Hello, LJ-land! I am about to run off to class, but I have just found out that I need to raise my synthroid dosage (again!) so I'm annoyed, and therefore I would like to announce and demonstrate that I look awesome today:

( As shown here. )

AND NOW CLASS.

Except one other thing: it's like sixty degrees outside! What the fuck is this, December?

I felt bad. And then I started writing something! Now I feel less bad.

I also baked a cake. It fell apart when I went to take it out of the pan, but it's still completely delicious. Which is good, because man, that cake was pretty serious about breaking into little pieces.

There is technically a project for Genetics that I need to be doing right now, but it involves Power Point, and I hate doing Power Point things, and also presentations of this kind in general. Well, tough, right? I'll just have to deal with it. Or I could watch New Moon online, which will not involve giving horrible, horrible Stephenie Meyer or any of the horrible, horrible people who decided to make her horrible, horrible books into marginally less horrible movies any more money.

Or I could babble about that thing I've started writing! -- it's even topical. Sort of. Somehow my brain has concocted a story inspired in roughly equal parts by Criminal Minds, Twilight, and clever people making fun of Twilight. ...I think Silence of the Lambs probably got in there somewhere along the line, but that's probably unavoidable. I kind of just dove right into the writing, not really knowing where I was going with it, so this might turn out to be fun. Or I might give up on it in a couple of thousand words, one or the other.

In conclusion, I still feel kind of gross (and should therefore stop eating cake) and I want the semester to be over!

Also I would like it to snow. If it's going to be cold anyway, it may as well be snowing.

...so naturally, when I'm supposed to fly out of here, I'm going to get snowed in. That's the only way this can possibly work, because I'm complaining about not having snow. Ugh.

Great, even the TV is reminding me that I need to find an endocrinologist. Yes, I know they don't give you thyroid meds over the counter, damn it. I know.

Unfortunately, it's Thanksgiving, so everything is closed. But tomorrow I will schedule an appointment for next week. I really will.

Ahem. In other news: Roger Ebert writes limericks AND IS AWESOME.

I spent around twelve hours doing Logic homework yesterday. I just thought you should all be aware of this. My brain is oozing quantifiers. The TA used an analogy to explain something today that led to a part of my notes looking something like this:

∃x SerialKiller(x)
[other premises here]
--
assume SerialKiller(unsub)
[clever use of other premises here]
--
[∃x elimination here for the win!]

Because my brain is infected, and also quantifiers suck. A lot. ...properly speaking you'd in all likelihood need some identity introduction to make that work out right in practice, but I don't care.

I wish the textbook writers weren't evil. There was an exercise that took ages and ages and required six different variables to translate, and in the end the whole point was to teach us that natural language is weird. Christ on a cracker, textbook writers, I knew that, I'm a linguist.

Anyway, in light of the fact that I spent twelve hours on Logic homework, Criminal Minds people on my f-list, IS THERE GOOD FANFICTION IN YOUR FANDOM?

A cursory examination suggests not, but often that is the case when one doesn't know where to look. Help?

--

I have however planned out my Yuletide fic, and it is going to be epic, and also I've almost finished today's New York Times crossword, no, don't tell me that it's Monday, that will make me sad.

So I get caught up with Criminal Minds at last, and now this is the episode I have to wait another week for? What kind of timing is this.

It could have been worse, though! I could have decided to watch between the fourth and fifth seasons! And then I could have died.

I have nothing productive to say, clearly.

My grandmother has decided that she's going to see RENT, which strikes me as a terrible idea, but there's not much to be done since she's already bought her ticket. She's taking all her little old lady friends with her. Oh my god. The world is going to end.

-- or, who knows, I might be wrong, and she might have Hidden Depths. It's not very likely, though.

I made apple cider yesterday. This was awesome. Then I put too much cinnamon in it, which was not awesome. Lesson learned for the future, at any rate!

And there's a month left of the semester! And I'm graduating in May! And I have no idea what I'm going to do! Hurrah, looming future of doom!

Well, that's my Yuletide assignment in! Time to wallow in the canon again.

In light of that, seeing as I need to get my request-writing mojo going, drabbles are being offered. I will write pretty much anything you have ever seen me mention on this journal, in any combination, crossovers more than welcome. Come on, people, hit me.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

( Exactly one person will care about this, thus: a cut. )

So, NaNo is just not happening this year, thank you Criminal Minds. (About which I have very few Thoughts but a whole lot of Feelings.)

Actually, that's not really fair. It's not happening because I want to go back and write everything else I've ever written some more, which means the actual NaNo, whose characters I'm not all that attached to yet, just get shunted aside.

I've baked some banana bread. This is actually attempt number three. The first one didn't bake all the way through, the second didn't rise but was still edible. This one both baked through and rose. It's pretty delicious, and wonderfully moist. It's kind of burnt on the bottom, which is unfortunate, but hardly a disaster. I have no idea why I can apparently bake everything else ever, but banana bread just hates me.

My roommate seems to be missing. This is kind of making freak out, thank you again Criminal Minds. However, as everyone has been pointing out to me, she's probably just decided to stay with her parents a few extra days. Everything will be fine!

I spent my entire Genetics lab explaining DNA sequencing to my classmates. Dear god. At least now I would probably be able to do it myself if given access to a lab! That's got to be something, right? ... Also I will probably kick ass on the midterm tomorrow.

So, NaNo has started, and I'm muddling my way through. (One bit up at goodwillsecrets) Unfortunately, I'm also muddling my way through Criminal Minds, which means that my time for other things is a little bit limited. Oops.

Picture of me being Desire for Halloween:



Contrary to my fears, new roommate is delightful. And I made French onion soup yesterday, which is delightful too. And that's good, because I have nearly a gallon of it now.

--

And now, one of my favorite memes, questions care of viorica8957

Leave me a comment saying "Pick me!"
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

( Questions and answers below. )

You see that? You know what that is? That is a loaf of whole wheat bread -- still warm out of the oven! -- that I baked.



It's delicious. Which is a little surprising considering how intent on sticking to my counter it was at first, and how I almost went mad with impatience waiting for it to rise. But I did it (with a little help from Sudoku)! I baked bread! It's awesome! I will never starve!

--

It's almost NaNoWriMo time! I am totally pumped. I just want Sunday to get here already. In the meantime, I'll have to do my Logic homework, and then agonize about next semesters classes a little. I thought I was certain about everything! But now I am certain of exactly nothing. That is kind of tragic.

Oh, god. It's less than a week before the start of NaNo, and I've gone and re-read what I had of Silicon Dreams. That would be last year's NaNo, for those of you who weren't with me. It is, to the exclusion of possibly one or two small and self-enclosed pieces of fanfiction, my absolute favorite thing that I have ever written. I do not even love Coordinate Your Realities as much as I love Silicon Dreams. Hell, I don't even love Grace that much, and I've spent the last seven years laboring over it.

So naturally, today, instead of continuing to plan this year's NaNo, I finally got around to unblocking myself on the place where I got blocked in Silicon Dreams. Go me. I mean, maybe all is not lost, since I did realize that something I'd thought I had totally made up my mind on later in the plot wasn't certain at all, so even if I did keep going I would be all blocked up again in a few thousand words.

Anyway. My point is that I'm silly. Also I am waiting for Yuletide signups to open. And waiting. And waiting and waiting. (I will get my Dalemark story this year, damn it! My very own Dalemark story!)

I went to Halloween Party #1 tonight! It was awesome. Lot of fun.

Got home, found a ton of stuff dumped all over the place. Turns out NYU housing, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to give me a roommate after all! Without telling me about it! And this roommate? Decided to move in on a Saturday night! Except not really, because all she did was dump a bunch of junk, write a note, and leave. The note? Its salient points are: "I'll be back next weekend. I'm kind of a neat freak, please clean this place up!"

So now I'm... upset all out of proportion with it (especially since, aside from my freshly-done laundry on the bed and half a sink of dishes, my room was totally clean until she messed it up). And I may or may not be staying up all night because I haven't done it in a while and it's a fun feeling, for about half an hour after sunrise, until it catches up with you. So -- entertain me!

Suggested topics:

(1) How last night's episode of Dollhouse was breathtaking and how I love Topher.
(2) What you're doing for your NaNo, and where I can read it.
(3) How White Collar is already totally awesome, and how it had better keep on getting even more awesome.
(4) How if [spoiler goes here] is dead, FlashForward and I are done professionally.

Today I finished assembling my Halloween costume. I'm going to be -- wait for it -- Desire of the Endless. There will almost certainly be pictures.

I also baked some lemon-blueberry bread. This was delicious. Is delicious, rather. I've only managed to eat half of it so far. It ended up unglazed, because I accidentally caramelized my glaze. Yeah, you heard me. I made extremely acidic, lemony caramel. By accident.

Next weekend: real bread. With yeast. Yeast makes me unaccountably nervous. It's like an especially bizarre phobia. Hurrah.

The important part of this post! I wrote a bit of backstory for my upcoming NaNo. It's right here! It was fun! I love backstory!

One whole midterm down! The Logic midterm is going to be a bitch, but at least it isn't 'til November. For now, I have to worry about my somewhat impossible Evolution of Intellectual Complexity midterm. (And boy, am I ever wishing I hadn't decided to take this class. Too late now, I suppose.)

It has been pretty horrendously cold and damp lately. I've been making up for it by baking stuff. Yesterday I made scones. As scones, they're not particular good, but as crumbly, execssively crusty triangular bread, they're entirely serviceable. Anyway.

--

NaNoWriMo is coming up. I have a journal for it and everything: goodwillsecrets

I've decided, therefore, to do one of my favorite memes. The character development one. Audience participation encouraged. Well, required. Well.

1. Pick one or more of my characters, which are oh so conveniently located below

2. Pick 5 numbers from 1 to 100.

3. The numbers will correspond to the 100 Most Important Things To Know About Your Character. I will answer the corresponding questions from the point of view of the character(s).

4. You can also totally ask me anything you want, even if it isn't on that list.

5. Feel free to return and pick 5 more numbers after I’ve replied to you.

My main and main-ish characters are as follows:

CAPTAIN BARKER, a Privateer Captain
MISS REED, her Second-in-Command
ALEC, a Youthful Hanger-On
LUCIA, a Professor
EDMOND, a Doctor
TAMSIN and ORLI, Twins, Combat Experts
MARIAN, an Engineer

YOU GUYS.

I CAN MAKE CREPES.

THEY WERE PERFECT AND ROUND AND AWESOME AND I FLIPPED THEM AND EVERYTHING.

...and then I ate them all without taking pictures because they were also fucking delicious.

In short? Culinary win.

Aside from that, I have been huddling in corners and around the stove, trying to get warm. NYU Housing still hasn't turned on our heaters. We're getting down to the mid-forties tonight... that should be exciting. At least the cold means the smell of the next door people smoking weed doesn't carry as strongly.

My puzzle is also going quite well.

...and then I read four books in as many days, and all was right with the world.

Actually, since the last two I read were Havemercy and (its sequel) Shadow Magic, let me just note for the record that the latter is a couple of order of magnitudes better, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a little infatuated with Caius Greylace. I swear. I have thought this through and everything.

(The other two were The Remains of the Day (♥) and Odd and the Frost Giants (♥ ♥).)

The fact of the matter is that since about a week ago I carried every last book I own up four flights of stairs, I'm officially not allowed to buy any more books. Since I made that resolution, predictably, I've bought ... three books. Oh, well.

--

Anyway, I've had some culinary adventures!

On Friday I made lemon poppy seed muffins. I discovered that you can find poppy seeds with the spices, not with the grains, or the nuts, as various helpful grocery store employees (in four different grocery stores!) attempted to convince me. I also discovered that things just work better if you melt the butter first (although they're more amusingly messy if you don't), that you can get four tablespoons of juice out of a good-sized lemon, that while measuring out vinegar with the same spoon you just used to measure out baking soda is a lot of fun you probably should just go ahead and buy baking powder already, and that whole wheat flour probably should not be used in the making of lemon poppy seed muffins.

And then I made an omelette:



It is a beautiful omelette, and it tasted wonderful. I even managed to flip it. All in one piece.

--

I also don't know what to be for Halloween, and it's kind of bugging me. Ideas, oh LJ-land?

So peridium tagged me for this handwriting meme, and seriously, I love showing off my handwriting, so here goes!

1. Write your username.
2. Write your 2 favourite bands/groups of the moment.
3. Write something you ♥, aka lemme see your heart.
4. Write the name of your favourite person of all time.
5. Write the name of your recent favoured person.
6. Tag 6 people to do this meme.

( And -- write! )

I've made a great deal of cookies over the past few days, and they have been amazing. I tell you people, those were some awesome cookies. Chocolate chip and hazelnut, totally from scratch.

I also got my books! There are so many of them! They're now absolutely everywhere. I'll have pictures of that as soon as I finish up decorating. By which I mean, when I finish my 2000-piece puzzle and hang it up.

I HAVE JUST ATTAINED A LIFE GOAL I NEVER KNEW I HAD:

CARE OF MY EVOLUTION OF INTELLECTUAL COMPLEXITY PROFESSOR, I AM OFFICIALLY THREE DEGREES OF SEPARATION AWAY FROM ALAN TURING.

(...and two from Noam Chomsky, but Chomsky can suck it.)

I also really miss being half a math major. Guys, remind me that I owe CitiBank an appalling amount of money and that I'm a senior and that I can't take another major now? I think I really need reminding.

And also, does anyone want anything written, because I'm in a writing sort of mood? Anyone? Anything?

My apartment -- it is far too well-appointed and wonderful to truly be called a dorm -- is the best apartment. Giant windows! Fire escape! Plenty of floor space! High ceilings! There's also that whole fifth floor walk-up aspect, but I'm okay with that now. So far. More or less.

Um, I've had all my classes now. They seem to be very thematic this semester, though that wasn't really by design. Genetics is so far proving to be just as much fun as anticipated, my utterly bizarre linguistics class is as utterly bizarre as anticipated (we watched bird mating dances in class today!), syntax is syntax, and Logic... well, we shall see.

Both of my linguistics classes are going to be in the beautiful! new! Linguistics Building! So that's something.

This being a senior thing still hasn't sunk in all the way, damn it.

It further appears that every last one of my finals is going to be on the same day. Happily, that day is all the way in December, so I don't actually have to start thinking about it just yet.

And now, mostly for my own benefit, ( some observations about the newish Honorverse book, Storm from the Shadows. )

It has been a while, hasn't it. I'm back from Miami exile now, though, so updates will probably increase apace.

I'm in Bobst Library at the moment. My mom's gone off to Boston and from there straight home. I'm kind of stuck out of my room until I think my roommate has woken up.

Well, actually, I'm stuck out of my room until they finish putting in a new carpet and fixing the ceiling leak. But I'm also, for the moment, stuck out of my temporary room. This is all going to be an exciting mess in a few weeks' time.

On the other hand, my proper room is a fifth-floor walk-up, and the roommate doesn't really seem to be morally up to that. Therefore, I may even end up living there alone. Since she's already requested a room change. I, on the other hand, am a Romantic, more or less, and therefore the thought of carrying all my books, bit by bit, up five flights of stairs, appeals to me on a very deep, starving-artist sort of level.

Not that I'm even starving, or even particularly poor. Between savings and checking, I appear to be worth nearly two-thousand (!) dollars.

Last night I went to see Phantom of the Opera. Seriously, you guys. You guys, seriously.

I've also been on a massive rereading campaign while in Miami: the Baroque Cycle, Nemesis, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and now Honorverse. Still on that last one. It's been taking a while, since I've been spending most of my time for the last few days running around.

Anyway. I need to buy still more things. In addition to the new bedding and new sneakers and new bag that I've already bought. K-Mart, here I come!

...and how has everyone else been?