Icon Journal - Writing - Fanfiction at ff.net

That's right, ladies and gents, for one day only Migratory herself will be appearing in Oxford! Starting with a cup of tea with some writers in Borders, she will then venture into the local retail emporiums in search of festive frippery before gracing an eatery with her presence (and that of a friend) in the early evening! Don't miss your chance to pass her in the street and say to yourself "Wasn't that the girl who posted about gibbon testicles?"

Which is to say, I'm going back to Oxford on Saturday. I'm quite looking forwards to it actually - it'll be nice to get away from here for a bit, and to see some familiar faces. :-)

Before that though, I have to get the flat ready for its first inspection. Which is why I'm procrastinating online.

It turns out then when you don't top up your mobile internet, it doesn't give you internet access. Also it turns out that when you're swamped at work and painfully tired, NaNoWriMo seems like a bit of a chore till your idea hits.

But it's hit and I'm rolling. I scrapped the first idea I was struggling with and went with the idea I was originally planning to write, and rejected because it was so stupid. I've decided I don't care about the stupid. Even when I try for something serious things like time travel and the undead creep in, so why fight it?

And so this year I'm writing about clones. My novel is called Dave Va Vinci, and narrated by Eddie Byron. I started it tonight and for the first time this year I'm enjoying NaNo.

So far, some variation on the word 'fuck' appears every 124 words.

I've been able to catch some of the current BBC adaptation of Emma, and I have to say it's excellent. Really well done, and Romola Garai makes a wonderful Emma. It's not my favourite Austen, but it's a great adaptation.

But what I really want to say is Johnny Lee Miller Knightly!

*fans self*

That's a potent bit of casting.

Last Chance to See is getting better and better. Entertaining, educational and yet not worthy or preachy. I don't know how they do it, but I think the wonderful Mark Carwardine is something to do with it. The Madagascar episode was sublime last week, but I think this week's Indonesia one managed to equal it. Turtle babies :-D

Twenty years ago, in Douglas Adams's book from the first trip, Carwardine wrote that there was one outstanding reason to devote a lifetime to conserving these animals. "It is simply this: the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them." I love that quote.

And next week's episode? KAKAPOS, BABY!

I've been working ~6 days a week for the zoo for the summer. Which is all well and groovy and somewhat part of the territory with this sort of position. But it gets kind of weird when on my day off, after doing all the normal errands and wandering, I settle down in the evening to play Zoo Tycoon.

I wonder if it's some sort of validation thing... when the game congratulates me for my zoo administration skills I assume this also applies to real life. Or possibly it's some weird zoo attachment that needs closer examination. I haven't yet recreated the zoo I work for in pixels, but I guess there's still time.

I wonder if soldiers play Call of Duty or lawyers play Phoenix Wright?

Anyway, I've now been offered a permanent position. 50% admin, 50% marketing, 100% pretty darn cool. I will at least be able to afford this flat I so rashly rushed into.

I find myself rather attracted to a man I know with a gold tooth.
I think that ratcheting sound was my standards lowering. Must be the approach of my 25th birthday.

Anyhow, in other news...

I have a flat! My first ever just-me flat. No family, no waste-of-space boyfriend, no charmingly erratic flatmates. It's all mine :-)

Now, of course, I have to find a way to afford those little essentials like a washing machine...

I have a new friend...

( Gremlin )

I graduated today :-)

I wore a silly gown and hat. I let my family try on my hat. I spread the wings of the gown in order to look like Batman. We ate Italian food. Champagne was consumed in moderation. One of my tutors knew who I was and congratulated me without me needing to tell her what I got. I carefully threw my hat in the air for staged photos of spontaneous joy. My father ended up in the middle of a proper Oxford graduation in his car by mistake but made it to mine in time.

Surprisingly, despite the cat-herding drama of getting everyone organised, the day itself went extremely smoothly and was very enjoyable. My Mum told quite a lot of people what I got, whether or not they asked. She also took enthusiastic photos of the pizza man at La Cucina throwing the dough in the air, so I think she had a pretty good day too.

One of the professorships conferred was in the History department to a Professor of Blasphemy. I will never be that cool.

Degree results are in.
I scraped a first.

My family are very happy. I'm currently still bit numb, having spent so long preparing myself for the probability that I'd just missed it. I would have been proud of a 2:1, but I can't help feeling I don't quite deserve a first.

Still, gift horse, mouth, etc.

I'll enjoy updating my CV tomorrow. It's been a difficult ride at times, but I've learnt a hell of a lot. I'd be pleased to have done it regardless of the qualification, but this is the extra nice icing on top.

And I think I'll sleep well tonight :-)

So this is Migratory's Theory of Shakespeare Appreciation:

Teenager - Shakespeare's boring.
Adult - Shakespeare's obviously great. I don't actually read any, but everyone knows he's the best.
First year English undergrad - Hey, when you actually read him Shakespeare's pretty darn good.
Final year English undergrad - Although having said that, his contemporaries are somewhat unfairly overshadowed.
Masters student - I'm done with Shakespeare. I'm studying a writer you've never even heard of.
Lecturer - Shakespeare's boring.

Following up from the Gown of Humility stat points, I was playing Morrowind last night and using my slightly disturbing new dagger that administers frost damage for quite a long time. Ten seconds, maybe. Long enough to kill some animals by draining their health bit by bit from one dagger strike.

The result of this being that I can stab a wolf once and then withstand its attack with the sense of pathos that comes with my knowing it's already dead. Bite, bite, snarl, bite, whimper, die.

Which in an odd way is rather like Hamlet.
I'm Laertes, my friends.

You know when you're looking for something and start repeating the mantra in your mind? 'Hairbrush hairbrush hairbrush' etc. And then if you can't find it you end up murmuring it and eventually saying it aloud in a distracted manner?

Yeah, I got as far as the mind mantra today, saying it to myself silently, one step below saying it creepily under my breath. Which could have been a problem, as I was trying to look up how blood effects were created in the Early Modern Theatre.

It suddenly occurred to me that sinisterly muttering 'blood blood blood' in the library could earn me a chat with the university counsellors.

There's no official word, but the Times has announced that Carol Ann Duffy will be the next poet laureate.

The One Show listed a few possibilities, bizarrely including Benjamin Zephaniah. He's extremely awesome, but who'd possibly think he'd accept the laureateship? The BBC also gave their five front runners here. If pressed I'd have swung towards Armitage, because I've seen him read and really, really enjoyed it, but no complaints here for the choice of Duffy.

Wendy Cope has a decent argument against the post here. Personally I don't think it should be abolished, but most of my favourites didn't get the laureateship. It has produced some wonderful work - Charge of the Light Brigade being chief - but there's been a greater quantity of awesomeness coming from people writing without official status or the need to be diplomatic. That it makes people notice poetry a little more is justification for the role, but it's not an automatic label of 'best' poet.

I don't think Motion's been a particularly visible laureate. Maybe if you read the right broadsheets you get exposed to him, but he's not been a voice that I've been aware of. A change will be nice.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Update: The Times was right.

Extra tickets for my graduation (after 2 complimentary) are £15 each. £15 to sit in a different room and watch via video link.

That is disgusting.
I feel like setting loose my keyboard of wrath. I think unleashing phrases like 'discrimination against non-traditional families' would be a low but satisfying blow to start with, before following on to general charges of elitism (keeping out the riff-raff with a cover charge) and opportunism.

Mercenary pricks. Not only have I paid to subsidise noisy building work I won't benefit from, but I get fleeced at my own graduation.

A stranger with my exact name wants to be my facebook friend.

That's just weird. We're not Dave Gorman.
Obviously I'll be ignoring that request.

Did anyone catch The Narnia Code last night? It was pretty interesting, although not presented the way I'd have liked.

It was basically plugging Michael Ward's theory set out in Planet Narnia, that the Narnia novels are based upon the medieval model of the solar system. And once it started talking about the theory and the basis for Ward's claims, it was pretty interesting.

( Rambling )

andyluke has a very interesting article about the intimidation of the elderly by custom officials here.

*

I'll reserve comment on tonight's Red Dwarf until they've all been aired. I missed a lot of it because I'm currently at home, and my stepfather managed to knock his wine glass over and smash it on my dinner plate. The subsequent drama about whether my dinner might have shreds of glass in took quite a lot of family debate and I therefore missed a fair amount of the episode.
(For the record I was happy to risk the glass. My mother, however, would hear of No Such Thing. All was eventually well, however, and everyone got fed)

*

Also, we went to see Marley and Me tonight. It was considerably better than I'd expected, despite not being my type of film. Our dog got a lot of fuss when we came home :-)

Someone came up to me in Tesco's yesterday to ask me where I got my new coat :-) Said she'd noticed it before but been too shy to ask.
Clearly I'm now a fashion icon.

Anyway... we had to read The Emperor's Babe, by Bernadine Evaristo, for Contemporary Literature this week (I also had to do a presentation on it, so anyone who needs to know about nomadic feminism in this book need look no further than me). It's a rather good book written in very accessible free verse (there's an extract here) and set in Roman London. Zuleika is the main character, who is married to a much older man at age eleven, and the book charts her rebellion over the years against attempts to trap her.

It's also a major part of the book that she's a black woman, which is why one of these covers makes me go WTF?

( Guess which one )

Against all sense, I bought Halo for my laptop.

My laptop cried.

It's now writing angst-filled poetry about how I'm pushing it too hard.