write like you need it to survive

1) This has actually been the case for a couple of weeks now, but whenever it is quiet, the sound of my brain-voice goes like this: Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto.

For the last couple of days, a little confusingly, my brain has also been throwing in Frank at random intervals. Then I wound up picturing Frank Iero and Ianto Jones in the same place, and all I could think was that Ianto would tower over Frank. Also they would baffle each other. Also, attack of the killer vowels. IANTO IERO.

But mostly it's just Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto.

2) I should really be writing up my Last Paper Ever, No Really, Ever. It's due on Thursday and then, assuming I did not somehow blow my grade in this class to the point of failing, I will be (rather anticlimactically) done with my Masters. And after this, no more schooling ever, please beat me to death with my own shoes if I start talking about it. I just have to write this one last little eensy stupid paper.

I think the don't wanna goes without saying.



Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto Ianto.

I'm thisclose to finishing the first actual paper I've had to write in... a while.

I'll go ahead and spoil you all for the dramatic conclusion: I'm arguing that this book should have won the Caldecott Medal in 1981. It's so cool, you don't even know--I mean, I know jack about art but damn. That is using your negative space.

I suspect I am going to be salving my sleep debt with a very nice little shelf of children's books by the end of the semester. Now don't you all wish you were in library school?

As of last night - when it caused me not to be at the Fall Out Boy show - I am back in school six hours a week (taking a class on teen fiction from which I was texting my friends at the Fall Out Boy show under my desk; there seems to be a certain irony here). The workload is one the professor wishes could be spread out over a normal fourteen-week semester, it's just... not. I have been out of school since December and am a little terrified of the next six weeks.

For perhaps obvious reasons, yesterday was my personal deadline for being done with primary writing on the Numb3rs epic, and, perhaps equally obviously, that deadline has just sailed by with a delightful whooshing noise. Last night after I got home from class, I sat and waited for the hold-up-the-phone-during-your-favorite-song call from strangecobwebs (I wound up getting two! "Hum Hallelujah" AND "Golden," because strangecobwebs is the best ever--Patrick Stump how are you such an incredible hotass through the phone? It was kind of amazing.) and had three story files open--the epic, a bandslash story I'm working on that may eventually turn out to actually be slash, and the random gen thing that I had started doodling during class.

So, um, this is mostly just me giving in to the urge to disclaim whatever pops out of my brain and into my LJ for the next six weeks or so. It may get weird.

I mean.

Weirder.

I don't know whether it was actually detectable, but I've gone a little quiet the past few days.

Friday night when I got home late from going out with a co-worker for a couple of beers and Zodiac (which by the way, let me just say, is SO on my list for Yuletide this year--animal crackers=love, QED), I discovered a letter in the mail from my school, informing me that they might be kicking me out because I'm not registered for classes this semester. ( Which harshed my Jake Gyllenhaal/Mark Ruffalo buzz a bit. )

In conclusion: still madly in love with Danny Messer. Also, it's hard being Charlie Eppes.

Okay, so this is my third YAY DONE WITH SCHOOL post in a row, but I mean it this time! I have grades! It's official! I passed all my classes, with credit for the requisites and everything and now apart from that thing where I'm only registered for one fall class so far I can totally stop thinking about school for MONTHS! YAY!

And! Furthermore! I am here to point you over to numb3rsflashfic again, because mojokitten posted Souvenir, which is short and so perfectly Don and Charlie and made me go *heart*.

It also reminded me that I'd read another fic about Don's scars somewhere else, so I had to go hunt it down, and it turned out to be missmollyetc's Casualty Calculator, which also makes me go *heart* and which I notice, upon rereading, was alleged to be gen.

You should go read it and draw your own conclusions, as I have done, because drawing your own conclusions is what higher education is all about, and I? Am halfway through my Master's Degree. And also it's Tuesday, and my boss isn't here and thus isn't standing by the printer looking over my shoulder. YAY.

So, two things.

Firstly: Sam Tyler is my TV boyfriend. I get this dumb grin on my face just THINKING about him. I am still terrified of the cross-dialect issues of trying to WRITE him, but he makes me so very, very happy that sooner or later I will probably have to try.

Secondly: Tonight I take my last exam of the semester. I've already found out enough of my grades that I'm pretty confident I'm going to get my requisite B-minus-or-better in all my classes, so I feel okay saying that I'm done with the first year of my program and all my required courses, and there's just eighteen credits of electives between me and the piece of paper that makes me a Real Librarian.

This got me to thinking about all the things I've learned this year which will serve me so well in my life post-graduate-school. I'm making a list:

How to utilize print and electronic reference sources to answer questions correctly and authoritatively.

Where cutter numbers come from.

Ironing.

Parallel parking.

Commuting daily via public transit (subspecialty: not passing out in the low-oxygen environment of the Red Line platform at Metro Center or Gallery Place following a mechanical failure during rush hour).

Operating my iPod left-handed in my pocket.

Sam and Gene are BOYFRIENDS OMG!!!1!

For some reason, I've taken on the job of making the website for one of my group term projects work, which means a) teaching myself enough CSS to get the website up to 1998 aesthetic standards and then b) getting it to work on all the various pages put together by my groupmates.

And right now I am unbearably tempted to beat one of them with a wire hanger or possibly my laptop, screaming, "NO! CODING! IN FRONTPAGE! EVER!"

* - As portrayed by Faye Dunaway. And not Joan Collins in any way at all. Thanks, Ces.

I owe it all to strangecobwebs, or possibly Deluxx Folk Implosion.

Today was a hellacious day at work--a Monday workload on the first day without the now-ex-coworker I was hired to replace, new software crashing repeatedly during morning hours of peak activity, and more copies and volumes of Income Tax Regulations than I ever, ever want to see again. Plus, a meeting! Just to make things extra-exciting. Long before I staggered out of work (on the way to a group homework meeting, and sans any packed dinner) the words looping through my head were take. my own. life.

But when I got to the Green Line, I found Strange waiting on the platform, so we could ride home together. After a brief commiseration over our terrible, awful Mondays (and Strange's recap of why brooklinegirl's was even worse than mine, as my terrible, awful Monday did not admit of any LJ reading) we each turned on our iPod. The second track up on mine was one I just ripped Sunday--"I'm Just a Bill" off Schoolhouse Rock Rocks!, by Deluxx Folk Implosion. Strange sat and laughed at me while I was instantly transformed from post-work zombie to manic chair-dancer, complete with gesticulation and random lip-syncing.

I made it to the library for my group meeting earlier enough to buy an energy bar and Rice Krispie treat before I went up to find my group. And since I recently acquired PowerPoint, I was appointed secretary, and managed to herd the group through this week's presentation in about an hour. Even after the project-planning part of the session, we were done by 8:15. More iPod-age on the way back to my car, which, okay, I had to park at the top of the dark scary hill--but no worries! I have conquered the bus system. I can do without my car for days on end now.

And when I got home? I had PACKAGES. And in those packages there were PRESENTS! Entirely random happy-Monday presents from fairmer and qe2 (and one of them appears, by the looks of the package log, to have arrived 12 days ago--I'm sorry, I swear I didn't know it was there). Thank you! Now I have new books and new CDs! And my Monday is all bright and shiny! YAY!

Okay, so after yesterday's low point, Fort and I began to really bond, and have managed to make an uneasy peace with iTunes (although if it gives me any more crap, Anapod Explorer here I come). Does anybody know whether video-enabled iPods are limited strictly to purchased video content, or is there just something I'm not grasping about how to get vids on there?

Tonight I had class, during which I totally failed to be able to get my wireless card working and was thus forced to learn things about public library budgets. But we had a guest speaker, whose engaging style is probably best demonstrated by quoting the following exchange between him and the class:

"How many of you always wanted to be librarians?"
[Thirty grad students fail to raise their hands or make eye contact with each other.]
"Yeah, they're the scary ones. They're out there! But they're scary."

And now I am faced with a dilemma. See, I like sticking things to the back of my laptop. Stickers off apples and bananas, sparkly flower stickers my little girl cousins gave me, my I Voted sticker from 2004, even a sticker of Steve Yzerman, c.1984, courtesy of Mr. Estrella. And, helpfully packaged with my iPod, I got two apple stickers. I am tempted to stick one of them to the back of my laptop, possibly with extra tape to hold it on if the native adhesive is not sufficient. ( It's up to you to tell me whether that's a good idea. )

ETA: I forgot the best part! After class, I came home to the news that there are cast & crew commentaries and multiple featurettes on the Season One Numb3rs DVDs!

Elapsed time, beginning of first session of course in computer lab to logging in to LJ: 14 minutes.

My professor is now explaining what The World-Wide Web is. I KNOW THIS ONE! IT'S WHERE THE PORN LIVES!