daredevil muffin-y genius

Submitted my last piece ten minutes ago -- I'm done! Done with school!

If this were tumblr, I'd add the .gif of a hat being thrown. But since this is my home at Dreamwidth, let's add a still image, not a random one off teh internets but mine...well, mostly of my fellow students. Class of '13, represent!



Now, apart from having graduated -- okay, fine. Photo of me in regalia too. ( Call me Master. )

Ahem. In actuality, our papers and exams are not graded, and as mentioned I did much worse than last semester...but presumably not badly enough to fail the whole degree. So I'm pretty confident I'll receive my diploma in the mail one of these days.

In other real life news, I have in short succession lost my bike (stolen) and will lose my home (for or reasons that do not need explaining at this juncture); I do hope to find a new place -- not to mention a job and other enormously anxiety-reducing commodities -- soon.

But first, a breather: I'll be hanging out in the Bay Area for at least another two months, but for now -- if you're in Los Angeles from tomorrow to Saturday, ping me! That's where I will be too. Comments screened. ♥

(Fannish posts coming up!)

Because this may be Relevant To Your Interests: My friendliv has been invited to run a first year session on childbearing and reproduction. She is a scientist, but not so much imbued with expertise in this particular area. So, she says, "if you have anything they'd like me to convey to some future doctors about" it, come and let her know here.

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I'm not watching Girls, but I did follow the Lena Dunham controversy about a great-lookin' doctor dude (portrayed by some actor called Patrick Wilson; don't know and don't care) sleeping with her character on the show, namely that teh internets thought that was ridiculous because she wasn't physically attractive enough for such a fine specimen. I've always thought teh internets were ridiculous themselves, because my personal experience has been that even such fine specimen of humanity are just that -- human beings and as such influenced in their sexual and dating choices by all the usual things: charm, humour, and alcohol.

Alcohol consumed by me, that is.

On a more sober note, I am glad my friends and acquaintances as well as I seem to be living in this thing called reality, where having actual personality seems to be quite important too. Thankfully, I have part of the web world backing me up now; thanks to Marina: Patrick Wilson's wife puts the Lena Dunham Controversy to Rest.

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The artist formerly known as feldman, always worth reading, has written an interesting post about class and entrepreneurship in the United States:

'Career Aspirations' means your job went down the wrong pipe.

It made me think yet again about my place in this nexus of wealth, education, and connectivity, but that's another post for another time, and a far more boring one to boot.

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The other day in class, we were, purely for demonstrative purposes, browsing -- via Tor, of course -- Silk Road; here is a Guardian article on the subject. I still cannot get over the fact you send the stuff via mail to your own front door after all the subterfuge in the ordering process (but presumably the users of the marketplace feel they can always find somebody else and have it sent to her or his address).

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Have any of you curly-haired folks, ideally those with really fine hair, tried no-poo company MyDevaCurl? Jasika Nicole was posting about their products the other day, and since we all know I have the biggest crush ever on her, I am tempted to try it out. What else would you recommend, in the way of US products? For financial reasons I had to go back from organic Black hair products to Pantene Pro-V, and my hair is strawy, listless, and doing badly.




 

Rumours of me posting only maudlin drunk entries have been greatly exaggerated.

...although I can't accord for this one being written completely sober -- after our little sailing adventure, I was taken out for lunch today, and the classmate who did that said I should totally have a glass of wine with my really quite excellent ahi tuna salad...and then another.

So let's talk food for a moment.

Because life hasn't been excellent these last two weeks for me, whether it comes to my personal or my professional life, I've needed some comfort. So first, I made myself some sirloin steak with roasted asparagus the other night (because the meat & fish at the local organic grocery store is amazing), and then proceeded to make Meyer Lemon Bars out of what felt like a metric shitton of lemons. They're not bad; I used the More Filling! recipe from SmittenKitchen. Still, given that I only now realised Meyers are sweeter than other lemons, they're not quite hitting the tartness level I was going for, and generally I prefer less flour in my cakes. Still, it is a purist recipe, and the cake base part is roughly 300% better than the cheap vegetable oil cement they usually try to smuggle underneath the lemon layer. (FYI, people who bake with margarine also kick puppies.)

Anyway, I will take some of the lemon bars to school tomorrow and of course gave my sail-date some of 'em. He's an ex-Marine from Georgia -- country, not state. Like all the proper ex-communist kids I know (and cherish very much), he doesn't think it's odd at all to meet a woman who has a career and is still good in the kitchen.

Some sailing shots? ( Courtesy of Rod Stewart )

...and now I have to run grab my bike. That also broke. That's right: I've been a veritable country-western song lately.

ETA: Have the song I was reminded of today -- incidentally my first record. We're talking vinyl here, of course; the 1975 single (though that's not when I got it; definitely a few years later ;).

I handed in a draft of my first paper and the Certificate application yesterday at 1:55pm. Then I went to (1) class, (2) a panel discussion with a famous author, and (3) a dinner downtown with said writer and a small group of professors and students in a good restaurant, where we chosen ones were treated to Japanese delicacies*, sake (日本酒), and shōchū. Stayed until 10pm. Oops?

* a whole fire roasted squid; herring roe on kelp; deep-fried fresh crab balls, scallops in a creamy yet light sauce with greens, matcha desserts, sesame ice-cream with mochi, and and and...

Because I'm not much of an academic these two papers** right now drag me down, but the truth is that this is the best place on earth for me right now, and I'm grateful every day to be surrounded by not only the best and brightest but the kind and generous too. I know it's been said before, and ascian and I were talking about it the weekend before last, but so much good in life comes from simply showing up.

** helps immensely to remember that I am a writer, though. That will see me through.

Now I'm thinking about doing that again: just sign up and stroll in. There's another -- of course also substantive -- reception in the sunlit courtyard just behind me, with beer and wine and snacks. Given that I also had drinks Sunday night at two of my Japanese friends' hand-roll sushi party, I suppose at some point I should take a break from alcohol.

But I feel that point has not yet come. Y'all can visit me in rehab. ::toddles off::

But by God, Matt Bomer looks dashing in a hat. (I should have brought the bf's fedora to New York. Where to wear it, if not here?)

Returned home after a long day of career stuff (<-- totally the technical term) to linaerys's place, who has kindly put me up on the sofa in her lovely apartment; am drinking liquorice tea and typing away at the computer. Hope all of you are fine -- some of you I'll meet tomorrow, like The Lin & The Usual Suspects, and later on soundingsea and rusty_halo, not to mention my workfriend geekycolleague. Can't wait!

...I swear I'm not unusually drunk. Just unusually optimistic.

Stayin' alive, here. Several official procedures and plans coupled with schoolwork plus of course my required exercises keep me busy every day of the week, and on the weekend the boyfriend and I hang out, not to mention I need to see my friends to keep my sanity. And them!

Speaking of meet-ups with my people: From Thursday this week, as announced, I'll be in New York City, in any case. My Friday is packed with professional social events and the job interview that brought me to the East Coast in the first place, but, say, Thursday night I'd be free. And, would anybody like to stroll through the Met on Sunday?

Whoever creates online forms that claim to be universal but then turn out to return error messages for non-US-nationals (who in all of these cases are explicitly allowed and even invited to also apply) should take a long walk off a short pier.

'course, just from this my study year here, that'd put dozens of people in danger of drowning. Grr. Argh.

1. Listening to Frank Ocean and drinking chai from scratch, if not quite the secret Shores of the Ganges recipe. Sun is shining through the window, and while I have a lot of work to do -- school & career -- for now I'm basking.

( 2. - 10. - Original Content )

Emulating trille for a post:

( 5 Things I Ponder At This Moment in Time )

monanotlisa: *caught with two packs of Chimes and Reed in hand* I am undertaking a comparative study of various ginger chews.
roomienotlisa: Gotta tell yourself what you gotta tell yourself, girl.
monanotlisa: It's all about Science, I swear.