Eldrad must live

OHSHIT, I JUST MET KOU, WHY IS HE SO AWESOME

( Teeny, tiny spoiler for P4's Strength S.Link )

In other news, apparently KC Trip ver. 2.0 is now back on schedule, and I'll be leaving on TODAY's bus instead, and getting in late tonight. I do think it might have worked out okay, though, since I feel better for having an actual day of recuperation post-finals week where I didn't have to do anything before heading home into the craziness that is the holiday season.

...though I am now having to face the facts that I have very little of my Christmas shopping done, which is leaving me rather petrified at having to face the malls over the next few days. D:

Well, I'm finally back in Iowa City. My bus ride to Kansas City was remarkably smooth and fast, so I should have known the corollary was that the ride back would be hellacious, and in fact it was; snow, ice, and fogged bus windshields basically meant that I got into Iowa City over an hour later than scheduled (and I was scheduled to get in at 2 in the morning!), and then I had to catch a taxi home. Six-plus hours on a bus in the middle of the night is pretty awful, especially when you're expecting five-and-change, and at times it felt like the public transportation equivalent of the Bataan Death March ("okay, only two more hours on the bus...oh god my butt is falling asleep and I can see my breath"), especially since I had to make sure to stay awake until I could get off at Iowa City. So basically I didn't get home until a little over an hour ago.

Also worldserpent linked this post decrying the Twilight-bashing, and the OP in comments defends the act of reading Twilight as a feminist reading practice (or at least comparing it favorably with feminism). I AM NOT JOKING. YOU THINK I AM, BUT I AM NOT.

So yes, I was condescending because with any kind of luck, eventually society as a whole will stop blaming everything and everyone but themselves for the problems they reap. This month its Twilight; last month Judy Bloom. Before that it was feminism making women uppity. It used to be Susan B. Anthony and a while back it was Joan of Arc.

...BELLA SWAN, FEMINIST HEROINE; LIKE SUSAN B. ANTHONY IN A WAY, AMIRITE

(It even has bonus wank where basically seperis repeatedly misinterprets what everyone is saying because she takes any criticism of Twilight's message as "ZOMG ARE YOU SAYING FEMALES AREN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE KINKS," and a new version of Godwin's involving accusing people of supporting female genital mutilation. It's wankilicious!)

...God, I really haven't posted in a while. Anyway, I should be in Kansas City right now, but sadly due to acts of God, I am not.

I'd been looking forward to going to rathershady and courters28's wedding for a while now, ever since they got it scheduled...what, in winter or spring? I had my bus ticket all bought (because again, still no license, argh), and spent Friday getting stuff in order so that I could head out of town.

So I show up at the bus station, all packed and ready to go, and discover that the bus I have to take to Des Moines is 3 hours late. Apparently a rock hit the windshield or something, and so they had to repair it before it could go on along its route. So, this meant that I wouldn't be able to leave until about 9 p.m. This wouldn't otherwise be an issue (it would be a pain making my parents come get me at 3 a.m., but they'd totally have done it), except that I had to transfer in Des Moines to another bus heading to Kansas City - a transfer lasting only 15 minutes.

So basically, there was no way I could take the bus to KC. Slightly panicked, I called my parents to discuss other alternatives - train, driving, etc. - but the only valid one we could come up with was me taking the bus to Des Moines, my stepdad driving the three hours or so up to Des Moines at midnight, then immediately driving three hours back to KC and grabbing like five hours of sleep before driving me down to Springfield, Missouri for Vinnie and Courtney's wedding. (And all this after a full day of work, and he was already running on a sleep deficit.) I felt that would be way too dangerous - he's not the safest of drivers at the best of times, perhaps, and I was pretty sure he'd get in some kind of accident - so my mom and I nixed that alternative. And all the others were out too - Amtrak doesn't run from either Iowa City or Des Moines, only Ottumwa, and wouldn't run on a route that would get me there in time anyway, flight would have been almost as iffy time-wise and flying out would have had to be from Cedar Rapids, which is not that far away but expensive as hell to fly out of (especially on last-minute notice).

So I ended up not being able to go to the wedding, which made me feel sad and sucky because a) Vinnie and Courtney are two of my best friends, and b) if I hadn't been so sucktastic and had gotten my license a couple of weeks ago, this wouldn't even have been an issue. (Also, c) I don't get to see all the other awesome WC folks I'd see there.) Still, congrats to the newlyweds!

And fortunately, unlike most weddings I do have another chance - Vin and Court are having a wedding reception in Colorado in a couple of weeks (since she's from Springfield, more of her family came to that one, and the Colorado one is mostly for his family), and when they first invited me I was invited to both, so I'm gonna see if I can't make that one and at least be at ONE of their weddings.

In other "woes of Yosi" news, my Internet has been down since Thursday evening...when I called Friday, they said they were going to try to fix it, but apparently didn't manage it by the end of the workday. No progress is apparently being made over the weekend (at least my Internet light hasn't come back on), so I imagine it'll be Monday before I have Internet again. Blargh.

In other, less sucky news, I'm now fully into the swing of the semester. I'm taking a Milton class, a seminar on early German literature (so, some European context for all the medieval English work I've read), and a calligraphy class. All of them seem quite interesting and fun. Teaching has been going pretty well, too, after the first week. I'm teaching the public speaking half of Rhetoric, and have had to be working pretty strenuously on my public speaking skills (normally my 1337 writing skillz would counterbalance my speech weaknesses, but that's not an option in this class, so in order to have any authority I'm having to work at it as hard as any of my students - harder than some, I think, which is not doing wonders for my self-confidence but is doing wonders for my motivation). The first week was a bit iffy, but the second week's gone better, and I'm pretty happy with it, aside from one student who's slightly loud and argumentative - while I like and appreciate that he's willing to talk, I wish he wouldn't try to pick fights with everyone in the class over minor semantic issues. (And I can't really talk to him about it, since it is sort of what the class is about, and after the first day he hasn't really been interrupting people or anything, but still, he could be a TEENY bit more diplomatic about it.)

Also, Persona 3 is FULL OF AWESOME AND LULZ, although I'm about ready to throw my controller at the screen at the moment. ( Persona 3 ramblings )

Also, I seem to have acquired an HDTV, eheheheh. But having done so, my reaction now is OMG SO PRETTY, CAN NEVAR GO BACK. Seriously, the PS3 hooked up to an HDTV using HDMI cables is one of the most beautiful things you will ever see. The Wii is really pretty too, though lower-resolution (I think the best it gets is 480p?), and even PS2 games look abso-frickin'-lutely gorgeous, and I can see so much detail that I never could before...all the text in the Persona 3 FMV intro, for instance. And while playing Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou this morning, I noticed that on the door of the Narumi Detective Agency it says, in tiny print, "cutting the Gordian knot," which I never even NOTICED on my old standard-def TV.

More regular posts once Internet is back! I have a book-rec post pretty much written up at home, and there are a few other things I want to post about - I really want to get back into the swing of regular blogging, since I got so out of it during the summer with all the out-of-town-beingness, so expect more once Qwest stops actively sucking ass.

Edit: This weekend is also aurianrose's wedding, so congrats to her as well!

Well, got back from the wedding safe and sound; it was nice to see everyone again, and I'm really happy for plainjanesdubc (I see that you got an LJ!) and her new husband Chris. The wedding was beautiful, it was fun hanging out with rathershady and courters28 after the wedding, and to hang out with pretty much everyone after that at Granfalloon's. It was overall a great visit home, even if it was only for a couple of days.

Since I got back, I've been trying to get back into the swing of things starting today, but it's hard, especially since this is the last week of my summer class. On the plus side, I finished Arrested Development season 1 from Netflix, and watched the final 2 eps EVER (or are they?) of Veronica Mars. DAMMIT CW YOU'D BETTER PICK THIS UP AS A MIDSEASON REPLACEMENT OR I WILL TASER YOUR ASSES A LA VERONICA. >E

Also, my gastroenterologist's office called today; apparently there's some problem with the blood tests I undergo regularly to ensure that one of my medications isn't killing my liver. I need to call them tomorrow, but I'm hoping that it's nothing, especially since I hear that liver failure sucks big-time. Being the hypochondriac that I am, I'm firmly convinced at any given moment that this or that ache or pain means that ZOMG MY LIVER IS DYING. D:

Anyway, since that's pretty much all I've got for content, have a meme from nangke:

( Alphabet character meme )

Edit: Also, I've been following the Great LJ Fandom Deletions 2007 with bated breath ever since it started. Am now debating whether to remove my "incest is best" icon, as apparently they're deleting journals whose only crime is listing "incest" as an interest now. (Which isn't technically illegal as long as it's between two consenting adults, amirite?)

Man, I just heard about the Ward Parkway shootings from peskyelf's LJ (her mom was in the Target at the time). I've checked in with my parents, and they're okay. (They would have been at the mall walking at the time except that a friend of theirs had just told them about a CD he'd done, which they immediately went out to buy on Southwest Boulevard, so by the time they got there it was all over and shut down.) Are all my other KC peeps okay?

Well, I'm typing this back in good ol' Iowa City, on my non-slow computer where I also have my own bed in air-conditioning (i.e., no more sleeping on the wicker couch) - so while I'll miss a lot of the folks from back home, I am not at all sorry to be back in my own comfortable little apartment.

( My last few days in KC )

Anyways, the drive up to IC was uneventful - once we got in, we stopped at Bennigan's in the Coralville Mall to have my early birthday dinner (it was very nice). Then we headed over to my apartment, which was fortunately exactly as I left it (I wasn't robbed, yay!). Unfortunately, on attempting to pull out my sleeper sofa for the first time, I discovered that Stuff, Etc. had lied to me like the cheating hobags they are, and it wasn't a sleeper sofa at all (it's just a regular one). So my parents had to get a hotel room, and I felt bad. D:

After they headed out I went to movie night at my classmate Stephanie's, and with her and my other classmate Satya watched Transamerica (verdict: very good) and Serendipity (verdict: cute romcom). I also discovered that classes started not on Monday, as I thought, but Tuesday. Which was kinda w00t. :D

I will admit my Latin class has been more rigorous than I thought it would be. Though it doesn't help that there's an exam scheduled for Friday - coincidentally, the same day I'm going with bshippotemkin, iowayehudit and Erin (who's also in the same Latin class) to lordtravis' and teachingmusic's wedding - and so have to take the exam after class tomorrow (meaning I've had to do tomorrow's homework and Friday's this evening, in addition to attempting to cram every bit of Latin I've learned over the last, oh, TWO DAYS indelibly into my head so that I can pass this test, augh).

Anyway, back to future tense verb conjugations. It's a rollercoaster of nonstop fun here, I tell you.

Let's Positive Linking!
- Chris Claremont's secret sex scandal. Whoa, I hope they kept Chris Claremont away from Halle Berry on the set of X3. XD
- FOR THE WIN. I <3th Darth, indeed.
- SO TRUE...this is how I title all my papers. XD
- The plasticine world of photo retouching. (From rathershady.) Airbrushing is the least of it.
- Cate Blanchett to play Bob Dylan in film. ...oh-KAY?
- School criminology class at fake crime scene discovers real body. What are the chances? XD

Edit: Damn you, George Lucas. DAMN YOU TO HELL.

Hope y'all had a happy Thanksgiving, with lots of turkey (or tofurkey, if that's more your speed) and pie of some sort.

The bus ride down to KC was a little less traumatic than my last one (of course, I'm like 7 years older than I was then so that's probably not surprising). It did run long, though, so while I was supposed to get in at 11:15 I actually got in at 11:45, which made things kinda rough on my poor parents.

Being back at home feels kinda weird - I'm no longer used to it, so everything seems different and smaller and more cluttered and it all smells kinda like cat pee (the unfortunate result of having so many cats), but overall I'm still pretty happy to be home. On Sunday my parents took me to a lot of the places I'd been missing during my time in Iowa (finally, a store with a decent manga selection again!); I spent Monday and Tuesday with my mom, hanging out with rathershady and courters28 in the evenings, which was really nice (though Courtney, I think I picked up whatever you were sick with); Wednesday I went over to visit my stepmom and stepbrother and baby brother (I know I say this every time I see him, but Lance really is the cutest kid EVAR); yesterday my parents and I went down to Topeka for Thanksgiving with my aunt and cousins, which was fun (though slightly marred by the first signs of my illness); and today I'm full-blown sick, working on my Chaucer draft in a Sudafed PE-induced haze. But there's leftover French Silk pie, so it's all good.

However, since our car is having some coolant trouble, and it's been certified for in-city and even to Topeka but the mechanic couldn't guarantee no problems en route to Iowa and back, my stepdad's gonna drive me up in my truck. Which kinda sucks, because I think my mom would like to come back up to Iowa City, but she's probably not up to the drive anyway (she's just finished recovering from the nasty fall she took on her LAST visit to IC) and this means we can take up some bigger stuff, like bookcases and an endtable and boxes of books and clothes and stuff, which is DEFINITELY good.

Also, I'm looking at going to see Pride and Prejudice with the 'rents this evening, so hopefully impressions of that will follow soon.

Edit: Also, because it's now seasonally appropriate, have some horrific Grinch/Max pr0nfic courtesy of aff.net. Dr. Seuss was never so disturbing! :D