Yay, two out of three finals done! Believe it or not, my JOUR 371 (Women, Men, and Media) final didn't really feel like a final so much as a normal class session where she was lecturing and asking for discussion. I asked her after class how I did, and if I was looking at the right line of her gradebook, I got two checks, and one check-plus, which translates into a B, I'd say-- that's just for this portion of our grade, 10%; more of it is made up by the media deconstruction, the media critique (50%), 30% by other tests, and 10% by participation/performance. Overall, I'd say I'll probably get a B, which makes me happy, especially since this was a particularly difficult class.

Moving on, I also got "conditionally approved" for a Chase loan, which means I can go to Washington if I get the money on time. If that works out and I get the appropriate academic credit (hopefully 12-15 units worth; at least 6 from Journalism; it's working out just how the other 6-9 will be applied), then YAY, WASHINGTON D.C. HO!

But if not, I'm going to try not to be disappointed. I think I might be biting off more than I can chew again, even if WII and ISLP are both great opportunities for a number of different things. The great thing is, it's not like if I don't go to WII, I'll be doing nothing here at CSUN-- I got accepted into Take XX, part of the New Student Orientation Leaders team, and I'd still be working with NSLS and NSCS. I definitely don't want to stop being involved with either of them, even if I do go to Washington.

Now, if I do, there's another choice to make: to go to Macworld Expo, or not? If I do, not only can I see my friends and/or parents (most likely the latter, since... to be honest, guys, would any of you want to want to go to a Macworld Expo with me? Dad I know would, MAYBE Mom --but not together, no way, no how) again, but it's just plain fun. Plus I could always cover it as a Special Contributor to the Sundial, maybe? I applied to be a Copy Editor there, too, but I didn't officially GET the position even though the new editor-in-chief asked me. Basically, everything hinges on WII.

If I do go to WII, I'd only have Jan 14-16 to be at the Expo, since I have to check in in Washington, D.C. between 9am -5pm and be at the informal mixer by 6pm. Two days at an Expo isn't bad... but again, it's about money. Then again, if I go to WII with a loan backing me, money won't be so much of an issue anymore. It'd be icing on the cake if I managed to get a paid internship.

Speaking of icing, I really want some cupcakes... Baba said we can buy cupcakes and/or cupcake mix on the way home. I think my holiday baking spirit is getting kicked in. And crafting, too. A certain someone shall be receiving a handmade card soon (hint hint: that person is on this FL!)...

What else? Well, I've gotten some of my Secret Stalker gifts from Aria's Ink-- I decided to participate this year on a whim, and it's got me not only working on Epiphany, trying to revive a better version of Mare Serenitatis, but also looking over my old SM fics (let's be honest, except for maybe "24," and the beginning of "Quicksilver," they ALL suck; my writing has come SUCH a long way). I also did some fanart, but ssh! No one can know my secret stalker identity until the event is over... I might even try to resurrect an old idea and work on the 2003 Aria's Ink holiday competition contest.

Well, what with my tablet semi out-of-commission, coloring anything in Photoshop's a real bitch now (doing it with a mouse is... ugh, it's like taping my fingers together and trying to paint), so the fanart might have to wait until I get a new one, or unless I take the marker-colored version I did AFTER the scan and fiddle with that... but personally, I'd rather Photoshop the color in, as my inking process... well, let's just say it didn't go as well as I wanted. I'm not too much of an artist... ;_;

I'm feeling a bit more hopeful today than I was yesterday, so I hope I can channel that into studying a bit for my last final and then working on some creative (and possibly cleaning) endeavors tonight, whatever form they may take... there's always a lot on my plate, frosting or no. :)

It sucks when you get into a new pairing (this is the second in so many months) and you might find ONE or TWO fics that have a decent plot and spelling and grammar that doesn't make you cringe. Maybe the copy-editor in me has set standards too high, because I went through ALL of the M-rated fics in a C2 community devoted to Albel x Nel from Star Ocean 3 (TTEOT) and I was lucky to find anything halfway readable. Nothing worth reviewing, though, and thus, nothing to "write home about."

Why is it I keep seeing the same carelessness in fics? Whatever happened to showing your love of canon, your pride regarding your pairing (crack or not), and basic rules for clarity? I mean, even if you write just to get a plotbunny out of your head, you're still posting for the public- everyone knows there's the potential for reviews, or why else post it online in the first place, especially at a place like FFnet? Why else say things like "R&R" or "No flames!"? (And frankly, I find the last one stupid. Unless you've written something you know will "warrant" flames, why say it? You're basically asking for it when you say "Don't flame me!" because it really translates to: "Don't say anything if it's not mindless praise and useless drivel! I can't take constructive criticism and will tell you of all my illnesses and tragedies if you accuse me of forgetting to spell-check!")

It bugs me to no end when I see not just some simple, scattered spelling and grammar errors, but constant, repeated things within the first few paragraphs. In what I've seen lately with AlNel fics, it's stuff that's not specific to the fandom in any way, and could affect anyone, any time:

* Tense shifts. It's really, really jarring. I honestly think a simple proofread would solve this. Why don't people ever re-read their fics before they post? I do that many times over with my fics; it's how I catch most of my errors before I send the chapter off to a beta!

* Wrong word, wrong spelling, bad grammar. I saw "hallowed" instead of "hollowed." Yes, I know it's just a letter of difference, and from context, I understood the proper meaning, but still, since it's so easily FIXABLE, why not? A spell-checker won't catch it; you need to be diligent as a writer or have a beta who knows English! Why? Because something with an empty inside is much different from something that is considered sacred and respected. And of course, mixed up words like your, you're, their, they're, there always piss me off. GET THEM RIGHT! I also hate seeing it's or its used improperly. I'm just glad I have yet to see anyone use its'. And people who mix up words that should just LOOK wrong automatically like in this phrase: "They where sitting down next to the grapebind tree." What's wrong with that phrase? If you can't tell me, you fail. (And no, it's not the "grapebind," part, that's actually the name of a variety of tree in SO3. This is obviously something grammatical.)

* OOC. It bugs me when people say "yeah, they're a little OOC," and then they apologize, bitch about it, or say "fuck off" to the readers in some form or fashion. With most pairings, OOC means they're not the characters we're reading FOR anymore. Albel Nox and Nel Zelpher have such distinct personalities, to make them OOC in the slightest detracts from any quality the story may have had in its plot, writing style, etc. It's like cheapening a fine wine with seltzer water.

For those unfamiliar with the pairing, Albel Nox is the captain of a military power's infantry branch, known as the Black Brigade. He's a feared, ruthless killer with an incredible prowess with the katana and an ego that matches his reputation. But he's got a dark past and a thirst for bloodshed that are his weaknesses.

Nel Zelpher works for the country on the other side of the war, a country called Aquaria. She's a loyal woman, hard-working and strong, but she can occasionally come off as cold. She's also got a biting attitude sometimes. Her father died (technically without her knowing), so she, too, has a bit of a sad past. Unlike Albel, she's not missing any limbs or anything, but her ego's not as huge, even though she is well known as a spy and as the fierce edge of the renowned "Crimson Blade."

To take any of that away from them is to lose what makes them unique, tough characters, and then what's the point of writing fanfiction about them (or people with their names, at least) at all?

* "Guide to my writing." I used to do this when I was younger. But seriously, why the hell do people feel the need to mention that speech will be in "double quotes," thoughts will be 'italicized and in single quotes,' and things like lyrics, other languages, text messages, etc. will be bold/enclosed in brackets/marked off with asterisks, etc.? Ninety percent of the time, it's understood from context! I don't need someone instructing me on basic writing/English! (And for the record, I've written and even enjoy some songfics, but nowadays I'm seeing very little need to include lyrics --or at least huge chunks of them-- in fics. It's much easier to say "This fic was inspired by/has a scene inspired by XYZ by Artist A." Plus, you're not breaking copyright infringement by reprinting lyrics, then. And as an added bonus, there are no extra parts to bold/italicize/whatever to mark them off as lyrics (assuming your reader was too dumb to figure it out otherwise).

* High School fics/Movie or TV-based fics - I really wish this would end. When you take characters from a sword-and-sorcery-based world and try and dump them into a modern high school, modern hospital, or any other "modern" situation, it just ruins their characters. Albel Nox IS WHO HE IS because of WHERE HE WAS BORN, HOW HE WAS RAISED, AND WHAT HE HAS GONE THROUGH. You can't call him "Albel the Wicked" if he's pretending to be House, M.D. Nel wouldn't be who she is if she were years younger and some floozy at Aquios High. Parodies, yes, I can understand that, but... a real fic? It's one thing to dump the characters in a universe that the characters can still somewhat be fit into, but for a game like SO3, it's just not possible with these. Yet I've seen House, M.D., Cast Away, high school fics... ugh.

* Earth-based... - Okay, there's off-worlders like Fayt, Cliff, et. al. in SO3, but that doesn't mean that they're going to introduce a holiday like Valentine's Day/Christmas/etc. to Elicoor. And even if they did introduce it to Nel, Albel, or a city/a country, there's no telling if it would take, or if there wasn't already some sort of similar holiday in place! Consider the circumstances under which holidays developed on Earth. Without the same meaning on Elicoor, what's the point? Why would anyone place any significance to them, or care? Why would anyone ACT on them? It's stupid. It's MUCH easier, if you must have an excuse to write seasonal romance or whatnot, to invent a brand-new holiday. You can take elements of Valentine's Day, for example, and modify it to make something brand new. Even around the world, holidays aren't the same. So why not start with bits and pieces of one holiday and how it's celebrated around the world, and mush them all together? Or take multiple holiday traditions and mush them together? What if people on Elicoor celebrate a day of love in their coldest month, and partake of a chocolate treat after lighting candles on a tree? And what if it's called Eyun, or Rashul Day? It doesn't have to be "Valentine's" or "Christmas," or anything like that. (BTW, remember that Earth in SO3 is several centuries ahead of "modern time" anyway, so who's to say that holidays like those are even celebrated anymore, or if they are, that they're celebrated in even the remotely same way? Christmas now isn't celebrated like it was originally, that's for damn sure.)

* "Bad at summary's. Read." Er, no, I'll pass. Seriously, all a summary is: a single sentence briefly describing the plot of your story. And you know what? It can come in different forms. I know one summary that was a line from the story, but it was so unusual, it drew me in. It can be one of those standard "questions," where you put a character in a situation and then ask if they can get out of it somehow. BUT IT SHOULD NOT BE: a string of pairing names, emoticons, ellipses, references to friends/inside jokes, re-hashed information from canon, song lyrics, or a single word/short phrase having nothing to do with your story (again, such as the pairing name). Same goes for the title, too. MAKE IT RELEVANT. It's not hard.

Summaries also don't need to include irrelevant details (unless it's what makes your story unique, and frankly I DOUBT IT) like whose POV the story is written in, what there are spoilers for (seriously, that's what author notes are for), why it's rated the way it is, etc. It CAN include things like the fact that a chapter is new or revised, if the story is on hiatus or will never be finished, and so on. But it should basically give the reader a reason to read, a reason why your story should be picked out of the trash that is FFnet these days.

There are a ton of other things, too, like eLiTE caps, Random Capitals in the Middle of a Phrase or sentence!, misspellings of canonical things (Airyglyph, not Airigliph, Airygliph, etc.; Fayt, not Fate, Elicoor, not Elicloor, etc.), lack of/bad punctuation (thats, well for we'll, etc.), too much punctuation (*!*!*!xxStoryTitlexx*!*!*!)

I hate to say it, but it's not that much better on most private archives I found. That makes me sad that either writers of this pairing are so lazy, the good writers are so few and far between, and/or the moderators of outside archives aren't stringent. This is why I have an approval queue for Dragonfayth, and why I beta things that are on the verge of being good, but just need some (hopefully minor) changes. Sometimes I'm too nice and I really overhaul a story rather than rejecting it-- I've done it multiple times now with an author who apparently doesn't read the explanations I make an effort to include in my rejection letters.

I'm thinking that contribution to fandom is multi-fold:
* How-To articles on what makes the best fanfiction for X pairing or Y fandom-- just the basics, like what I mentioned above, not things like "The plot must be Z!" or "Character A should act exactly like THIS, all the time!"

* Contribution of your own work.

* Recognition and recommendation of others' work, because it can't be all that bad.

All of the above makes me want to get Epiphany up that much faster, because all of that can be in place with Epiphany. If only I didn't feel so damn tired and busy all the time. Playing SO3 lately has been my only relief, even though I know I tend to procrastinate when I play (e.g. sorting B&G's bills, working on my J371 project which is due next week, etc.)

*SIGH!* This entry has too many asterisks in it.

What Doesn't Kill You: Chapter 25 (Summer Heat) is now posted/live/up/done. HUZZAH! HIP HIP HURRAH! HOORAY! And squee!

FYI, it's up at:
Dragonfayth
Fanfiction.Net
and
MediaMiner.org.

I'm not going to post it up here on LJ because it will inevitably get cut off due to the character limit (probably, anyway), and it's just easier for me to link to it. I will, however, be doing my requisite "spamming" of all the Seto x Anzu and Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic communities making the thrilling announcement.

Thanks to all the betas and other people across LJ and the wide, wide Intarwebz for helping me with this monster... ONLY 10 MORE CHAPTERS TO GO! (Ha! Ha! Ha!)

I should probably start writing now. It'll be my NaNoWriMo project for November.

lin_ko and guardian_kysra, I'm thinking of creating some new holiday skins for Dragonfayth, and I'm wondering if I could use your fanart for some of the imagery (e.g. the header banner). Let me know if you're okay with this, or if you want to know more, etc.

Anyone else interested in contributing fanart or manips for Dragonfayth, I have a BUNCH of holidays that need translation into graphical form. Of course, there's no written rule that they have to have Seto x Anzu or even Yu-Gi-Oh characters in them, but I'd especially love it if they could. So what follows is a list of the holidays I'm thinking of doing... ( Any holiday is an excuse for presents! )

Speaking of Samhain/All Hallow's Eve, I'm going as a witch (again). And yes, I'm well-aware of the irony. I wanted to go as Snow White, but I just didn't have time to get to a costume shop in time. 'Sides, I'm about broke, anyway, so I might as well make use of what I have. So I'll be wearing an all-black skirt and top combo with my purple-spiderweb witch hat and some garish makeup (that is, purple lip gloss and super-heavy eyeliner). Chances are I'll have to take my hat off in class, but other than that... <|:D

I wish I could go to a Halloween party, though... :P

Though I spent today at home (gotta love my stomach-- it likes to stage mutinies), there is ONE good thing about it all-- I'm like... 99.9% done with WDKY25. No, seriously. I'm just unhappy with some "tell instead of show" in the end scene, but I think I can fix that. I'm breaking out the writing kits and other tools I have, perhaps in time for NaNoWriMo. Actually, I've never successfully participated in NaNoWriMo, and I'm not sure if this month will be any different, what with all the various projects I have on my plate. But if I can finish more of WDKY in November, that'll be enough to keep me satisfied.

I wonder if tomorrow will signal finally seeing my vanishing-act boyfriend (rdrr) again. This top-sekrit video game project of his means I haven't seen him online, heard from him via phone, let alone seen him in person. It's been something like 7 weeks... o_o Baba thinks I ought to forget about him.

Speaking of the B&G, Grandpa tripped on his walk with Mokie (that would be the mini poodle we have, in case you didn't know) and got his face all scraped up-- he's okay now, but earlier he looked a bit like the mummy with his face bandaged up in so many places. He'll have more bruises than ever (and he's already got a lot because he takes blood thinners), but at least he's okay and in decent spirits. But when I came out of the house earlier when Baba called me (he'd been lying in the street and a driver walked him back to the house. If Mokie hadn't sat in the street right next to Grandpa, the driver might not have noticed Grandpa. So for once, I actually appreciate the fuzzbutt), I was pretty freaked out-- he was pretty bloody (but laughing about it!). I guess I'm just glad it wasn't worse. Though my dad knows about it and he didn't go off on a tirade about getting them into a home or getting a personal nurse, it does have me worried about all the What Ifs: what if I hadn't been there, what if Baba wasn't outside to see him, etc.? I'm here to take care of them, but there's only so much I can do, and I rely on them, too! /.\

Ugh, it's a constant to-do list with me! Every time I think of one thing I have to do, another five spring up. Just typing them here might get me more stressed out, and though I spent most of today in bed (because moving HURT), I do have to get to sleep... I figure putting on all that makeup will take a while, so I might as well get enough sleep to wake up early and get all gussied up. :P

I came back from the OS X 10.5 - Leopard release "party" a short while ago, and I have to say, if Mom hadn't convinced me NOT to buy 10.5, I'd probably be using it right now. It's not like I really have the money for it, and I know I can get it cheaper online, but after I played with it at the Apple store, I REALLY liked it. Anyone that knows Macs or has watched tech news lately probably knows about some of the more bragged-about features, but after the "list of 300" was released today and I really got to see them in action, I've made up my own list of favorites:

* Quick Look - a freaking GODSEND. Because I design webpages a lot, sometimes I have templates or half-done pages lying around my hard drive. I'd like to be able to look at those files WITHOUT having to open up a new tab in Firefox, or open up Dreamweaver. Quick Look lets me do this easily *AND* even better, I can use the iTunes-style Cover Flow in Finder to let me browse through a whole folder of HTML files quickly and easily.

* Google Maps built into Address Book - This will be immensely handy for me. I like to keep all my contacts in my Address Book for easy Syncing to my Facebook and to my phone. Now, when I have to go somewhere, a map with directions is only two clicks away.

* Dictionary with built-in Japanese <-> English support. WOW. HOLY WOW. The only thing this is lacking is support for romaji, but that's okay, because Japanese input on the Mac only takes two clicks, anyway. You type in a word either in English to translate it fully into Japanese, or you type it in Japanese to read the English meaning. I didn't test out any pronunciation or additional features, but the Dictionary's gotten a great makeover, including more dictionaries, reference materials, and WIKIPEDIA! All in one click!

* Spaces - I'm one of those people that has about 15 things going on at once; iTunes and iMovie, Firefox and Thunderbird, Dreamweaver and Photoshop... with Spaces, I can designate a Desktop for each application (or group of applications), so when I want to work on one thing, I just access that particular desktop, and there's no more clutter. This is built into the OS, but I imagine you can't overload the computer with too much, anyway. Nonetheless, I don't think I've ever had memory issues with the Mac in terms of running multiple programs (unless I was running Windows!).

I've already written an article about it which I hope'll get into the Sundial; I'm also writing one on "Dumbledore is gay!?" though I'm not 100% sure of the angle to take on it.

I managed to find (with the help of the LJ Support Staff) my Private entries, including what I started of "Sight Unseen," my 30kisses fic for #13: excessive chain. Not sure exactly what inspired me, but it's a pretty interesting idea-- just a bit long. It might be 2-3 parts when finished. I thought I'd written something for Girls' Club (#11: gardenia), too, but all I seem to have is the planner file I made with Mamono. Anyway, re: Sight Unseen, would people like to see the short blurb I have so far, or would they rather wait until I'm done?

If you haven't answered my quick and easy poll on FFX and FFX-2, please do so now! And if you can, tell your friends and ask them to participate, too.

I really want to play a game now, so I think I'm going to turn off iTunes and try my hand at Bejeweled or Diner Dash. It's been a while since I've had "fun." If only I could get Yu-Gi-Oh! Online on the Mac... ;_; I wanna duel!

I've just realized I have another squick besides slash: threesomes. I LOVE triangles, because it's human, and adds a lot of drama, but when I read about halfway through the first of only TWO Grissom/Sara/Nick (or G/N/S, as it may have actually been... I'm too afraid to go back and find out) fics on geekfiction, I had a sinking sensation that Grissom-the-voyeur (spying on Nick and Sara practically getting it on --though I'm a GSR fan to the last, I can totally see Nick and Sara together for a bit, and even Greg and Sara. They're both a bit out of Sara's league, IMHO, but considering how they both seem to like her, I could see it for a brief fling. I can also see them being okay with it ending and her "ending up" with Grissom, too; with anyone else, I don't see that working out: it'd be too awkward) wouldn't be satisfied just watching and/or feeling up Sara once he revealed that he'd been spying on them the whole time. I mean, it's (er, I hesitate to use this word) "doable" for Nick and Grissom to BOTH get Sara at the same time, but... well, ow. So I stopped reading, even though part of me wonders if my gut instinct was right. And you can only know by reading, but... well, I'm in no mood to be "scarred" for life. There are some times when hitting the back button is just TOO LATE. (And why read what's not up your alley?)

So I'm perusing my FL and read a rather interesting fanficrants "rant" about someone who got a review making reference to an old 4chan thread about "the Holders." It's basically an original forum "series" of sorts-- a choose-your-own-adventure mixed with mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. Good shit, in other words. There are 538 objects in the world-- originally 2538, but 2000 were lost. They appear in a number of forms, everything from what looks like your average everyday Rusty Keychain to an actual woman. Some people seek the items to see what they do; others seek to keep them forever separated. Once they were one, but they were separated. Something will happen if they are ever brought together again, but what? You can only know by embarking on the journey...

Okay, so you'd really have to be mental to actually do some of the things the prompts say to do (going to a mental institution or halfway house to ask for someone who is the "Holder of **" (** in this case being whatever the item in question is). But the items and whoever came up with them and what they do is actually pretty bitching, and... well, if CLAMP weren't doing something (with a lot less humor) in Tsubasa: RC and xxxHolic, I would say it could be a kick-ass manga.

Failing that, fanfiction. (Now, supposedly, the spammer in question, FBI-san of FFnet, will be writing this story. This person is pretty much just spamming FFnet with the snippets which may not even be his/hers, and has no other stories to indicate there is any experience in writing said fic-- or what universe it might be in. So, who the hell knows? One thing's for sure, with these as prompts, it can go ANY direction. Maybe it should be a community for a fic challenge, a'la 30kisses? Or I could always invent a new list... except not, because that'd be Just Plain Wrong) I'm talking THE ULTIMATE CROSSOVER. Consider this a dare for the bored or masochistic. ( What happens when you bring them all together? )

Let's see, five or so minutes until clean-up time (or at least until Jamie is supposed to get here to help me clean up) for the NSCS Garage Sale, and we've made about $85 over the course of two days. Not too bad. The leftovers I suppose we'll give to the Goodwill, though some stuff (namely some sports cards and some manga) I think I can sell online for a decent amount. Hopefully.

Joyce also said she'll buy all the stuffed animals; she works in family law, and when kids get adopted out, they get to pick a stuffed animal, but she says "they're" (I don't know who "they" are) always running out (of stuffed animals to give away). Right now, we have about 10 left, so hopefully Joyce will be willing to fork over $20 or so for the lot, including a brand-new, super-soft dog-pillow thing.

It hasn't been bad, sitting out here pretty much all day. As per usual for me, I've been reading a lot of CSI fic (I think I've read almost everything by Mossley, at this point), chatting with Joe and Jamie when they were here (Jamie is helping me clean up before we meet Joe and the others at Starbucks for an NSLS meeting), and checking my email.

I'm applying to another internship that might meet the Journalism department's standards for credit (for a journalism internship)-- the Washington Internship Institute. Okay, it's not free, but housing is actually part of the package and I *hope* that it's a paid internship. Anyway, Prof. Shapiro (last semester's JOUR 331 - Graphics professor) agreed to write the required faculty recommendation form for me, so yay to that. :) I think it's bull that I should have to pay all these fees and deposits for things I supposedly qualify for because I'm so active in volunteering, have such a good GPA, etc. -_- Whatever happened to REWARDING the smart kids? I feel like all the good opportunities are just beyond my reach, all because of cash. Well, there's loans, fundraising, and scholarships, and I'm sure as hell not a quitter, so I'll have to look into a variety of things.

Personally, I'd like it if the Target internship could still work out somehow for Journalism credit, because not only is it local and sound fun (but also challenging), but it pays well. Plus there's a strong chance of being hired full-time after the fact, which is nothing to scoff at. Even Target needs a media/press relations department, and while I'm no PR concentration, you never know the needs of a corporation like that.

I have decided I'm going to drop Japanese as a minor, though. On the one hand, it's sad, because I've always been so dedicated to the study of Japanese language and culture, and I enjoyed it a lot when I was younger. When I got into college and DID declare it as my secondary minor, I thought of it as the thing that would set me apart from all the other Journalism majors with their required collateral fields or minors. But the classes are terribly timed, stressful... and to be honest, just thinking about it makes my chest hurt. I can't handle the professors, the workload... anything. I get this sickening guilty feeling whenever I read the japanese community, too. I know that I said just a few paragraphs above, I'm not a quitter-- and I'm not NOW. But I was, because Japanese stressed me out that much.

Even though I look back on going to Japan as a great experience, one I learned a lot from, to be honest, I can't see myself living there anymore, like I used to. I don't think I could work at Shonen Jump or Shojo Beat as a translator; an editor, maybe (and they do need one...). And when I really look back on it, I remember the fun times with my friends, but I also remember how cold and lonely I was. I remember crying the first few days I got there, because I felt like the stupidest person there, not remembering certain things. That was especially true when I finally went to Tokyo on my own and I didn't understand what the clerk was telling me when she said Sarah Brightman had already left the store. I must have waited there for an hour, all because I forgot what the word "sakki" meant.

I don't want to feel that way again. I'd like to think that I learned from my experiences --both in class and in Japan-- and now I have a better grasp on my limitations. I know a bit more about just what defines my breaking point: at which point I get so stressed I make myself ill. I have to say, I really have been getting pretty sick over the past half-year, and if it's really all psychosomatic, I'm disappointed in myself. I'm not exactly the paragon of healthy eating and regular exercise, but it's not like I pork out in front of the TV all day with a bag of chips and guac. But stressing out does things to your insides, and I was getting pretty close to either being a hypochondriac or being genuinely ill with something like an ulcer. Scott had that, and just judging by what I heard from him, I don't want to go down that route.

I have yet to really un-declare the minor, and I'm not 100% sure of the consequences- after all, I got that Presidential Scholarship which I really never did anything with, though it saved my hide in Japan after that idiotic phone escapade. Part of me still thinks I'm more than capable of writing that book, but it's not like I ever had this great relationship with my supposed mentor, Hirota-sensei, and I hardly think I would after I un-declare the minor. That's especially true if I have to get her signature on any forms and explain just why I feel the way I do. I don't like getting emotional around professors.

Anyway, other stuff:
What's your preferred domain registrar? I've been with Register.com, and while they were good, they were too expensive. Same goes with InterNIC. I'm with Yahoo! Small Business for meredithsweet.com, and GoDaddy for seventh-star.net, but today at the NSLS officers' meeting, Jamie told me that GoDaddy sucks and he won't have anything to do with them, directly or indirectly. I've had a great experience with them so far, despite their supposed lousy TOS and policies. Nonetheless, if I wanted to get a CSUN NSLS website that's not hosted by CSUN (because apparently that requires funding which we currently do not have), I need to find a good registrar. Suggestions are appreciated!

WDKY25 is like, seriously, almost done. Whee! I actually was working on it last night-- a storm of writing! Please let it continue...!

Hi all! First, some "me" updates, then onto the main course:
* WDKY25 idea! Oh, I love lightning bolts. With dumb luck, it'll be done -no, really, DONE!- by the end of this week. I pray.

* I finished my end of the project for my Vitamin K presentation in Nutrition for Life class tomorrow. I'm so thrilled I finally figured out (with the help of a Mac Rep-- surprisingly, not a Creative or Genius, because they were all stumped!) why there was sound on the slides that were build-less. I had the idea that the media icon might be hidden off-canvas, and once the Mac Rep told me how to resize the window so the canvas only took up a percentage, I found the sign! I also ended up having to fix lots of hyperlinks, but in the end, I tested everything out, and it looks great! Aside from the necessity of having to click the actual squares on the Categories Selection board (rather than have it select automatically), everything's great, and I hope we do well tomorrow!

Now, main course:
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm participating in the SixApart/DonorsChoose.org Bloggers Challenge. I've chosen eight teacher proposals for San Francisco schools that I hope to fund, even a little. SixApart gave out $30 certificates for DonorsChoose.org to people who requested them, and I already gave mine to one of my eight proposals: Books That Add Spice.

Check out my complete challenge here, and donate even $1-- it WILL make a difference in a child's life!

And now, for some questions and my answers...
Why San Francisco?
It's where I grew up. My mom was a great participant in my school years growing up, and if it wasn't for her, I think a lot of the school projects that I remember the most wouldn't have been as fun, or may have fallen through altogether. My school was lucky enough to have a few parents who were really dedicated to participating in classes and helping teachers-- moreso than the school or the school district ever did.

While I can't speak for the kids or the school district now, from what I've seen when I've visited recently, things haven't changed much. If I can help a single elementary school kid get a new pack of crayons, or a classroom of high schoolers see a computer presentation via a new projector, then I'll do whatever I can.

Why did you pick the proposals you did?
It's funny, but once you start looking for proposals to help fund, there are so many that will catch your attention. That's what happened with me, and though I think eight is a bit of a crazy number (and I intentionally set my Fundraising Goal to $2000, which does NOT cover the complete costs of every proposal), I think there's a great variety of schools, teachers, students, and proposals in my challenge. If I can meet my Fundraising Goal of $2000, then that'll most likely get all of these proposals enough funding to get noticed, and at the very least, up off the ground.

The proposals I chose are as follows:
1. Let Your Fingers Do The Writing
2. Books That Add Spice
3. The Art Area is in Trouble!
4. Making 5th Grade More Fun & Interesting
5. Bring my Classroom into the 21st Century!
6. Rainbow World: Help Kindergartners Explore Colors
7. Think Before You Drink: Prom Gift Bags
8. Slide into the 21st Century

( Why these proposals? )

Please take a minute of your time to read some of these proposal descriptions and, if possible, donate something. Whether it's $1 or $10, $20 or $30, every little bit helps! Do you remember what it was like to be in elementary, middle, or high school? Did you never want for anything? (If you say "yes," I won't believe you. :P)

DonorsChoose gathers teachers from all over the U.S., allowing THEM to say just what they need, how many students will be impacted, and what their proposed purchases will be used for. These eight proposals really stood out to me, and I hope that you can find it in your heart (and in your wallet!) to make a small tax-deductible contribution to help fund them-- even a little. It won't just make a difference for you and me, but all those students and their teachers-- for years to come.



I've emailed a note about this to my friends. If you read that email, read this post for more info, and be sure to tell your friends!

So my new computer probably won't ship until the 30th at the earliest, and if they DO ship it that day, that's the day they charge my card. Coincidentally (har har!) it's the day my bill for my credit card is due, and I can't buy anything more until said payment is... paid. So basically I'm broke-ish until the laptop is paid for and I can get my rebate, which sucks.

I also restarted work on the "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story" novelization project. I'm glad I managed to catch up to where I was (a little more than midway through Mercury's portion of Chapter 2 - In Search of the Stones) in less than two days, but running Dreamweaver at the same time as SNES9x is a pain, and it's hard to type and pause with my memory so low. So while I do plan on restarting/finishing that soon(ish), I'll wait until I get the new laptop, since that should make juggling the two programs easier.

Tomorrow I have my first day of JOUR 397B, aka the Daily Sundial, even though I've already been to the orientation and have been turning articles in. We're not meeting in the Sundial room afaik, so I'm not really sure what to expect.

After class, I'm supposed to go to a follow-up appointment with the oral surgeon back in Van Nuys, but a lot's happened in the past two weeks-- namely, Grandpa's gotten a LOT more forgetful and more spaced out. Of course I'm worried about him-- I don't really know what caused it or brought it on, and the family's got a lot of theories, ranging from overdosing on some medication to having a stroke and us just not knowing about it (is that really possible?). Either way, it's a bit sad to see him seem so listless and uninvolved in anything the way he used to be-- always reading his papers, checking his stocks, and watching his financial and political news programs. Now he just sort of sits there and channel surfs, and sometimes he doesn't even pay attention (Baba said he watched "Hannah Montana" for an hour today, which SCARES me).

SoI might not go to the oral surgeon tomorrow if Baba's taking Grandpa to the doctor's, but I think I feel fine-- I haven't had any residual soreness, tightness of the jaw, bleeding, or noticeable signs of infection. I still don't want to get slammed with a cancellation fee if I don't go, and even if I do go, again, there's the whole payment thing... urgh, can't wait until my next paycheck. I think with all the hours I've been pulling lately it'll be a bit better than my last one, but I hate how I only get paid once a month.

I am worried about Grandpa, of course... I mean, part of the reason why I'm here is to try and take care of them, though as I've mentioned in the past, I never want to baby them. Neither of them are "rest home" type of people, so Grandpa being "incapacitated" like he is seems hard enough on all of us. I don't like facing the very real possibility that his time is coming... but I should, just because this isn't like with Michelle (an accident, out of nowhere, unpredictable. Grandpa's old; he's led a great and full life and been a wonderful inspiration, help, and part of my life. He's been my ONLY Grandpa, because my mom's father died before I really got to know him (I was only a baby, I think). It sucks feeling like I'll have the responsibility of doing so much more for Baba if Grandpa does pass-- moreso than I did or even COULD have done for Mom back when Michelle died. But I do have to be there for her --for Grandpa as well, for as long as he is here-- because I guess part of me is still adamantly hanging onto what little "youth" I feel like I have left. I lost a big chunk of it when Michelle died, because I was 10 and suddenly had to act like an adult back then. Now I'm 22, and I have to act it and beyond, because it's not just Mom this time, it's Baba and all the kids (my aunts and uncles).

I want to think positive though, if just to provide a contrast to Baba's pessimism. I am scared though --and I hate to think it, but selfish. What'll happen to me if Grandpa DOES pass before I graduate? Can I help out with all the bill payments? Will I need to? Grandpa's not working anymore; I don't know where they get money from, or where it all goes to.

Dad is still coming up next weekend for Labor Day, and Shawn (who was supposed to come over today, but I think I gave him my post-surgery cold) and I will be going to Jill's on the 1st for a BBQ/Pool Party. I'm hoping Shawn makes a good impression on both sides of the family, either way. :P I mean, not like it's THAT serious or anything, but it's always nice to get that out of the way first. This isn't some "Meet the Fockers" redux or anything, you know?

Speaking of Dad, he's adamant that when Shawn gets better, he and I go to a bike shop to take the bike that's been sitting in the garage rafters to get totally overhauled. I've thought about it a lot, since bicycling is great exercise, and both my parents can shockingly AGREE on its benefits. I don't have the first clue how to ride though, so the first step would really be getting this bike shaped for ME. And maybe painted purple! :D Dad even says he'll pay for it, which rocks.

Hopefully things will stay... "good-ish" for the next few weeks at the least; Baba and Grandpa are supposed to go to Seattle for Rosh Hashanah, and Shawn should be staying over that week. It'll also be a Mokie-free week (huzzah!) because Baba wants to leave the poodle over at Debbie's, the groomer's we've been taking the fuzzball to. That'll be nice-- not to have to deal with Mokie's yapping and such. That's one reason why I like cats more-- even if they meow, they don't meow so loudly that it attracts attention from outside, or scares postmen.

What else? I woke up today remembering some of the 42 prompts I'd partially done, and how a) I never finished them and b) they were mysteriously not in my Memories. So I found and added them, and maybe when I finish WDKY25 (I surprised myself by seeing how long I've been complaining about that chapter since I finished with WDKY24 last year) I'll work on a few more of those "blurbs." I don't know if/when/where I'll post them, though.

For my next two Sundial articles, I have to contact the Westfield Topanga mall (did it by email, since I didn't find another contact person/PR number to call) and some astronomy teachers at CSUN... unfortunately, the Physics and Astronomy Dept. page at CSUN doesn't organize the professors by their subject, so I might just need to call the department office and find names of professors (preferably full-time; the prof. I had and emailed -who hasn't gotten back to me yet- is part-time) who are in astronomy and might have some insight on the upcoming meteor shower. BTW, every time I type that, I want to say "VENUS METEOR SHOWER!!!!!" I think it sounds a lot cooler than "Crescent Beam shower!" I mean, why would crescent beams shower? Or shower down, as it were? (I remember getting a Sailor Moon Collectible Card from Toys 'R' Us ages ago, and it had a "new" attack for Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter on there. Back in the day, before the rest of the series got dubbed/subbed, those kind of things got me downright GIDDY. It was like NEWS in the Sailor Moon universe!)

*sigh* I've been taking a lot of naps today, and I feel like I've hardly been productive, even if I did get work done on the BSSM:AS project.

On the plus side, I've been adding more fics to Dragonfayth, and Blue Eyes and Apricots is only 19 members away from having 500 members! So tell all your friends to join! :D More Azureshippers! WHOO! (We shall conquer the world!)

( Cut because there's always another... meme! )

I just finished sorting through all my Sailor Moon cards. I don't know what possessed me, really, but I think it was mentioning those odd attacks. The wrong one on a dub card was "Venus Electrobolts Slam!" Doesn't that sound more like one of Jupiter's attacks? But it got her "Thunderclap, Zap!" one right. Go figure. Doesn't someone also have a dub attack ending in "Slam!" though?

I also wanted to find the anime-only special cards of the "wedding" from Sailor Stars (they're not images from any real episode, though). Turns out I had most of them in my sticker album, so I'll have to scan them eventually. The collection is quite interesting, and I have a plethora of counterfeit cards based off ONE of the Mercury cards, using manga artwork instead of anime. It's funny how there are so many cards with just the very top of Mercury's head, someone else pictured, and "Sailor Mercury" at the bottom (sometimes not even fully visible). I wonder if the stuff I've got -some of which is in REALLY good condition, in sets, too!- can be sold or something. Not like I do anything with it. And once I scan it... well, I'm happy.

George Takei, Wil Wheaton and writer Andre Bormanis, along with FanLib, the company who specialize in "people powered entertainment," will be joining forces with CBS Interactive and the Star Trek franchise for a collaborative storytelling event that uses fan-submitted content to fashion a new online story. This event marks the first time that CBS has officially sanctioned use of the popular Star Trek characters by fans writing stories online. Bormanis, long-time writer from the famed science fiction series, will moderate and serve as the creative guru for the event. Takei and Wheaton will serve as online video "hosts." To find out more information about this amazing event, please click here!
--From the Star Trek.com newsletter

Man, media companies are completely getting suckered by these idiots at FanLib, and it looks like real fans might too... after all, who bothers to read the TOS until they're in trouble or might get in trouble (because other people have been)? It's sad. And it makes me angry.

Freakin' FanLib.

I think I must have slept something like 14+ hours last night. I got home from work shortly after 7:15pm, and because my shoulder (and stomach) were hurting, the first thing I did was take my Darvocet and Levsin. I sat in front of the computer doing a few more backdated entries for 2002 (oh, the nostalgia) and then decided to read my latest Newsweek. About 75% through the issue, I couldn't focus anymore, so I turned off my light and decided to "take a nap." I put that in quotes because, while I had every intention of waking up again at 10:15pm to have a late dinner and maybe get some other stuff done, instead I ignored said alarm clock and went right back to sleep.

I woke up again around 1am to go to the bathroom, and it occurred to me that while I'd taken my night pills, I forgot to wash my face. :P Bad, bad idea. But I was just SO exhausted, I couldn't even imagine standing in place for five minutes to do that, so I collapsed when I went right back to bed. And now I'm up now at 7:40am. Not exactly perky-awake, and I'm still a bit sore, but at least I have my physical therapy appointment at the Klotz center later. Maybe after that (since the appointment is at 10:30am and I have no class again until 2pm), I can either head home or go to WaMu and talk to them about a bank credit card, to see what they offer.

That said, I had a weird dream that (as some dreams do) may inspire fanfiction. Let me preface this by saying I don't believe I've ever written Disney fanfic. Not for Little Mermaid, not for Beauty and the Beast, etc. But I had this weird pair of ideas revolving around the latter, and maybe someone can slap me upside the head and either tell me they're junk, they've been done before, or what the hell am I still doing in Yu-Gi-Oh, write those fics!

( Tale as old as... er, last night )

Yesterday when I was helping someone at work I saw an article on Yahoo! (as in, the main Yahoo page, not search results or another page) about internships, but when I tried to find it myself, I couldn't! And trying to do a internships site: yahoo.com search produced plenty of results, none of which I think were the article I'd seen. Does anyone have suggestions on how to find things like that?

I also heard from Scott via email-- if he's reading this, dude, are you fountain_the? I'm dying to know here, since the birthday matches, but there's no user info, there are no entries... I wanted to help him get started with an LJ (so he doesn't have to be clicking CC: to a million emails), but I don't want to pay for an LJ if it's NOT someone I know! So come forward, yo! Say some sort of secret phrase to confirm your identity or something. :P

All that said, I think I'll try and get back to sleep and hope the pain in my shoulder wears off... I've been careful not to wear my laptop-loaded purse on that side, but still, even an "evenly-balanced" backpack causes it to hurt. Just what I need, pinched nerves AND Sciatica. I think if I save up, I can get a monthly massage at the Student Health Center so I can avoid all this! (Maybe.)

I'm almost done with my 2002 FreeOpenDiary entries, and I'm going to poke into my old Greymatter ones soon too, so if you ever wanted to know what I wrote like back when I was an emo high schooler... *laughs* Well, it's all there. I'll do a recap entry of my favorites when I finish, but until then, happy hunting (should you be so inclined)!

My right eye hurts (good god I hope I don't have another eye infection. The last thing I need is to miss school/work from being legitimately sick), but AT LAST! I am done... not with WDKY25, sadly, but with my Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon VHS/DVD Inventory. It's as done as it's going to get-- I couldn't find images for 10 volumes of VHS tapes (mostly the Edited versions) in the Sailor Moon SuperS series, and I have yet to add images for the boxed sets for S and SuperS, or the "Dream Set" for the movies. And I wanted to edit the info so that the "volumes" also mentioned which episodes were on which volume, because there's almost always a difference from VHS to DVD.

Maybe I'll get around to posting the new page up on Epiphany/Mare Serenitatis whenever I get around to working on that again. :P

I didn't get to go shoe shopping with Adrianna today. ;_; She never called. I wanted to call her early this afternoon, but to my dismay, I discovered I didn't have her phone number! I swore I did before, so something must have happened and I deleted it. :( Alas, no double-points at DSW for me.

I did go out to dinner at Mimi's Cafe with Baba, Grandpa, Elliot, and Erin. The service wasn't all that great, but the food (Jumbo Spinach Tortellini with artichoke hearts) was pretty tasty. Elliot and I had fun trying to remember the 14 Leadership Traits. Apparently there's an acronym for it I never learned in ROTC: JJ DID TIE BUCKLE. See if you can figure out the Leadership Traits from that (no Googling, now!).

Also, I spent a while listening to akavertigo's awesome awesome ideas for "Reconstruction." I tell you, it shall be a KILLER story! I can't wait to actually read all of it. When all of it gets written. :D

AND I got up to the Watchtowers in Bevelle in my new FFX-2 game... damn watchtowers NEVER rotate the way the guide says they should! I must have done this at least a hundred times, but I can never get the platforms to go the way I need them to! And the dumb guidebook "names" the towers, instead of using the Glyphs to identify them, which would be LOADS easier. Can anyone help? I already have 3 Ribbons, but... I WANT ANOTHER ONE! :P

For the record: LJ Phoenix gives me a RealBasic NilObjectException error that prevents me from opening the program 5/6 of the time. I'm pretty much back to using the Web Update form of LJ because the error annoys me so much. *sigh* To find a client that does what I want *AND* works on a Mac... why can't someone just make Semagic for the Mac!? >_> Or maybe I should download it for the Windows VM and try and force myself to use it more often (lately I only use it for "The Ultimate Guide to Sphere Break"), so I don't become such a bitch about Windows (which I have been, lately. But seriously, Apple's commercials trump Microsoft's new "WOW" Vista CMs ANY DAY OF THE WEEK).

So I think I'll go to bed now and pray my eye doesn't become some sort of snot ball in the night.

P.S. Today Daylight Savings Time starts. Did you set your clocks forward? (Except you Arizona-people. Weirdoes.)

I apologize for going out of order (geniusgirl, I swear yours is next!) but I write these as inspiration comes. Writing something after your request (1 week after "Eat Your Words, Beautiful") is pretty difficult, so I'm saving it for last.

In any case, winterwing3000 requested a fic that took place 2 weeks after the end of "Strains", my most 'subtle' Azureshipping piece to date. In fact, one could argue that there's really no Azureshipping in it at all. It just happens to STAR the two of them. You can be the judge after this. Replicating the style of "Strains" is no easy task, let me tell you...

In any case, I tried to do this one from Anzu's perspective (because "Strains" was from Seto's).

( Here's the music, get up and dance, yeah )

rhapsody_dragon requested a ficlet taking place 20 minutes after the end of "The Joke's On You," which I've only released the first chapter of. I have planned out almost all the subsequent chapters (I haven't actually focused on them or published them due to an uncanny latter-chapter resemblance between it and Prophecy Girl, another one of my Battle City fics)

So for your viewing perusal, a snippet from the unreleased Chapter 2 of The Joke's On You... 20 minutes after the end of Chapter 1.

( After the game of love baby )

Up next: geniusgirl's request and guardian_kysra's request.

You know, of the e-Valentine I posted a while back, I think I only got one. It goes to show even when Valentines only involve a simple click of the mouse or a few taps on your keyboard, I am cursed to never have the sappy, romantic, or even merely friendly and chocolate-filled that is so widely adored.

That said, I wanted to post this because it's something that's been annoying the hell out of me for a long time, and I wish Yu-Gi-Oh fic writers would listen to JUST THIS ONE THING, if nothing else. I'm serious.

STOP CALLING JOUNOUCHI 'JOU'!

I think this may have been on fanficrants a while back, but on the off-chance that some otherwise-excellent Yu-Gi-Oh writers on my FL are reading this, and find themselves shameful perpetrators of this BAD, BAD HABIT (you know who you are), let me explain myself so you don't get your panties in a twist.

(1) Despite the dub changing his FAMILY name from Jounouchi into his GIVEN name in the dub, "JOEY," Jounouchi is not and will never be the character's given name. His father's family name is Jounouchi. His mother's married family name was Jounouchi. Shizuka may have even been a Jounouchi at one time, but judging by the character guides, she legally changed her name to 'Kawai' which I assume is Jounouchi's mother's maiden name.

(2) In English, plenty of family names are shortened to be nicknames. Some people (depending on their comfort levels with their own name, their family, or the person referring to them by a nickname) don't mind this. Others do. For example, my mother's first husband had the last name of Smith. To this day, my mother refers to him as "Smitty," not "Michael," which was his given name.

(3) In Japanese, they do not do this. To shorten someone's family name for use as a nickname is often derogatory or downright rude. Sometimes making alterations to the pronunciation of someone's GIVEN name is acceptable-- for example, my name is Meredith, but I had everyone in Japan call me "Meri." As a joke, when I went bowling with my tutors, they nicknamed me "Meririn." That was fine with me. It implies a very friendly rapport between us. "Meri-chan" or just "Meri" was fine, if it was coming from someone I knew and was friendly with. Everyone else called me "Sweet-san."

For example, one would not call Yuugi "Mucchin" ("Mutou-chan" shortened; no one really uses the honorific 'chan' with someone's family name either; that sounds weird), nor would they call Honda "Honhon." However, someone calling Honda by his given name "Hiroto" could probably get away with calling him just "Hiro" or "Hiro-kun," depending on how close they are with him. And considering Jounouchi and Yuugi are two of his closest friends and THEY call him simply by his family name (Yuugi uses an honorific), I doubt anyone outside his immediate family calls him "Hiroto" or any derivation thereof. Were Honda to ever get a girlfriend, she might call him "Hiroto-kun" or even "Hiro-kun."

( In which case a rose by any other name would not smell as sweet )

(4) In Yu-Gi-Oh canon, you can discern the kind of relationships the characters have with one another based on the names and honorifics they use for one another. In various posts across the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom, I've mentioned the following, which are made obvious throughout canon:

-Jounouchi and Kaiba are two of the rudest characters in the series, often intentionally leaving out honorifics such as "kun" or "san," which would be the most likely for them to use in reference to another person that they respect (but not necessarily someone that is socially superior to them). Kaiba, especially, uses insulting words (like "mediocre," among others) to refer to people, other than any names at all! Mokuba's actually not much better in this regard...

-Yuugi is all-around polite. He uses honorifics properly, and the only time he doesn't is in references to his closest friend: Anzu.

-On the other hand, Yami no Yuugi shows just how distinctly different he is from Yuugi: he doesn't use honorifics for Kaiba (while Yuugi does), Jounouchi (even though they're friends), Honda, or anyone else. He's actually rude in his own right! But in referring to Jounouchi, Honda, or Otogi without honorifics, he's not trying to be disrespectful to them (as Kaiba does when HE refers to them without honorifics, or when Kaiba refers to Yuugi by his given name and not his last name), he's just being blunt.

But no matter how much Pegasus might want to topple Kaiba, or how much Kaiba hates Yuugi, or how much Jounouchi hates Kaiba, they never use shortened nicknames. It's not something they do in Japanese culture (commonly). If anything, the "missing" syllables are added to: Minako (from Sailormoon) might be called Minappi, and that's got the same number of syllables as her full given name! No one would give her the nickname "Mina" without any honorific (that is to say, "Mina-chan" might be okay, but just "Mina" probably wouldn't), and no one would call her "Ai" as a shortened version of "Aino," her family name.

The same holds true for Jounouchi. He may not be as close friends with Mai, Anzu, or Otogi as he is with Yuugi or Honda, but NONE of them would call him "Jou."

And for the record Jou =/= Joe. Shortening family names is not the same as shortening given names, especially if they were reversed from the original to the dub! Sure, call him "Joe" if you're in the dub-verse, and in that, his given name IS Joseph. People call him "Joey" (a nickname of Joseph) all the time, and were someone to start calling him "Joe," he probably wouldn't have a problem with it.

But they do not do that in Japan, with Japanese names. Not once in my whole experience with Yu-Gi-Oh have I ever seen any character canonically refer to Jounouchi as "Jou." The only names I have seen used for him (and I do mean "names," not insults like Kaiba) are:
-Jounouchi (Honda, Yami no Yuugi, occasionally Anzu when she's mad)
-Jounouchi-kun (Yuugi, Anzu, Miho)
-Katsuya (from his sister, his mother, and once by Mai)

Here's a further way of pointing it out:
In Japanese culture, one's family name comes first in their writing. They also write not using Roman characters (that is, the alphabet I'm using now), but Chinese characters. For Jounouchi, those characters are:
城之内

The first character is pronounced "Jou" the second "no" and the third "uchi." However, were you to try and make a nickname from the characters using the pronunciation of the first character, you'd come across a stumbling block: the first character is pronounced "jou" when in conjunction with certain other Chinese characters, like the other ones in his name. By itself, it's pronounced "shiro," not "jou!" That's another reason why they don't have nicknames like that in Japanese; if they can't write them out, they can't use them in speech, either.

It's one thing to write "Mer" in English; I can understand it whether you say it or write it. But you can't write "Jou" as a nickname for "Jounouchi" in Japanese. His name is made up of a particular set of characters, and you cannot use the character pronounced as "jou" on its own.

(For the record, the character means "castle" when pronounced as "shiro". It's pronounced as "jou" when used in place names; so Osaka Castle might be "Osaka-jou." But again, it MUST be used in conjunction with other characters to imply that it's a name and not a word; thus, to just randomly say "Jou" would confuse someone-- because what are you doing, yelling about some castle? The second kanji is the one usually used for "kore," meaning "this," but it can also be pronounced "no," as it is in his name. To make things even more confusing, the third character means "inside, within," but it's pronounced "uchi," the same way the word for "house, family" is. So the meaning is "inside, within," but the pronunciation is "uchi." But "uchi" in this instance doesn't mean what your Japanese 101 teachers have taught you --house, or family. If you wanted to extrapolate a meaning from his name, it might be "this castle within," which would imply he's a very strong-willed individual. Japanese families tend to like names that show strength or prosperity for the future.)

THAT IS IT.

Even if you were smash drunk, you wouldn't refer to a friend or semi-friend so rudely. I can't emphasize just how rude it is to do that to someone's name. Because it's not just "personal" when you do something like that-- it's dishonoring the whole family. It's lazy writing. It's mis-characterization (the dreaded OOC shows when you refer to characters incorrectly!).

JUST DON'T DO IT.

Since I have to return my Yahoo! BB modem tomorrow, this will probably be my last entry from Japan. *emo!tear*

I suppose I could wax about how the experience has been for me, but to be honest, I think that's best saved for when I'm finally back at home and re-adjusting to "my real life," or at least "my other life," back "home" in the States. Besides, I've been doing entries here rather regularly, so I think people that keep up with my LJ have at least a general idea of what it's been like for me, or what I've been thinking/feeling, for the most part.

But, as some of my parting thoughts on all things random:
-I need some sort of app. for iTunes to better manage all my songs. My biggest irk with iTunes is that when I delete a playlist off my iPod, it doesn't delete the associated songs, so I have to FIND the associated songs and delete them manually in order to save space. I wouldn't need to do this if I knew exactly what was on my iPod (seriously, what is that "other" stuff?), or if the Sync Manager told me when I selected playlists that wouldn't fit on my iPod. I *ONLY* put Playlists on my iPod (that is to say, not random songs that are NOT somewhere on a playlist), so this irritates me. Does anyone know of an option?

I started reading 51 Days of PGSM over at AFSM, and I found a link to Ryuusei's fansubs of the PGSM Oshiokiyo! DVD extras... I downloaded them all, and they were pretty funny. And the episode recaps had me thinking of something I could do for WAFF Day. I know I said something like that before (because I have that idea that would work well for TAFF Day, or WAFF vs. TAFF day, or just a SM fic in general), but maybe if I worked on it a little, that would be good. I know I've said that I want to stay in Yu-Gi-Oh until I finish WDKY, but maybe the reason why 25 is so hard for me to finish isn't just because of the difficukt subject matter, but because the story as a whole seems tiresome by now. If I work on something else for a little while, think about other characters and situations, when I go back to 25, it'll be refreshing (I hope), and then I can finally work on the arc that made me excited about WDKY to begin with-- 26-28! The thing is, the SM fic idea (not the TAFF one) is a First Season romance of sorts, but with an idea distinctly borrowed from the drama-verse. But the anime, manga, and drama are pretty different from each other in their own distinct ways, so if anything, I'd probably have to write it as an anime-verse fic borrowing some ideas from the drama.

I'm hoping I'll manage to cram everything into my suitcase-- it's pretty much full at this point, with everything except my pajamas and tomorrow's outfit in there. I'm thinking I'll just have to give Daniel my leftover Cream of Wheat, but I can get rid of the juice, cookies/macaroons, oatmeal, and hot cocoa tomorrow or Tuesday. And since they're small packets, I might be able to cram them into my backpack, even though it's already so heavy... but at least with Holly's help, we seriously reduced the weight of the package I'm going to send back to the States. Because of the snowman figurine I got for Xmas, I still can't fit things into a shoebox or a smaller box than the one I have, but hopefully the weight will be the primary thing that lessens the cost. Plus the things in there now are things I can live without for a month, so I can still survive off Surface Mail (boat).

I'm still worried that the airport will call me on my suitcases being heavy (plus the extra bag... I can't afford two charges, I really can't, so I hope that all my bags are under 70 lbs. each-- they should be!), or that they'll rail on me for the blanket/Toro-kun bag. Holly doesn't think they will, and I hope she's right. I ended up leaving more things for my roommates than I originally intended, but I hope they put them to good use and don't think I'm just unloading stuff on them to make my life easier (though that is part of it). I wish I could take my nice wooden hangers with me, or my Dove body soap, but I guess those are things I can get in the States, so I shouldn't think about it so much. Same goes for the hand sanitizer... I'm totally an abuser of that stuff, but in all the time since Mom sent it to me, I only used the 2 mini-bottles and about half of one of the larger 8 oz. bottles. I still have an unsealed one left, and I packed that one, but the other one I guess I'll leave here to save room... for my sneakers, or my razor, or something more important. :P After that, it's just my purse, my daily meds, and my mousepad... actually I think I'll probably take that off now.

I should go to bed soon anyway-- even if there's no formal meeting or anything tomorrow, I want to wake up in order to enjoy breakfast, meet my tutors and share my cookies, and maybe go out to lunch with Holly at the meat place near school before I go to the post office and possibly the bank to exchange my money.

Wish me luck!

My god, part of me really, really hates WDKY right now.
Not because I don't like any part of what I've already written/posted, or the concept behind it, or how much I've planned it out (okay, maybe that a LITTLE bit), but really, it's a freaking MONSTER of a fic. Every five chapters or so, I just have one of these chapters that is SO DAMN IMPOSSIBLE to write. I can have it planned out to the nth degree, but it just doesn't want to go from script/planned-out form to PROSE. It doesn't want to sound NATURAL. It just seems like typographical SLOP.

Like Chapter 25. It's both a filler chapter (it's not part of a particular arc) and an important plot chapter (because it closes some loose ends, reminds you of important things, and sets the stage for the upcoming arc). A while ago, I was so super-confident-- I was writing, I was writing-- I was on a ROLL! It was getting done! But then I got to the mucky steam part, and my engine died on me.

Writing steam/sex/any derivative thereof seems to be like eating fish for me: I know I can do it, I know there's nothing wrong with it, but something in my brain just runs screaming in the other direction when I even make the attempt. I gag. I choke. I quit.

That's not so much the issue anymore. But WDKY as a whole is one of those fics where I try to blend the canon (magical card games) with the realistic (romance troubles, friendship woes, school issues, money problems). I try to make the characters three dimensional, as characters you can relate to, sympathize with, or at the very least UNDERSTAND (the why of their actions). So obviously the steam scene has consequences on the characters and the story at large, and I've been getting a few ideas this weekend and trying to write them into the chapter... but they're not coming out as prose.

I've got paragraph after paragraph of "planner text" which is basically like "So and so did this, so and so said this" but it's all very flat, boring. All "tell" and no "show." And I still feel like I'm missing or forgetting something, or maybe trivializing something that should be important, and placing too much emphasis on something that's not. I don't want to be repetitive (saying things I've already said in that chapter, or in past chapters).

It seems like the chapter that would never end, but it's only 88KB so far! That's shorter than a lot of the bigger, heavier chapters that have been so much harder to write! So I don't really know what's wrong with me, other than me choking up before this big important arc that I've SO been looking forward to writing (and as it turns out, writing things out of order is very bad for me, and screws the story up, which is why I'm not just "skipping ahead" to write Chs. 26-28). I think it's like Airplane Syndrome-- you have a big long flight tomorrow morning, and you know you should rest so you can get to the airport on time, but you JUST CAN'T SLEEP. Except in this case, I've got this great arc I want to work on, and make sure it's sufficiently built-up and understandable (coming in when and how it does), but I'm STUCK on this thing that's "just" filler.

ARGH!!!!! Maybe I should go back and re-read past chapters of WDKY, instead of thinking solely about future chapters and sequels. I don't know. HELP!

ETA: I'm sorting through all my tags and getting rid of the duplicate tags. For example, why have "fanfics" when "fanfiction" is just fine, and I tagged [almost] all the entries with both, anyway? Well, apparently ONE entry had "fanfics" and not "fanfiction" but for the life of me, I couldn't find it. And I'm having the same issue with TWO entris tagged with "azureshipping" and not "seto x anzu". I want to get rid of the "azureshipping" tag, since "seto x anzu" works just as well, and fits the pattern I've used for other fandoms. I've already tried viewing all the entries with the tag, but I just don't see the two entries in question. Can anyone help me figure out how to find those lost two entries? Is there a way to search an entry by the tags it DOES and DOES NOT use (i.e. search by exclusion)?

Yay, I'm back "home" in Mito, and while I've yet to get fully unpacked and everything (especially considering I should actually START packing a little to go to my REAL home in the States), I'm in a decent enough mood. For starters, though, a question: how the heck do you change foreign coins? When I left Hong Kong, I had some Hong Kong dollars leftover-- not much, just about $12 (a little under $2 USD, maybe), but the exchanger at Narita airport wouldn't take them. And I just visited Holly to give her an omiyage, and she told me that they don't take coins as a rule, because it would cost too much to ship them (presumably back to their country of origin, where they can re-enter circulation). So what the heck do I do with these coins!? I need the money...

Next up:
* Scanning Nana, Ch. 65 for the Nana Takoyakis group
--does anyone know how to get of "scanner burns" on the side of pages, short of re-scanning something over and over? I've tried using the Dodge tool, Levels, and all sorts of other things, but certain parts still look weird...

* Translating some of "The Legend of Mythica," the soundtrack CD to the Tokyo DisneySea water event that I *LOVED* to bits
--The initial prologue (as told by Mickey and the Diamond Goddess) in Part 3 introduces the "Spirits" of various things that, when harmonized, summon the five Crystal Goddesses (Violet, Green, Blue, Red, and Gold). The first one sounded like the "Spirit of Comic Songs." o_O; What? (I'm not sure which Disney character that was during the actual event; I know that Pluto and Goofy switched places -on the CD, Pluto is Violet and Goofy is Green, but during the event, it was the other way around. Then there's the "Spirit of Friendship," the "Spirit of Sincerity/Honesty/Faith", the "Spirit of Adventure," and finally, the "Spirit of Love" (I know that one is Minnie, without a doubt). Mickey is technically the "Spirit of Imagination." The other characters (besides the ones already mentioned) are Donald Duck, and Chip & Dale. Which do you think is which? I'm trying to remember...

I think tomorrow when I'm back and somewhat settled in (and with an organized list of what to do), I'll do a recap of everything that happened the past 10 days or so. It's certainly been an adventure.

By the way, is there any sort of patron god or goddess of transportation? My Muse really needs a name, and as has been happening for the past 6 years or so, I got inspired while traveling-- this time on the Joban-sen while heading back home. Alas, the idea is for "Eternal Dimension" in the later chapters-- a fic which I have not even begun to write, because it's the third and final installment in the "What Doesn't Kill You" series, and I'd like to get PART 1 finished before I even think about Part 3. My Muse loves to torture me so. ;_;

I also posted a bit about the logic of Seto x Anzu on Pearl of a Dark Age's FFnet forum on fanon pairings; check it out and add to the list!

I'm not sure there's anything quite as funny as someone responding to "Wassup?" with "I'm not gay!" and a bright morning smile. Seriously, the Japanese can be so funny, without even trying. We have a few gems of people here at the dorms; one of them just said that to me and Holly as we were walking back from class.

Also, I clonked myself in the face yesterday with my Mac Book. I had so many windows open in Firefox, I didn't want to close it, so I went into the Apple menu and put the computer to sleep. It did that, but when I wanted to check something, I hit the space bar (which normally would bring the computer OUT of sleep), but I saw the "dimmed screen" again. That means the Sleep mode failed or something, and I have to cold-reboot... so I did. I wasn't sure if it turned back on when I hit the button though (i.e restart rather than shut down), so I picked up the computer to listen for the sound of the fan. I didn't hear anything, so I raised my head, and BAM! K.O'd by my own laptop. The corner of my right eye is a bit puffy and sore at the moment.

And yeah, I know I'm a klutz. Shaddup.

I updated the Elegance skin over at Dragonfayth. Check it out and tell me what you think, and if you find any sections with illegible text (too dark text, too dark background, etc.), then please let me know. I'm still working on getting the staircasing effect of the category columns worked out. I could also use some other ideas for color schemes, since Dragonfayth seems very... BLUE. Not that there's anything WRONG with blue, it's just there's a lot of it. Both CSS Zen and Elegance now use schemes of blue. I didn't like the old Elegance skin because it was this kind of pukey green to me; if you have suggestions for NICER color combinations, please send them my way.

Next up on the discussion block: the state of the American education system is inherently responsible for badfic. No, really. ( One of the best of the best Fanfic rants )

I also had a cheesy idea that's probably been done before: The Twelve Days of Christmas, Fandom Style!

For example:
"On the first day of Christmas, (character name) gave to me (something from fandom)!
On the second day of Christmas, ..." etc. etc.

The 12 Days of Fandom Meme
1. Choose a fandom you're involved in.
2. Choose up to 12 characters from that fandom (the song works better if you stick with one character, but then again, no one said you actually had to SING this).
3. If Christmas were celebrated in that fandom, and you were there to receive gifts from the above-mentioned characters, what would you get, and from whom?

Yu-Gi-Oh
On the first day of Christmas, Yuugi Mutou gave to me a Millennium Puzzle piece!
On the second day of Christmas, Seto Kaiba gave to me two Kaiba Corp. card keys!
One the third day of Christmas, Mokuba Kaiba gave to me three parfaits!
On the fourth day of Christmas, Jounouchi gave to me four REBDragon figurines!
On the fifth day of Christmas, Anzu gave to me five DDR games!
On the sixth day of Christmas, Pegasus gave to me six Funny Bunnies!
On the seventh day of Christmas, Otogi gave to me seven Dungeon Dice Monsters!
On the eighth day of Christmas, Sugoroku gave to me eight ancient games!
On the ninth day of Christmas, Mai Kujaku gave to me nine bottles of perfume!
On the tenth day of Christmas, Isis Ishtar gave to me ten prophetic visions!
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Malik Ishtar gave to me eleven slimey slimers!
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Hiroto Honda gave to me twelve Cyber C.'s!

So this one's not really sing-able, unless you take out the names of the people that gave the presents on the day before, and some of the syllables for the longer gifts (i.e. the "REBDragon" part of the four figurines line). But it's fun anyway, ne? Give it a try!

Lastly, I need icons...
* Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter
* NANA
* Your recommendations
Come on, point me at the pretties!

Ahem. So I finally managed to get my hands on "The Prestige." I saw the preview of it a few weeks back with some girls in my EC group, and I was wishing SO hard it would come to Japan (even though I doubted it). But after reading a bit more about the movie, a bit of an idea came in my head (re: Hugh Jackman's character), and so now I have a challenge for any interested parties. It's actually quite simple:

Use the following line in a fanfic: "Why would a rich man suddenly care to dabble in magic?"

You can change the line slightly as you see fit, but the general gist of it must still be there.

• Any fandom.


• Any genre.


• Any characters speaking/being spoken to/about.


• Any length.


• Any rating.

As with my previous challenge, I would very much like to see a Yu-Gi-Oh fic for this, if only because when I first thought of this, I had Anzu saying it to/about Seto. But I realized it could also apply to any number of other characters, including Pegasus, Sugoroku in his early days, Otogi, etc. etc. It could even be said by and/or about an original character, but could somehow tie into the canon of your fandom of choice!

Comment if you'd like to do this; if you finish this challenge, comment (again) with a link to the fic(let).

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I'm cleaning out Dragonfayth. Yesterday I just finished implementing a new IP-logging spam prevention measure, and I've already put in a block against Anonymous reviews altogether, and Challenge spam. I've deleted all the spam from the database that I could find (challenges, reviews, etc.) and I sincerely apologize to any members who were inundated with emails from "me" (my email address acts like the Dragonfayth bot that sends out notifications; if you have a spam filter on your email, it may have started blocking my address based on the spam reviews that kept coming in from my address) that had all that spam in it. If ANYONE ever receives ANY kind of spam at Dragonfayth, please let me know immediately so I can take care of it.

On the list for updates to finish:
* Update the character page (more images needed; if someone could check out the Characters page and tell me if I'm MISSING any character profiles at all, that would be much appreciated)
* Update the Help page with Dragonfayth-specific problems
* Update the Submission rules page
* Update the Story Types mod
* Re-add the Poll mod
* Re-add the Featured Author/Story mod(s)
* Re-add the LJ and FFnet Profile Links mod(s)

If anyone can think of any others, from skins to mods available from the eFiction site, let me know.

betasquad has been SO dead afaik, so I will be killing the phpBB forums for that. There's no sense in having a disorganized database, after all. Next up for cleaning up the database would be giving WikiFic its own database, and doing the same for any other PHP/database scripts I have running (like Enth3 for BEA). I'll see what I can do without making an utter mess of my domain(s). Also, since I have regular 'Net, I should update the main layout and such soon.

That's all I can think of at the moment... I need to post one more (completely OT to this and bordering on fangirly) thing, and then I think I'll take a nap.

Over the past few days, I've been getting mysterious emails from HTMLGear's guestbook notification service, saying I have new guestbook notices on a site that I used to have (that has been defunct for years; when you try to search for it via Yahoo! *OR* Google, you won't come up with anything).

I couldn't remember my login for the site (which is affiliated with Tripod and Angelfire, neither of which I ever maintained a site with-- for long), and I was trying every possible combination. Lycos doesn't have a password reminder service, so I was stuck trying every username and password combination I could think of.

AT LAST I got it and I checked the settings... and they pointed to a site that does not exist. I wondered how the messages could be posted without a site (after all, no site means no "Sign my Guestbook" link), so I checked the notices... and of course, they're from bots.

What a waste of time! I liked the GuestGear service when I used it, but since I have my own domain, I guess there's no point anymore. I shouldn't have to put up with their limited capabilities and adverts when I can just create my own Guestbook, or use a customizable script from somewhere. I'd really like to get rid of ALL of my old services, but to trash my old Yahoo! services would mean the end of those emails... and I don't know whether I'm really up to changing EVERY SINGLE place I receive email from to my new email address (even though GMail can handle the flux of messages).

Anyway, I've found out how to delete entire GuestGears (by going into the Gear Manager), and so I'm going through all these old links, just for nostalgia's sake. ( Some of the old sites that used to be my favs... )

Ah, nostalgia. One Gear down, several more to go. Maybe I ought to just take the high-road and start getting rid of these old things.

( Azurite's Favorite Fanfiction... from WAAAAAAY back in the day )

( Ranma 1/2, Peach Girl, and then some... )

Okay, done... I only have 4 Gears left, 3 of which are guestbooks which I need to review and finally delete, and the other is a poll on my old Digital Horizons site (remember, staplerx?) about Reverse Racism.

Wow, talk about a trip through memory lane. Today was like that in general. For Christine's last EC group, she had clips of old TV shows that we both watched in America; since my group was also in Lavazza cafe, I ended up watching a few-- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, JEM, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons... ah, those were the days.

Sandy, you wanted to know just how you were in an influence on me, especially for the WDKY series? Well if I tell you, you also have to accept the blame for my insane shopping trip today, because they both relate to the same thing-- or rather, person!

You introduced me to Sarah Brightman's "Harem" CD back when "Dying Autumn Leaves" (I believe) was a brand new idea, and we bounced back ideas about our respective fics in chat and email. You mention Sarah Brightman's "Harem" CD as being inspirational for you, and told me to check it out on WinAmp. I did, and I was hooked ever since. I got the Harem World Tour - Live in Las Vegas CD from my mom that Christmas, and bought myself the Harem studio CD for myself as a present.

And today at Shinseido, the local media store at Mito Eki, I scored Diva: The Singles Collection (I feel better that I bought it), Sarah Brightman CLASSICS, the Harem "desert fantasy" DVD, and the A Question of Honour/A Whiter Shade of Pale remix CDs. I wanted to buy the Diva Video Collection as well, but it was sold out! Sarah's #1 in Japan right now, and only a few days after Diva came out, it's already Gold on the Japan pop charts!

EVEN BETTER, she's coming to Japan next weekend, and will be at Tokyo Ginza's Yamano record store. I really want to go, but I hope baine can come with me. It'll depend on trains and other transportation, since she's not exactly anywhere near Tokyo.

As for how Sarah Brightman relates to WDKY and its sequels, well, it was inspirational to me, too. Very much so, in fact, so I can't thank guardian_kysra enough for introducing me to her. Now I'm a Sarah Brightman junkie. :) I want to find more of her CDs, especially the Asian-only release ones, which contain special tracks not found anywhere else! I was very tempted to buy the Japanese Harem Ultimate Edition CD I found today, but I resisted, since it only had 2 bonus tracks-- the rest I had from my own Harem CD (except "You Take My Breath Away," which was the US bonus track).

Speaking of WDKY, I wrote more of it-- er, this morning? Yesterday morning? I'm losing track of time because it's a 4-day weekend and I'm planning on sleeping in, even if there is a school festival. Let's just hope the festival doesn't wake ME up! I'm almost done, and once I am, I'll shoot it to Kysra and Atlantis, whom I expect will chew it apart and spit it back out like the gristle from KFC's would-be chicken. I'm looking forward to it. *bows to the masters*

I even heard from Scott today-- via email, of all things. His contacting me was the perfect finish to a very good day spent out eating and shopping with a friend. If I can polish off WDKY25, get some other random things done, and finish all my work, I will be happy that I have accomplished something this weekend-- even if working sort of defeats the purpose of a weekend. I spend all week looking forward to it, but at least we have another long weekend NEXT weekend, when I hope to meet up with Baine. :)