( Spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth )

So when I saw all the people on Twitter tagging Ianto in their tweets in the hopes that it would sway the writers, I thought it was silly and actually found it a little annoying. Then I saw references I didn't understand, did some research and went to the website, and discovered that it is NOT just a bunch of crazy fans tweeting for nothing. They've raised a ton of money for the charity Children in Need, and that's pretty cool regardless of the likelihood of their influencing Torchwood. So I'm back on their side, I think it would be AWESOME if they succeed or it turns out RTD was just messing w/us and really did plan all along to bring him back, but mostly I just think it's great that they've created this much of a response. It may be just a TV show and a fictional character, but the good that will come from their fundraising is real and important.

If you want to help them out and donate to Children in Need, click here.

This is probably obvious to most people, but is something I forget a lot: Making your own clothes is cheaper than buying! :D And it lets you change the design/fabric/whatever a bit so your clothes are more unique and can be done to fit your style.

Last week I decided I really wanted a boyfriend blazer. They're pretty. I went looking for them, and MAN. Expensive! So I looked on the main companies I usually go to for patterns (McCall's/Butterick's and Simplicity), but they didn't have any. So I googled it. Know what I found? The "boyfriend blazer" is basically a remake of the style of women's blazers that was cool in the '90s when people liked baggy clothing and thought it looked professional (hey I don't make the rules). I got a pattern from 1993 for $4.99 from some awesome person who sells crafty things including old patterns. She had a lot of awesome ones from I think around the same time, but mostly not in my size. But I got this one! I hate the way the lady on the pattern package wears it (90s style, ick. Of course, they'll say the same thing about us in 20 years), but it really IS a boyfriend blazer! Same exact style, I just checked it against the ones being sold at Lane Bryant for $80.

So yeah. I learned being creative and doing some minor google research pays off. And I will have my blazer soon. Woo!

I also looked up one of my old teachers the other day. :) She was really cool, and had an amazing voice and I knew she had done a few CDs. I found them and bought the one I liked the best. I'll have to get the other later, but I'm on a budget and really shouldn't even have bought the one, but oh well. It's good and has joined my playlist of finals-helping music. :)

I am on a short break because I finished my first assignment and it seemed like a good time for one. Now I have to finish one more paper tonight, have a test tomorrow at noon, and have to finish my second paper by midnight tomorrow. After that, things get considerably easier. One very simple paper due Thursday, I can probably finish it in about 2 hours. Then I go home! :D So very glad the semester is over.

I've been having these headaches, very inconvenient especially during finals week. It's my wisdom teeth, and it's getting worse and more often, so I know I need to get them out really soon. I hope I can get them out while I'm home on this break, but I forgot to get my dentist's number on my last visit so I can't call for an appointment till I get there and that might be too late. Grr. Ah well, I'll hope for the best.

Time to get back to work. Later guys.

I love this clip from Justice League Unlimited. I really need to see the whole episode. I think I'm gonna be Trickster for Halloween next year.



Trickster- I'm fiiine. Wanna throw some darts?
Flash- :( No.

:D I just love Flash's facial expressions.

Desperately trying to finish my final papers in time. If I succeed, I will reward myself with (along with good grades) this hair dye: http://www.clairol.com/cem/index-C.jsp#/product/94 I've been wanting pink or purple hair for awhile now. I think that shade will be pretty. So far one of my friends says it's hideous, one friend says its pretty, and one friend just laughed. Ah well.

Months ago, my roommate and I put Twilight on hold from the library. The long line of fangirls have finally finished it, I guess, because she came home w/it last night. I had far too much studying to do to take time out of my schedule to watch movies, but...it's Twilight. I've been wanting to see it ever since my little sister (who loves the books) saw it in theaters and told me about Jackson's scary hair and angry-deer-in-headlights gaze. So I took a homework break.

Either it gets better as it goes on, or your brain starts to rot and your quality meter goes down. Because I know that at the start of the movie I couldn't stop laughing and just couldn't believe it could really be THIS bad. Then towards the end of the movie, it wasn't GOOD by any means, but I stopped thinking it was so stupid and was actually watching and almost enjoying it. Right around the vampire-baseball, I was wondering "Man, this is still going?? How much longer?" And I thought I remembered that being not all that far into the book, but apparently it was pretty well the end of the movie, because as soon as I voiced those thoughts to my friend, oh look, we're running away from/towards James. (I wasn't paying enough attention and don't remember the book, and this confuses me.) My roommate and I started having several arguments about whether or not the movie followed the book, because we both remember it differently. *shrugs*

Then when we stopped arguing and looked back at the screen, Bella was in a hospital bed. Groovy. And then it got BAD again. "OMG DON'T LEAVE ME I WILL DIIIIIIEEEEEEE" And I know that's canon, but wow. Actually, looking back, I think this was worse/more noticeable in the movie because it's so much shorter and a lot's cut out. You don't get to see Bella's thoughts, and so it's like "What, already? You just met him, calm down. There will be other boys." You don't get all the build up of her falling in love and w/o knowing the book and it's whole pre-destined one-person-for-everyone true-love plotline, it just looks like she's desperate and creepy. Luckily, she's dating a stalker, so that works and they can have a psychotic co-dependent relationship together. Yay!

Anyway. Fun night. Bad movie. Not as awesomely bad as Snakes on a Plane. Worse because it takes itself seriously and so do an unfortunate number of its fans...at least SoaP KNOWS it's stupid and got to have some fun with it.

Oh, one random strange (yet unsurprising) point. So my other 2 roommates watched the movie with us but hadn't read the books and didn't know anything about it. I think they were wondering why I kept cackling. But they asked questions like "So girls read this because they want a stalker?" and asking why characters did things. About 1/3 of my answers were joking and stupid (but I still hold that they're no stupider than the real answers), and when the rest of the time I gave REAL answers, they didn't know if I was joking! They'd look at me like "Ok, your snark is not that great and is getting old and dumb. What's the real answer?" and I'd be like "No, THAT one was from the book." :D I think it says something that they can't tell the difference, and I'm reminded of a quote I saw somewhere once (don't remember where. Might have been Cleolinda? or Etimodnar? Sounds like something either would say.): "Twilight means never having to say you're kidding." I should have remembered that and given only serious answers from the beginning.

I got linked to this collaborative music project, by Ashton Kutcher of all people (seriously, he's awesome and I know he's actually smart, but I just see Kelso. Also, because I just saw how that reads, I mean he gave the link, not he did the project.). It's incredibly cool and fun and sometimes beautiful. At some points it's awkward, if you're like me and start them all at random times w/space inbetween. Lots of quiet and sort of clashy noises sometimes. But then it gets really cool w/all the different layers and I lost track of what was coming from where. And then the spoken part started.

Oh, the poem. It's beautiful and I love it and I love the way it's spoken (not sure if that's the writer or just someone reading it) and it makes me happy. You can see just the poem/spoken part here. And see the words.

The writer is Daniel Donahoo and he has a website and some books that you can see there, along with another cool project, a 360-degree webcam/blog project that I really wish I could participate in, but I have no camera.

Anyway, check it out. I'm going to bed. Lots and lots and lots of writing to do in the next several days. I probably shouldn't even be posting on blogs at all, but I had to. I just would have been thinking about it until I got to anyway. :D

Yay, weird college schedules. :D I worked my classes so 3/5 of them happen on Tuesday. 2 on Wednesday. And then a short class on Thursday (it's broken up so half is on Tuesday and half on Thursday). So I've had more than half my week by Thursday night. But this week my afternoon class got cancelled and my noonish class was a test that was hard enough she gave us the whole class time for it(usually we get about half). It didn't actually take all that long to finish, it actually took me about half our class time, where I'm usually done in about 5-10 minutes. So I came home 3 hours early and have been LAZY. :D Well, more like I've been in fun-mode. I've been active, just not doing schoolwork or anything actually productive. I've been talking to my roommate about Doctor Who and Fanfiction.net, listening to music on last.fm, and making fun plans for the rest of the week. Woohoo!

I have to start working soon, though. I have a whole book to read by noon tomorrow, and I have to have something resembling a final paper proposal by then. And I lost the book. :D Go me.

For now, though, I'm having fun. I can be serious after dinner.

The test was alright. I am disappointed because there were a few things I just COULD NOT figure out during the test and finally gave up on, then after the test when I was talking about it w/2 others who had the same problem, everything clicked and the translation made perfect sense. (Oh, it's Greek class the test was in.)

I am listening to screamy music and whiny-punk music. It is fun and bouncy. Not what I had in mind when I put PatD and Tegan & Sara in the artist list, but cool! :D Last.fm knows my moods better than I do, apparently. I'm sure the fact that I put My Chemical Romance as the 3rd artist has an effect on that, but still. 1 out of 3 artists, yet this is all I get. Ah well. Clearly they read my mind and realized I don't really want Panic, I just think I do.

Hey, my other roommate's back! I'm gonna go make sure she likes chili so I can order delicious bean soups from a charity company I like. Although, I think I will order some whether she likes it or not. They are so yummy and good for winter. If she doesn't like them, me and my other roommates will eat them and she can do something else.

YAY, Last.fm DOES read my mind! Just started playing Cobra Starship's "The City is at War", and I am super-giddy. Although, the first time I heard this song was a mashup on Blip.fm so I keep wanting Rogue Trader's "Watching You" to play and it's not happening. :D I actually like the mashup better, but both songs are good by themselves as well. I wish I knew if there was a way to find and buy that mashup, it's brilliant really.

I've been an occasional vegetarian since I was about 12. It never lasts long, because when I'm with my parents my mom makes me eat meat, when I'm living with roommates and we have common meals I feel like I shouldn't dictate what we have too much, and in general I don't really know how to get all the protein and vitamins and whatever else I need on a student budget.

My newest roommate is a healthy eater who used to be a vegetarian, so she's been making some delicious and healthy meals that have made me more interested in giving it another try. It's so nice having someone else around who's not afraid of things like spaghetti squash and hummus and tofu. And then we had a professor over for dinner the other night, and the two of them were talking about being vegetarians and reassured me it is doable. So now me and the new roommate are going to try to introduce more vegetarian meals to our other roommates and/or do some meals for just the two of us so we don't have to worry about them. Is good.

But I'm still new and still figuring things out, and for right now seem to be doing the same things. The past two weeks, I've been eating eggs for breakfast and cottage cheese and salad for lunch every day, with fruit or nuts for snacks. I still like it, and I tend to be able to eat the same things over and over for quite awhile, but more variety would be nice. I spent some time yesterday looking up veggie protein sources, and that's a start, but I'd really appreciate any tips on good ways to eat healthy and yummy w/o meat. Any ideas? Thanks!

I think I first heard/read about a possible remake or sequel of Ferris Bueller's Day Off sometime last year, and was completely horrified. So was my sister, yet for some reason tonight we wound up talking about it again. We started jokingly suggesting a cast for it, and we both wound up on Zac Efron as Ferris, which led me to my ultimate best worst casting idea...that somehow led to us both jumping on the idea and coming up w/our dream cast by accident, and now I really really really want to see this movie. :D

Huh. I went into a bit more detail than I thought I would, so I'll put it behind a cut. ( Here's our suggestions: )

Or, short version (actors in order of preference):
Ferris - Zac Efron, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Penn Badgley, or Rajiv Surendra
Cameron - Christopher Mintz-Plasse or Michael Cera
Sloane - Amanda Bynes or Kat Dennings
Jeanie - Megan Fox, Amanda Bynes, or Kat Dennings
Rooney - Jane Lynch
Grace - Betty White
Parents - Tina Fey and Neil Flynn, or cameos from the original movie actors.
Boy in Police Station - Daniel Radcliffe
Garage Attendant - Casey Affleck

EDIT - Future Ferris!: The same friend who suggested Rajiv Surendra also pointed out that if a remake is done, it will likely be when the actors I suggested here will mostly be too old. This in mind, his choice for Ferris is Noah Gray-Cabey. Cute! In which case, I suggest Parker McKenna Posey as Janie. Those two had good chemistry on My Wife and Kids, I'd like to see them working together again. Also, Abigail Breslin as Sloane. She'd have been my top choice in the first place if she wasn't so young, so a younger cast works. :D Um, I don't know of many other child actors. One of the Zack and Cody kids for Cameron. Or something.

Ok, back in this entry, I was talking about "The Gospel According to Twilight" (which, by the way, I found some thoughts on at a few websites that I haven't listened to yet, but no book yet), and also my annoyance with religious people who haven't read it screaming "evil!". So, today we have the first part of that, in which I will argue back at the criticisms, and hopefully soon part 2, where I will talk about theological/moral/religious issues in Twilight.

I think everyone who pays attention to my journal knows I love Twilight in a "wow, this is messed up, let us giggle" sort of way, not a "ZOMG TWILIGHT HAVE YOU READ IT YET? WHY NOT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" or an "I WISH EDWARD WAS REAL AND WOULD BITE ME!" kinda way. So if you wanna criticize the creepy stalker aspect of Twilight, groovy, I'm with you. Just also criticize every romantic comedy where at the end the couple realize that this person who has treated them horribly all the way through is really the perfect person for them and they are in LOVE, so they should drop everything and run to them for a life of bickering and possible abuse. Rah.

What I don't like is people who haven't read it and just know bits and pieces of it from hearing people who HAVE read it making accusations that just aren't justifiable, and then yelling at people who read it. Not nice. Or smart. Just doesn't do much for their position in general. So, moving on...

It has vampires in it!
Yeah, so? Narnia has unicorns. Mythical creatures, mythical creatures. Can we move on?

No, but vampires are bad!
They are? Not really. Maybe in a few movies/books/shows where they are the bad guys and get fought off. In quite a bit of entertainment, they are people with ISSUES who have to overcome them to be better people. You know, like every human has to fight off their darker impulses, and like people in almost every religion I know of are supposed to strive to be better than they are naturally.

But vampires are demons! Demons can't NOT be evil!
Ok, what's a demon? Do you even know? Because I don't. It doesn't say anywhere for certain, there are different views in different cultures, and taking the one I grew up with (so the one I assume is common in conservative Christian churches, though I could be wrong), they are angels who went bad. If an angel can go bad, why can't a fallen angel go good? See, there's this thing called repentance, where when creatures who were good do something bad they can admit that and be sorry and come back and God will forgive them. Groovy.

But beyond that, vampires aren't demons, necessarily. Don't put Buffyverse on the whole rest of vampire lore. And yeah, I'm sure that's not the only series that said they were demons, but definitely not all do. And in terms of Twilight, that seems to be how Edward sees himself, but he is proven to be wrong on a LOT throughout Twilight. Basically he's just a whiny self-hating pessimist who will only see himself and his kind in the worst possible way. What vampires actually SEEM to be in Twilight, is people infected with an illness. They get venom/spit injected into them, and just like rabies will make you go crazy and attack people, that's what happens to them. Crazy illness that makes them crave BLOOD and live a long time. But, luckily, they retain sanity and the illness fades a bit over time so that sanity can take over again, and they CAN resist the illness and stop themselves from getting too carried away, with lots and lots of work. I think we can all agree that if rabid animals could stop themselves from biting us, we would want them to. Yay!

Edward's reasoning for not sleeping with Bella is that he thinks he will go to Hell if he breaks the commandments. Being saved isn't about what you do, it's about God forgiving you!
And yet you had a problem with Edward being forgiven? Ok, I'll be fair, maybe these are not the same people who had that criticism, I can't remember. Anyway. Who gets to decide what "being saved" means? That's not even an idea most faiths have. Everything that doesn't fit your point of view on that has to be banned? But hey, maybe this is really just saying that people who do believe this would prefer they and their children didn't read stuff that teaches something other than their faith, I can see that. But Twilight DOESN'T teach that. Again, Edward is wrong a lot. No one else seems to take him very seriously when he says this stuff. So, relax, you can still tell your daughters that if a boy ever says he won't sleep with her because he doesn't want her to go to hell, he doesn't know what he's talking about and she should jump in bed with him anyway. Wait, was that not the lesson you were getting at there?

Also, if it HAD actually taught that, this is something you can talk over with your children! No, you shouldn't just read and accept things that teach something you don't believe. You should never just read and accept ANYTHING! But you don't have to ban it, either. Read it if you want, discuss it, have an understanding about what other views are out there and why you believe what you do, so that when your kid goes off to college and finds out the whole world isn't like your house and church, s/he won't be confused by other ideas and think everything s/he encounters is true because that's how it worked at home!

But they're still disobeying her dad by REALLY sleeping (the zzz kind) together every night through 5 blankets. He probably wouldn't like that she had a boy in her room. And then they lie to him after she is turned.
Yeah, they do. And that's bad. And is another think you should DISCUSS with your children, rather than hiding it and pretending the world is a perfect place and no one ever does anything you disagree with.

Bella wants to become a vampire. That's like embracing evil and choosing to hurt people.
Yeah, you know how we said Edward is wrong a lot? And also dangerous and stalkery? Well, Bella's crazy enough to LIKE that. She's not exactly a role model. And she doesn't have to be. Bad example characters can be as useful as good example characters. TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN. Are we sensing a theme here yet? Maybe?

What about that birth scene? Why would she be so devoted to a monster that's going to rip her apart? And do I really want my kids reading something that...gory?
Have you read the Bible lately? If you see your kids reading it, do you follow them around making sure they're not reading the sexy parts, or the violent parts, or the gross parts? That's sort of a part of life. You don't have to hide it, just deal with it and talk about it. And in case you didn't know? Birth is messy. And painful. No one WANTS to go through that. But, Bella LOVES her baby and doesn't feel the pain and grossness are enough that she should give it up. So, if by some crazy unseen circumstances while your daughter is "out with friends" that you know are totally innocent and trustworthy because you never let her see anything less than that, she becomes pregnant, she might not immediately jump to "OH THIS IS GOING TO HURT AND BE YUCKY, I SHOULD GET AN ABORTION!" She might think about it being her child, and that you went through that process to have her, and it might be worth it.

I think that's all I've got. At the least, it's all I've got right now, because I told myself that I would finally stop being lazy and get dressed at 10:30. Please excuse the sarcasm. See ya.

I was home visiting my family last week. It went well, it was nice seeing them and there was very minimal fighting, so yay. My sister and I got along really well and spent a lot of time together. And my mom gave me an early birthday present, some shiny new outfits so I can look all professional and stop wearing t-shirts all the time. They're very pretty. And my sister finally approves of my taste in clothing, because I finally willed myself to be content to just look at the cool t-shirts and not buy any even though there was a sort of cool Marvel one and also Mountain Dew (I LOVE MOUNTAIN DEW!!), and instead looked at pretty femme blouses. Aw, I went and growed up.

I went to the dentist while I was home, FINALLY, because my wisdom teeth have been coming in and causing me quite a bit of pain for the past 3 years, but I have been too scared to go get it checked out. I still didn't get them pulled, but I will on my next trip home. And the dentist was AWESOME, not scary and sadistic like my old dentist. It barely hurt at all, even getting 3 fillings, and still the dentist was very careful and kept checking to make sure I was ok. Honestly, the most painful thing about it was the noise the tools make, what is with that? Can't someone make dentist tools that don't sound like nails on a chalkboard? But meh, whatever. If that's the worst thing about a trip to the dentist I'll take it happily. :)

Random interesting-ish note about my trip to the dentist... I thought it was my first ever filling, my mom insisted I had had one before. When I get there and actually get it done, I realize why: My old dentist LIED TO ME. The fillings were exactly the same process as what the old dentist did when she told me she was just going to "paint a cap on my tooth" to prevent it from losing enamel or something. It was apparently a shallow enough cavity that I wouldn't feel any pain, so she didn't bother to tell me I had one. In her defense, I was the type of patient as a kid who screamed like crazy and kicked shins, so I understand her not wanting to freak me out w/the cavity, but still. Dishonest. I TOLD mom that doctor was not trustworthy.

So, roommates. I don't remember what I've talked about on here before, so I'll do a short summary. I used to live on campus, but this summer a couple (3) friends convinced me to move off-campus because it would be cheaper and better. I was nervous, but they promised me things would be ok, they would make sure I always had a ride to campus, and it would be just the 4 of us and we all knew each other, so we wouldn't have typical roommate problems that happen when you live with strangers.

About a month ago, one of those 3 informed us she was getting married and moving out. I was MAD. And wouldn't really talk to her for a few weeks. Bad situation. Especially since we couldn't find another roommate we knew and I didn't want to live with someone we didn't. I mean, that's the whole reason I agreed to move here in the first place. Just last week, while I was home, we found another roommate, someone we knew but not so well. But enough that I was ok with it. So she's here now, and things seem to be going good. It's awkward, because ya know, new people, finding a rhythm, not wanting to look weird for the nice stranger. But I think hopefully we'll get it figured out and it will be good. The new roommate is nice, and cooks yummy healthy veggie food, so already I'm liking her if only because it's such a nice change from how the other two eat and makes it easier for me to eat like I'm used to at home. Fresh food/veggies can get expensive and I always felt guilty asking for it when I was the only one who ate that way, since we share grocery costs.

I'm not used to living with people, though. I'm not very good at it. People get on my nerves. All 3 of the original roommates have made me furious at some point since we got here, and at other times have at least gotten on my nerves. I'm trying really hard to stop being a jerk and just get over it, in general I do prefer this situation. It's nice having other people to talk to most of the time, I used to just hide out in my room and never see anyone, it got really lonely and depressing sometimes. So I like this. On the other hand...I get sick of people barging into my room, judging me if I eat something after dinner, criticizing my mannerisms and habits. My schedule doesn't match everyone else's, I don't get up early enough most mornings to eat breakfast, and I stay awake till 2-4AM, so my meals are all one off. So occasionally I'll get really hungry around 9 or 10, and want to eat my "dinner". My one roommate always gives me this look and sometimes says something like "You're eating again?" I'm the heaviest of my roommates by quite a bit, now that the one left. And I know that part of that is probably how I eat. But on the other hand, since I don't eat breakfast and snacks like the rest do, I'm actually eating less calories than the others. So I get hungry. And I don't need a skinny little girl who eats dessert 5 times a day and never gains an ounce telling me that I just don't know any better and must be eating 'cause I'm bored. I've been fat most of my life, I've been to nutritionists, I've been trained enough that I DO know my body and I know when I'm hungry and when I'm not, and I won't eat when I'm not. But I'm too self-conscious and don't want people to think I'm a pig, so now I'm shut up in my room again, listening to my stomach growling at me and feeling light-headed, and I won't just go get food because I know she'll make me feel rotten if I do. I'm so sick of her know-it-all attitude. Everything I say, it's like I don't know what I'm talking about. If we disagree on any topic, she takes on this irritating tone like she's right and I'm just a cute little kid who hasn't figured things out yet.

And this is my favorite roommate.

I don't know what to do about it. Maybe everyone gets frustrated w/people like this, it's just a side effect of suddenly living with people 24/7? I know my sister and I fight if we spend too much time together (like 2 days constantly around each other usually does it), I guess that is probably about how much time it takes here, only it just keeps building up because since they're not family I can't fight with my roommates, so I just yell at them in my head and it never gets expressed. I adore them, I really do. They are so great, and I love spending time with all of them. I guess maybe I should just look at this like family squabbles, shut myself in my room and scream into the pillow or blog or pen-journal or whatever, or even learn to tell them though I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, and go back to being close again. It's just not something I've gotten in the habit of doing with people I'm not related to.

Argh. I think I've whined enough for tonight. I'm trying to come up with happier topics to balance it out, but I think this is already a long entry and anyway, I'm not in that kind of a mood tonight. I'll be back with happy thoughts later this week. Night, everybody.