Thoughts on the Journey

Two posts in a row as I start the snowflake_challenge.

Day 2

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish. If any wishes are granted, we'd love it if you link them to this post.

This is a tricky one for me as I've been lucky to find a lot of what I'm searching for in many of my fandoms usually through Yuletide.

1-Anyone playing with any of my fics. I have the Transformative Works Statement up, but I don't think anything's ever happened and love the idea that it might.

2-More Scorpio Races' fic, I received a wonderful one for Yuletide but want there to be more. Its such a wonderful strange canon.

3-Icons, I adore icons for myself, for the characters I roleplay but especially Quentin, heatherandsteel. I love how the right icon can change a post or a comment and wish I had a bigger collection.

I would like this week to have a few things go right on the first try. The movers were late sending out the online confirmation but that's done. There's a email from the my student loans telling me to go look at a message from them but I don't want to. Last time I did the amount of interest made me want to cry, that will get put off a little longer.

My body keeps feeling off as in having asthma issues that I haven't had in a while. Allergies have rarely made me wheeze, its disturbing and disconcerting, I would like to not fall apart. My ear also seems to have healed, but it feels like it needs more. I also haven't been sleeping properly so I keep having points during the day where my temperature feels off and I just want to fall over and hide for a time. End of body rant and worries.

Meebo messenger's been shut off and I can't find a replacement that will let me get into chat, not even AIM Express which is messed up. I've got a five hour shift today and I'm already feelings a bit out of it, need chat and its wonderful community. So guys, I'm online but can't get into chat.

I'm going to do some meme answers, try to figure out who to do Happy Hour with tonight and maybe even write more on a fic that I should write. Perhaps tomorrow is a good day to go to the movies and hide from the world for a little bit.

Icon meme first.

1. Reply to this post with Dance with me, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.

These five icons were chosen by bjornwilde



At one point I started watching Gossip Girl, I think I finished the first season but that was it. I found this icon and I love it as it shows the best of female friendship, two friends just being together.



anthologia made this icon and it feels quite apt for where I am at the moment, looking towards the future and not knowing what's ahead. Its peaceful and beautiful.



I loved Inception and this was by far my favorite scene in it because there was a clear sense of this isn't true reality. I wish honestly that there had been more of this but loved what there was. It was harder than I expected to find an icon of this moment.



This is a scene from the movie Atonement which I'm not a fan of. Its a gorgeous movie with wonderful actors, but I hate, hate the story. If I could have removed the actual plot, I might have liked it better. Its a heartbreaking movie about how a badly thought out and rather selfish choice that destroyed lives and to me that the person who did the wrecking never really got it. The atonement that's supposed to be the payoff felt weak to me. I have a fair amount of icons from this movie for Will as James MacAvoy spends a lot of time in it looking older than his age and hurting. I use this icon for war related things and general sadness.



My mother's originally from Carmel by the Sea so I spent my childhood spending one or two weeks there and visiting my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousin. I also grew up not far from the Atlantic ocean in Pennsylvania and my parents now live on the Delaware shore. I'm happiest when water is within walking distance for me. I loved that about Wellington, not only was the water right there but the waterfront was someplace I wanted to be. There was the public library and Te Papa and places to sit and watch the world go by. Everything for me feels a little more possible by the water. This icon is my beach, water one.

Now another round of the five topics meme.

Comment to this post saying "FIVE!" and I will pick five things I would like you to talk about. They might make sense or be totally random.

Then post that list, with your commentary, to your journal. Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself, hopefully for the rest of eternity!

(I don't really care if you say "FIVE" or let me know some other way. Just for the record.)

These five are from crazyfurries

( Five more words )

Now all this writing has been feeling a little more even keeled and now to plot who will do Happy Hour in Milliways.

I haven't actually posted in a few days as I've started to get into the meat of figuring out moving back to Delaware in August. Thankfully its not as confusing as it could be, most of its closing things down, clearing out and figuring out estimates and stuff like that. For those of you who've used moving companies, how does this all work? Apparently I get estimates for my stuff and dates and all. My parents have done it but I'd love thoughts from others as its at the moment a new thing for me.

Work is being busy as I have to try and find ways to get my August shifts covered as I'd prefer to actually go east with my stuff and parents but if I need to cover shifts I will. Though I find it ironic that next month, I get a two dollar raise, I don't know what to make of that. More money is good but getting it as I'm on my way out is odd.

In other I'm doing far too much stuff news, the Ann Arbor District Library is hosting Kids Read Comics on the weekend of the 6th and 7th when I work Friday, Saturday and Sunday but I volunteered for Sunday. Its the kind of event that I want to help organize and run as a librarian so I'm going to do what I can to be involved even if it means I fall over on that Monday.

I'm also still getting job referrals for school, or at least one that I sent off my cover letter for. I hope I interest them. Also I've discovered that my iPhone's to do list plus Evernote makes me feel so much more organized as I like lists where I can cross things off.

Now for a new round of the icon meme, this time started of by crazyfurries:
1. Comment with the word "Chimera" to engage the game.
2. The selection of five of your icons will commence.
3. Please generate your own entry with the backstory/explanation/snarky commentary behind the selected icons.
4. Watch the cycle of a game begin anew.



Keyword: Fred and Ginger Dancing
I have an incredible soft spot for early musicals especially Astaire and Rogers and when I started looking for more icons, I found this one. Its one of my life is good icons, because dancing is something I love and their joy is obvious. The image is from when they're singing "Let's call the whole thing off", which is the song where you say potato, I say potato comes from. I also have a CD of all the music they did together, it makes me happy and I wish I owned more of their movies on DVD.



Keyword: Taking Wing
Ali synchronicity2 made this icon and I love the simplicity of it. It's one of my contemplative icons for when life is seeming rather big.



Keyword: Weasley's family
I adore the Weasley's, I think they're probably my favorite part of the entire Harry Potter series as they remind me a lot of my own family. They're loud, a little big and messy and full of love and will welcome people in with open arms. I love this icon because the image captures them and my kind of happiness, being surrounded by those I love about to eat too much and just be together.



Keyword: Feathered face
I first found this icon while I was looking for Tiwa icons but its since become one of my favorites. Birds make me happy as does acting and there's something about this icon that holds a lot of how we're all rather complicated. Sometimes we wear masks and try being someone else, but we're always happy.



Keyword: Candy raspberries
Raspberries are one of my favorite things to eat and I also love the candy ones, I happen to have a rather awful sweet tooth. This is one of my happy icons as its simple, bright and makes me smile.

I'm currently at a hotel that's my normal stopping point between Michigan and Delaware but tonight is my rest between Delaware and Cincinnati. Tomorrow night, I'll be starting my two day interview by having dinner with some of the faculty and then then the next day, all sorts of meetings. The weather today has made me so happy as its been sunny out and I've been driving along and getting lots of writing ideas. Life is going forward in great ways.

I don't know what's going to come out of the interview but I know no matter what happens, I'll learn a little bit more. It's lovely to feel prepared and that's how I am. I have leftovers from my nieces' first communion brunch, choices for interview clothes and a chance to actually watch along on a few shows tonight. There are also fic and RP ideas bubbling around in my head that I want to do things with as I adore this feeling of hope and possibility.

The past few days have been strange and wonderful as well. I went to the book sale at the local library in Lewes and for ten dollars bought a fantastic bag of books along with finding a copy of Dogsbody while doing some clothes shopping. My nieces' first communion was odd, but it was nice to see that it clearly meant something to them and their mother and her parents. My parents and I pretty much went into observer mode for the mass because it didn't really mean that much to any of us. The party afterward was great too, this crowd of little kids that kept darting everywhere as adults clustered and laughed. That's my favorite sort of party full of good friends and family, too much food and wine, just an abundance of happiness.

Now for a quick meme as minkhollow is doing another round of the icon meme. If you want me to pick icons for you, just comment and ask.

( Icons and reasons )

At the moment, I'm not going to try and figure out posting to LJ and DW yet, I probably won't until after Christmas because I'd rather not be fiddling with it. I just finished wrapping my last family gifts and I'm considering having some pups drop off gifts in Milliways as I know some of them would.

I'm also working on ideas for the gift fics I have left, which will slowly be written hopefully all before the New Year. There's a Yuletide gift waiting for me which knowing myself, I will read not long after the stroke of midnight. Though now I've looked won't work, so I'll look in the morning. My new Yuletide icon is quickly becoming my holiday icon as Tumnus in the snow and Narnia is quite connected to Christmas for me.

Tonight I'm going to have a small celebration with my parents and tomorrow we'll open each others' presents before heading north to New Jersey to celebrate with my brother and sister and mainly my two little nieces.

This holiday I feel remarkably relaxed which is a nice change from the past two years when I was juggling the holidays alongside the work for my masters. The constant worry of finding a job is there as we went to a open house last night and I spent a part of every conversation explaining that I'm looking for a job. Though I can also say that I enjoy the part time job I have and for all that it's not my dream job, I am a librarian.

I hope that all of your holidays are full of joy and surrounded by the people you love.

The past few days have been busy and rather wonderful. My brother and his wife had a Love Celebration and I've met and reconnected with friends and family from all the world, eaten beautiful food, drank great wine and felt quite lucky. Today feels like the first day of my true vacation as there aren't any parties planned. With my parents, I went hiking around Sugarloaf mountain and we've been doing a lot of reading and little else, which is such a treat.

I'm deep in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms,which is a complicated and good read. Normally political books aren't my favorite but the focus is on ideas and belief and relationships more than politics and the writing is brilliant.

I'm going to do two rounds of the icon meme and then head back to my book before having dinner with my brother and his wife again, we're helping to eat leftovers from the three parties and drink wine.

Comment on this post and let me know you want to participate. I will choose six userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

The first round of icons are from one_more_cherry
( Round one )

Next round of icons from minkhollow
( Round two )

I really did mean to sleep tonight but it didn't seem fated to happen. Perhaps I can reset myself by staying up today and then sleeping when I get home from work tonight. I do plan on treating myself to a proper breakfast of pancakes or French toast or waffles at I think the Broken Egg.

In the meantime, I've finally started setting up my playlists on my new computer and I'd forgotten how for some reason iTunes will reorder and separate things by various artists. Its a pain as I like having my soundtracks in order. Also I have lots of random songs that people have given me and I don't recall them all, which makes things interesting.

I'm also rereading Tam Lin as between the various moves, my lovely paperback copy went missing and I bought a new one from Amazon. The cover image isn't as beautiful as the painting but its nice. Rereading is a joy as this is one of those books that truly imprinted on me. I first read it my junior year of high school when I had a horrible English teacher who did horrible things to my creative writing. We had block classes and I had her twice that year for creative writing and English, in both of them we spent most of our time writing essays for contests as they made her look good. It took me far too long after those classes before I actually started writing fiction again as she made me not look forward to writing. The two upsides were one of my oldest friends, the guy who introduced me to LARPing and was my first boyfriend was in the class, he was willing to argue with her and cause trouble, and she had a eclectic paperback collection. I picked up Tam Lin and it clicked for me, I think its partly to blame for my love of Classics and urban fantasy. One reason it worked for me was that I grew up on a small college campus so the setting felt quite familiar to me.

Now in_the_blue started a round of the icon meme and so my answers to that will go under the cut. I love any excuse to look at everyone's beautiful icons so please comment.

Comment on this post and let me know you want to participate. I will choose six userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

( Some little images that are sometimes me )

I still feel remarkably shattered from what happened today but I feel much more hopeful. I emailed the people in charge of the Pep stuff and they're going to see what's going on. I have time to register for classes in the second half of the second semester and if need be, I'll drop or audit my seminar class. Its the only one I don't need to graduate.

Thank you so much for all your good thoughts. I had a long talk with my parents that helped as they pointed out how not having a consistent advisor didn't help matters and that I have allies. They're right, SI is a good place, I just hit a bump.

Then my mom and I ended up talking about fanfiction and it made me happy as I was able to explain to her my reasons. It reminded me just how much I love writing and I think I'll be putting up another prompt meme and I wrote a Will OOM that makes me happy. He's the first character I ever really wrote or told about and I love him. Maybe someday I'll share my tales of him with more of the world.

Now I'm going to do round two of the icon meme with icons from wanderlustlover, if you'd like some of your own to talk about just comment and ask me.



Dean is my favorite part of Supernatural and one of my favorite television characters, because he feels so real with his hurts and his vices. I spotted this icon on a community somewhere and went yes. I love the softness in his face and the words, time rambles on and its worth remembering. What's horrible today won't be tomorrow.



At one point, LJ had this weird glitch where random icons would appear instead of the ones you meant to use. This popped up in a thread I was doing with the_croupier and I snagged it. I think it might actually be from Twilight but I love the sentiment, strange and overpowering love and the graphics are just right.



On one of the icon communities I follow someone posted a bunch of text icons and this was one of them. Its really important to me to say thank you and be grateful and I like the simplicity and look of this. They're two words that can brighten a day.



This was another one that I found one day and went, oh yes. I think I was during one of the many transitions I've had in the last few years and it just felt right. I like how its hopeful, but a reminder that sometimes the things you really want aren't easy.



I realized that I needed a tea icon and this one perfectly suits my idea of how to spend an afternoon with a cup of tea, a good book and something to munch on. It really is good for the heart.

Oh and I still have the tarot spread I did laid out on my living room floor. I just don't feel ready to move it yet.

I have a class this semester on Professional Practice with one of my favorite professors, the one who got me to create a professional blog. I'm going to be writing in that blog every week with reflections on our class reading about learning and how to be an effective librarian. For those interested, that blog is Nurturing Stories on Wordpress and I just wrote up my newest entry.

Tomorrow my first full week starts with a class from 1 to 4 pm and then one from 5 to 8 pm. I think I'm going to be tired but happy with it all. Also when I had my walk today, it wasn't as cold as I expected. I want the weather to stay mild because I have a lot of late nights this semester.

Since that reading took a while, I'm also going to post a fun little meme from austen

1. Do not look at the comments.
2. Take a look at my userpics.
3. Post a comment with the icon of mine you associate with me. Leave commentary if desired.
4. Repost with your default icon and profit.

This week has been utterly weird. I don't have any classes or work until Sunday night, which seems like I should be wonderfully relaxed and getting things done.

Sadly this isn't quite true, I've ended up with a bizarre sleeping pattern all this week. I'll wake up around 6:30 or so in the morning and panic thinking I've slept through the day. I get up and start turning on lights and then look at my cell phone which has am and pm as opposed to my watch and go, oh its morning. Then I go back to sleep and tend to wake up around 1 am. This has meant that I don't feel really rested and I'm just sore in lots of places, so my normal round of walking is tiring. I think a lot of this is I've been so wound up with stress that its taking me a while to truly relax, but I'm also still worried about finding an internship and getting my place ready for my parents to visit.

So tomorrow I'm going to wake up and go do lots of useful errands, Sunday I pick up a bookcase and work, Tuesday I get to join a tabletop game and then my parents arrive around Wednesday or Thursday. Also I'm working my way through all the awesome prompts and I'm still open for new ones over here.

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

Icons from doihearawaltz, walksbyherself and spooky_lemur are under the cut. There is a bit of repetition so if two people asked for an icon, it only gets one explanation.

( Look at the pretty pictures. )