactly go knock on her office door.

And I still need some possibilities for jobs if none of this works out. Hm, you know, writing like this makes me feel much less optimistic than I was when I put the little Mood emote on Optimism. Still, though, since I've decided to try figuring this out, I really have been more genki than usual. Which makes me feel like I'm on the right track, even if I'm going to end up hitting my head into a wall. Really, all I'm doing here is trying to go back to what I wanted to do in the first place- get an English degree. Secondary Education was a chicken-out and panic attack for several reasons, paramount of which was not knowing what to DO with an English degree. Still don't. But one thing I'm picking up from Japan is that I can do more than I thought I could. And that's definitely some Optimism there.

Now, when I go home at Christmas I get to pick up Chaucer and the Mabinogion...is it sad I was drooling over course outlines listed on the websites?

Hmm...in other news, the backpack I bought two months ago is a complete piece of CRAP and died on me. Already had a hole in it, and the divider section falling apart. Yesterday the shoulder strap broke. And since I am no longer in high school where it is teh kewlness to wear it on one shoulder, especially with my laptop inside, I was very unhappy. And backpacks here are a bit different from in the US. You get your choice of 1. Elementary School backpack, 2. Junior/High School school-specific backpack, or 3. Hiking backpack.  Since I 1. can't use an elementary backpack 2. can't GET a Junior/High School backpack, I'm limited to #3. Bah.

I get to compete in a karate tournament on Sunday. As I'm still a brown belt I will probably not advance past Round 1, but still. Fun times. Though I miss my kids' Culture Day Festival because of it. It was fun last year and I'm dissapointed despite hearing from other ALT's how crappy and boring they are and how you have to 'give up your weekend'. (Is it wrong for me to enjoy this stuff?)

And finally...the Boy is coming to visit me next weekend. So huzzah for the optimism in the face of pessimism and negativity.