darkmagess

Apparently someone nominated me for a fanfic award!

No Rest for the Wicked awards in the All Hell Breaks Loose (dark fic) category.
wicked_awards 

Huh!

I wish I knew who it was! 

So far I have gotten two of my Very Important essays back, which are each worth a significant part of my grade. Both were 16s. This is out of a scale of 20, so I guess  I'm getting 80%, which in most of the US is just barely a B.

I used to be more of an A student with some Bs than a B student with some As. I might be solidly a B post-grad student now. 

Maybe I should be pleased?

Maybe the whole percent out of 100 thing doesn't really compute to how grades here work anyway?  I have no idea. I thought I'd get a 17, because I actually thought I did a good job on that one paper. Most of the comments seemed to be "present more evidence from the text" and "okay, but why"?

The present more evidence from the text seems unfair, given that it was a 3500 word essay, and I used all of them up as was, NOT quoting additional evidence from the text. And I really couldn't cut any more without eliminating essential points of argument.

I'm passing, I guess. But we were told that they don't really expect us to make original contributions to knowledge at this stage, yet I thought I WAS making an original contribution to knowledge, which seemed like it should have gone above and beyond.

Has anyone else noticed that Justin Hartley just can't keep his shirt on?

I am not in any way complaining. It's just an observation that in almost every single Smallville episode he's in, he's likely to appear shirtless. And that guest spot on CSI: NY. And in Red Canyon, which was terrible and I had to buy from Amazon just to see.

Perhaps it's in his contract. All the better for me, but seriously, at this point it's kinda starting to make me laugh.

I bought some thinly sliced beef at the store and decided that what I really wanted to do was fry it up. Less boring than sauteing it. So, I looked at some gluten-free frying recipes and it seemed pretty simple. Chicken fried anything is just flour dip, egg dip, flour dip, fry. So...

1c teff flour
1c rice flour
2t paprika
2t jerk seasoning
2t salt
1 egg
rice milk
olive oil

I put half of the teff flour, rice flour, and salt in one bag, and rest of the flours and spices in another bag. Dip steaks in unseasoned flour, dip in egg beaten with some rice milk, dip in seasoned flours, drop into medium high pan with enough oil to cover the bottom.

Steaks turned out pretty good. I could probably use all teff flour. Once those were done, I poured off most of the olive oil and added some arrowroot for thickener. I should have only used 2t, but I didn't know and used too much. Then I poured in rice milk to make a sauce. This is something to play with to get a decent sauce. The sauce won't have much flavor, though, so it would be good to pick something, maybe pepper or thyme, and add a bunch to the sauce.

My mom's surgery was today. It took 9 hours, but nothing went wrong. They still have to test some samples to see if any tissue surrounding the areas they removed has cancer cells, but everything was a success!

Apparently the doctor at Robert Wood Johnson who does this procedure is one of the two top guys in the country who does it, and this is the only procedure he does. He has an entire ward at RWJ just for himself, with basically a personally trained staff.

We'll be able to go in to see her tomorrow.

One of the first things she said to my dad tonight was to remind him to give the dog her medication. :-P

My original concept for this was as Teff Chocolate Chip Bars. But everyone assumed they were brownies, and they look and act like brownies, so I'm going with that.

Teff Brownies

 

2/3 cup of butter

2 eggs

1/3 cup blackstrap molasses

1/2 cup agave

3 tablespoons honey

1.5 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups dark teff flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 c high quality dark chocolate chips

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 7 x 11-inch glass baking pan.

 

In a large mixing bowl beat (with an electric mixer) the coconut oil, applesauce, molasses, sugar, and vanilla until combined.

 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat again. Beat for about 60 seconds or until the dough thickens.

 

Spread the dough into the prepared pan using a spatula. Even it out so it is level on all sides as best you can, dough will be thick and sticky, but it will puff when it bakes.

Bake for 25-30 minutes.

 

So, I got this movie 100% because Justin Hartley is in it, and he's in so very little other than Smallville, I wanted to see.

Well... what a terrible movie. Seriously. Full of really dumb people, worse than your average B movie slasher flick. And I don't even know why all these friends went out to the middle of nowhere. The girl and her brother went into some meth lab in a cave once as kids as were attacked. And now they've come back to... ???

The brother manages to shoot Justin aka Tom in the leg. Tom spends most of the movie complaining about how stupid everyone is and/or drinking.

All the girls spend all their time being stupid or crying. Some dude from town has decided that he needs to murder them all for reasons I also don't understand. So one by one, they are all killed in spectacular fashion. Chopped in half with a road sign. Gutted. Hung from hooks, these types of things.

Tom manages a moment of emoting before he is stabbed 12 times and his guts removed. (And then splayed out like he exploded in humorous fashion.) At this point in the movie, they are reduced down to 3 heroes. Brother (Devon), girlfriend, and Reggie (the girl that seems to be the cause of it all).

This kind of has a student movie feel, between the quality of the camera work, the weirdly framed shots, and general failure to arrange information in any way that makes me understand what's going on. Also, no one seems to react properly to all the carnage and death of people they supposedly care about.

Even the big reveal at the end is a whole lot of WTF.

I submitted my last paper for my first semester as postgrad today. That means my assignments are done! I'm actually on vacation now!

What shall I do with this vacation?

Well... I have a writing assignment for AIR due on Monday. And I have a fic to finish come hell or high water. And I have 2 manuscripts to edit for Red Rose.

...this is a vacation right?

Original recipe found here: Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen

I made a non-vegan version like this:






Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Verdict: Tastes like gingerbread! No overpowering weird grainy flavor. Just... gingerbread. Slightly crunchy on the outside. Would totally feed this to friends!

Well, Christmas happened. It wasn't a very present-heavy affair, as most of the money this year was spent on flying me back home.

Owen and I bought my dad a 1TB network storage device b/c his computer ran out of space on the data drive. Eesh. The whole computer should be replaced, really. Windows 7 FTW, but that won't happen until the thing melts down or something.

Owen gave me a Highlander anime DVD because he thought it would be amusing and an anime called Read or Die because it has steampunk elements.

We got my mom a Star Trek TNG movie set and the new Star Trek movie, also True Blood Season 1.

I gave Owen his Whitworth wrenches and Assassin's Creed 2.

Mom went to the cancer center today. The doctor told her that he wants to do surgery to remove the cancer and then light chemo to make sure it is gone.

My brother reports that the chemo won't make her lose her hair, which made her happy.

The doctor also said that they might remove part of her stomach depending on what they find. This made my mom upset because she said she'd lose weight then. My dad told her that people pay thousands of dollars extra for that sort of thing.

The surgery will take place after Christmas, and she will be in the hospital for at least a week.

I got an email from my dad today with the worst news you can get.

My mom has pancreatic cancer.

So, I bought a ticket to Glasgow to go visit Colin on Saturday. The bus company I had wanted to use sold out for the time that I wanted, so I used National Express, mostly because I got an email with a discount code that subsequently failed to work because when I registered for the site, it didn't give me a login and password, just the code. And also the code applies to students 26 and under.

Whatever.

Have my ticket and am at the bus station. National Express leaves from Stand 2. I see Stand 4. An unnumbered one next to it that I can only assume is 3. And further up the side of the building, a #1 displayed in the lobby window near where a bus is parked.

Excellent.

I ask inside and they say that Stand 2 is by #1. (...) Ok, fine. Standing near the #1 and this boy comes up to me, "Are you waiting for the National Express bus?" "Yes." "Yeah, we have to go take a taxi."

"What?" *expression of disbelief at random person telling me I have to go take a taxi*

Boy calls National Express and hands me his phone. Dude at the bus company explains that our bus never got from Dundee to Aberdeen. Therefore, we must take a taxi to Aberdeen to get the bus. Also, there are 4 people scheduled, so we need to find them, because Boy is the only person whose contact info they have.

So we start looking for the other people. I saw an old woman with the same ticket I had, so we collect her and tell her that the bus company has hired us a taxi. She decides to go yell at the people at the bus station anyway, who actually have no idea what's going on or that the bus never showed up.

Eventually, Boy and I go look around the mall to find out where the taxi is waiting. Once we find it, I go back to get the old lady, and on our way back, Boy says he's going to try once more to find the rest of the people. He comes back to the taxi with one additional person. The taxi driver was told he was going to have 5 not 4, but we tell him to go anyway.

So....

We're taking a taxi from Aberdeen to Dundee. This is not close. And the taxi driver doesn't actually know where the bus station is in Dundee.

Total cost of taxi ride: 200GBP
That's about: $400!

For people whose tickets cost maybe 50GBP combined.

They actually would have saved themselves a lot of money if they'd bought train tickets and tossed us on ScotRail.

I will never have such an expensive taxi ride again. And they DID get us to the bus in Dundee. Guess how many people were on that bus!

5.

And we made it to Glasgow not really all that late.

OMG, people.

I don't have much in the way of steampunk gear because almost no one makes anything in my size. One of the things I noticeably lack is a coat. In fact, when I went into town yesterday, I did so without a jacket of any kind because it would have ruined the look, and it should be noted that the shirt I had on was sleeveless. In Scotland in the fall. (Though this probably contributed to the nice comments I got.) At any rate...

coats! Coats that are so incredibly awesome and I could only afford as a christmas present!

cgi.ebay.com/UNIQUE-STEAMPUNK-GOTHIC-LONG-LEATHER-GREEN-COAT_W0QQitemZ130340270904QQcmdZViewItemQQptZWomen_s_Clothing

cgi.ebay.com/STEAMPUNK-GOTHIC-IMPERO-FINE-LEATHER-PURPLE-COAT-NEW_W0QQitemZ130340833266QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_CSA_WC_Outerwear

Look at this coat. It's leather and yet ruffled like a dress would be. It looks like a freaking dress on its own!

cgi.ebay.com/IMPERO-LONDON-ARISTOCRAT-STEAMPUNK-LEATHER-TAIL-COAT_W0QQitemZ130340782810QQcmdZViewItemQQptZWomen_s_Clothing

And this is just too perfect for words. The most versatile one they have. If I got one steampunk coat only ever, that'd be the one.

*swoon*

Pretty much, I watch this show because of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow. Hotter than Clark and ten times more interesting.

Unfortunately for the showmakers, Lois and Oliver have considerably more chemistry than Lois and Clark. But given the obvious constraints, the writers can't just follow where the actors are leading them. Which ends up meaning that Ollie gets kicked in the teeth.

Very sad. :(

I do, however, much appreciate the rule they apparently have in place wherein Oliver must appear without a shirt once an episode.

Find your name!

( Meme Results )

Go the The Royal Bank of Scotland for my appointment to open an account.
Add 10 sterling to my cell phone so it works

Be here when FedEx tries to deliver my stuff (whenever that is)
Write up notes or something for Thursday, find book quotations.

Attend first Gaelic class

Miss Peatbog Faeries concert because I am attending Gaelic class

Write part or all of chapter 4 (which is already outlined, so this should not be difficult, me! get with it.)

Work on Nationalism.

Why is it that people ask me for directions, regardless of what city I am in and how long I've been there?

I'd almost like to track someone who's asked down and ask them. Is it how I walk? The way I glance around while walking? Is there something about my face that translates as nonthreatening? Am I somewhere just right on the ugly<->pretty scale that people don't feel the need to avoid me, but I'm not pretty enough to be intimidating?

Clearly it's me, though. Because it happens all the time and everywhere.

I wonder if it's at all related to how from the first day I got here my roommates decided that I was responsible for fixing things and making the appliances work. I mean, really? All they knew was my name, and yet it's my job to keep the flat in working order?