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pigrescuer, otherwise known as 'the person from whom I steal all my memes'.01. Comment to this entry saying 'ICONS!' and I will pick 6 of your icons.
02. Make an entry in your own journal and talk about the icons I picked!
The picture is from the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice series, otherwise known as the One True Austen. It shows the youngest and silliest of the Bennett sisters, Lydia, doing what she does best. "A whole campful of soldiers! SQUEE!"
I use this icon to express fangirl-y glee. Or just general liking for something.
Made by
michaela0823and posted on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
book_icons.( Five more under the cut )
- Mood:
lazy - Music:Ooh, good idea! *goes to find a CD*
Since making my read-aloud chapter for sounis, I've been told that the New Zealand accent is odd - so here, my dear American/English flist people, is the answer. Presented for your perusal, the New Zealand Herald guide to translating Noo Zilland. I leave it to you all to decode. As always, click on the image to see it bigger (You need to read the text to get the joke).
It was a full-page advertisement I pulled out and hung on my wardrobe door. The Green Party stickers are incidental to the translation. :)
(Sorry, my attempts to post myself reading out the poster all failed because LJ has no voice-post service for NZ. Grrr.)
- Location:the happy place also known as the weekend
- Mood:
thoughtful - Music:Various native birds outside - ahh, spring.
Some of you wanted to know the answers to the Books meme a couple of days ago; well, here they are!
Before I reveal all, nobody guessed number 7. If anyone wants another crack at it, here's the extract, expanded to give more of a clue:
7. **** **** was working in the small kitchen garden by the Abbot's fishponds when the boy was first brought to him. It was hot August noon, and if he had had his proper quota of helpers they would all have been snoring in the shade at this hour, instead of sweating in the sun; but one of his regular assistants, not yet out of his novitiate, had thought better of the monastic vocation and taken himself off to join his older brother in arms on King Stephen's side, in the civil war for the crown of England, and the other had taken fright at the approach of the royal army because his family were of the Empress Maud's faction...
Am I really the only one who's read these books?
( Answers to all under the cut )
- Music:Red *wince*
So, the quite-flexible rules:
1. Pick
2. Post the first sentence of each book. (If one sentence seems too short, post two or three!)
3. Let everyone try to guess the titles and authors of your books!
1. The corridor was long, and it was a good place to pick up speed, but the stone floor was covered in rugs, and a rumple at this point could be fatal.
2. It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind.
3. **** sped on up the hill. Every now and again he bent to the ground. **** go light, and their footprints are not easy for even a **** to read, but not far from the top a spring crossed the path, and in the wet earth he saw what he was seeking.
4. My Dear ****, I note what you say about guiding our patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf?
( Number 5 through 12 )I expect some of these to go completely unanswered. And I tried to make the obvious ones less so, to make it more interesting, so... go to, guys!
PS: For those that are from series or sequences of books, extra credit for guessing the specific book/segment!
PPS: Anyone who gets number 11 wins an internet.
- Mood:
chipper - Music:The Great New Zealand Songbook - Dominion Road
The sign reads: "Notice: To the person who thought it was a good idea to smash our real estate sign (it cost me $120.00) You are an IDIOT. Idiot n. 1. A person with severe mental retardation (Collins Shorter Dictionary 1993)"
I laughed a lot.
(Click on photo for a larger version)
- Mood:
content - Music:High School Musical 2 (um, yeah...)
Quick! Everyone run around like headless chickens!
(animation shamelessly stolen from Checkers, who I think stole it equally shamelessly from Emmaco...)
Quick background for foreigners (aka 90% of my flist): Maori, otherwise known as Te Reo, is the language of New Zealand's native Maori people. As a direct result of European governance since 1840, the language came very close to extinction in the first half of the 20th Century and is only recently gaining some ground. Stats say about 130,000 of Maori adults can converse about everyday things, but only 18,000 speakers are 'fluent'. Maori Language Week is a government initiative and has been running since the 1970s.
So, understandably, the Maori Dept. at Uni has been going berserk ALL WEEK doing stuff to promote my favourite second language, in the hopes that MOAR PEOPLE WILL SPEAK IT ONE DAY. As a FIRST language even.*
Fun activities for the week included a faculty-wide debate in Maori (debating one of the wuuunderful suggestions of the Maori affairs minister, pai kare...), kapa haka demonstrations in the centre of town, a hangi (a proper underground one, ohhh nom nom nom) and, as 20% of my assessment for this trimester, going into a primary school to teach Maori to a class.
Let me elaborate on that: TEACHING A CLASS OF 28 HYPED-UP ELEVEN YEAR-OLDS. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF. I take my hat off to y'all who deal with hordes of middle-school kids all day for a living. I couldn't do it.
Oh, and in honour of Maori Language Week, click here for an internet game about traditional Maori marae. It amuses me. You can click the language toggle at the top of the pane to change the instructions into English (if you really want :-P)
I totally considered writing this whole thing in Maori, but the grammar!fail I would cause gave me a headache. Safer this way :D
I whakaaro ahau me patopato i enei whakaaro i roto i te reo, engari i mamae taku mahunga mo te whakaaro o taku wetero koretake. He mea haumaru ake tenei :D
** Tried and failed to find a decent non-rugby recording on YouTube. Bleh. Curse my sport-mad compatriots. This haka is an old one composed by the famous and feared chief Te Rauparaha, and is NOT primarily a rugby thing. Really.
- Location:On the couch under a duvet
- Mood:
energetic
Have somehow managed to make right leg very, very sore. I hobbled around campus (My campus is one of those that needs a three-dimensional model, not a plain map, to communicate the sheer... three-dimensional-ness of it. Third floors segue into first floors. I'm not even kidding.) for three days, flinching and swearing under my breath ("gods damn, gods damn!") and almost killing myself getting down the hill to the train station in the foulest stretch of weather I've yet seen here. Winter is apparently deciding to start its swan song NOW, just to make sure all the final flourishes, crescendos and crashing kettledrums can be fully appreciated before Spring finally arrives. (I always imagine spring with flutes. Thank you, Grieg.) So, what with lugging the weight of a small child in textbooks around and not being able to drag even myself along, I had to call for pick-up from the train station to home. Very pathetic. Am kinda amused at own helplessness, but would really appreciate being able to walk properly right now.
I guess not everyone can manage to incapacitate themselves and have no clue how it happened.
Yes, that was a totally transparent attempt to find a silver lining.
Ok, /gratuitous parentheses, and /self-pity.
I promised a review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Warning: I've had time to percolate my ideas a little, and the result is more a generalised and lengthy grumble than a systematic review. Anyway, here it is, a week or so late:
( Cut for spoilers and length )
PS: Can't believe I never made a Harry Potter tag before this entry. I am a disloyal fan.
PPS: When I was looking for the comparison cartoons, I also found this, which is hilarious.
- Music:'No Ordinary Thing' by Opshop is on repeat in my head.
I'm home!
Exams are oooover, and I survived my first trimester at University. I'm quite proud of myself, but am reserving final judgment until after exam results come out. After exams I went out with some old friends and new for a post-mortem and dinner at Nando's (Take note, Sounisian people. I totally only went there because I heard you all talking about it) and then gelato and bubble tea (NOM NOM NOM!) I also had my own private celebration by ducking into my favourite second-hand bookshop and buying myself two Dorothy L. Sayers books I'd put on hold. The joy of possession - I has it.
Three Whole Weeks. To do Whatever I Want. I think the occasion merits the gratuitous capitalisation.
What have I done with my freedom so far?
Some looong over-due editing, some slightly tardy betaing, and even some of my own writing has finally been done. Yeah! I am accomplishing stuff!
I got sick. Blech. Every time I travel from home to uni or back again, I end up a sniffing, miserable mess. Could it possibly be the climate differences? Pass the echinacea, plz...
( I read Memory and Forged In The Fire and witter about them here in a slightly spoilerific way )
My school friends Ducky and Bear and I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies, back to back. Note well, not only did we watch all three, but they were the mega-awesome extended versions. We started at 6.10 in the evening and finished at 5.30 the next morning, still arguing over who was best: Aragorn, Boromir, or Faramir. (Yes, that is the kind of deep meditation Tolkien's epic inspires in our fangirl-y hearts. I am only slightly ashamed.) By the time we finished, we were holding our eyes open with our fingers, although I had slept right through Helm's Deep. That's what comes of living near a hospital - when the emergency helicopter doesn't wake you at night, it's a fair bet that 10,000 screaming Uruk-hai won't either.
( I baked, and took pictures )
Matariki, the Pleiades' rising, and Maori New Year, has come and gone. It's not an official holiday in NZ, but not for lack of trying, and has got increasing press these last few years. Seeing as we live in a part of the world where Christmas falls in Summer and Winter has no bright spots, my family always celebrates with a meal for the extended rellies, games and general jollification. We had a hangi (Maori roast, traditionally steamed underground, but we do it in an old beer keg with manuka sawdust) for dinner, and included mussels. Look what I found in one:
( Warning: may include close-ups of a crab )
And, just to complete the pic-spam,
tiegirl asked for some non-identifiable pictures of the area I live. Excited at the thought of exercising my camera, I immediately dragged tencups_i_swear out to take some snaps. We only managed to get a couple before the batteries died, but I found some other fairly generic pictures kicking around the hard-drive. They're all from around my home-town, not the city where I go to Uni..( Image-heavy! )
( Image-heavy! )
And that's all, folx!
*which exists in fiction only, yo. London in real life still looks pretty good.
PS: Happy Independence Day, Americans!
- Location:Home
- Mood:
sick
The powers that be at my University have lost their minds.
Today I tripped into the city to return my library books, and realised that something was very wrong in my former safe haven. The University library has two staircases, one of which is open to the library floor and covers three levels, and one behind a door that covers all floors.
In the first, open staircase, as I climbed up the curving steps, admiring my favourite view, I was assailed by an unidentifiable, insect-like high-pitched whining noise, which turned out to be emanating from strange sucker-like things attached to the curving glass exterior wall that half-encloses the staircase. 'Ouch, my head,' I thought, and then 'must be some kind of strange meteorological thing.'
Things began to get weird when I reached the top of the open staircase and switched to the enclosed one. Jogging my way up to the sixth floor, my eardrums were pummeled by rhythmic thumping and clicking noises. 'Some kind of structural repair work with high-pitched instruments?' was my next guess. 'I hope they're done soon...'
On my way out of the library, I asked the issues desk librarian what was going on. I think my exact phrase was "that horrible noise in the stairs". She replied 'Sound Installation', which told me precisely nothing, and pointed me at a notice attached to the wall.
I read it.
I read it again.
This was no irritating but necessary interruption to be endured - it was 'aural architecture', a.k.a some kind of satanic torture dreamed up by the School of Music students to torment the rest of us who have EXAMS and need the library - let me repeat that, the UNIVERSITY LIBRARY - to STUDY in.
Apparently it is meant to remind us of the aural landscape outside and the wider world which is obviously passing we sad cloistered students by.
ARGH. Aural Architecture? Hamiathes' hiney (to borrow a phrase from TLE Checkers*), the world is against me.
* I stand corrected
- Mood:
grumpy - Music:Perfect - Army of Me
As I am a poor benighted person, who lives neither in the USA or the UK, there are many things the folx over at
sounissay that make me go 'bwuh?' and wander down strange and foreign paths. thelasteddis 's mention of V8 vegetable juice was one of these. She was referring to this veggie drink ad campaign in the US pitching the drink as one of those 'make-you-smarter' things. Apparently the ads show people doing dumb things and then getting bopped on the head by someone who then says cheerily 'coulda had a V8!' i.e 'If you'd had a V8 you wouldn't be so dumb!'Of course I was totally ignorant of all these subtle cultural overtones, and our conversation went something like this:
TLE: 'Coulda had a V8!'
Me: Bwuh?
Tiegirl/Philia/Ninedaysaqueen/TLE: *explain*
Ninedaysaqueen: *suggests how I can find out for myself*
Me: But, guys, this stuff sounds disgusting. Besides, it reminds me of racing cars. Hey, they're cultural... a bit.
Checkers: Lolz, you missed your chance to get your very own shipment of yuck!
Philia/Tiegirl/Checkers: *continue discussing it*
Me: Hey, people are still talking about this. Mayhap I should assuage my curiosity and expand my cultural horizons (Two birds with one stone! Oh frabjous day!) by trying some. Okayz, everyone? I'll tell you all if it tastes horrible.
Philia: You'll love it, really.
( A cultural lesson )
I feel all warm and fuzzy and culturally aware now. Thanks guys. XD
PS: The transcript is only loosely based on what people actually said in Sounis. Sounisians are very nice and give very helpful suggestions.
PPS: Heehee, the V8 website makes me giggle.
PPPS: Yes, I do enjoy gratuitous pic-spamming.
- Location:kitchen table
- Mood:
cold - Music:Sounis Mix v.2!
Hi, everyone!
Some of you have heard of this already, so a brief explanation. For my little sister
tencups_i_swear 's birthday the other day (ahem. Happy Birthday, tencups!) I gave her copies of our favourite books, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia. Before I sent them, I printed off some chapter headings kindly translated from the Japanese edition of these books by ninedaysaqueen , and illustrated each heading with a scene from the chapter, and slotted them and some other surprises between the pages.Those of you who know tencups know that she's a MUCH better artist than I, so my efforts aren't anyway near such entertaining caricatures of the characters as hers are (try http://goat-foot-baa.deviantart.com/gall
( The Thief illustrations )
( The Queen of Attolia illustrations )Tons of thanks (and international cookies) to everyone who contributed to the present, and also to the people whose work I used without warning them, namely
peggy_2 (for the original Japanese photos) and ninedaysaqueen . Also, thanks to thelasteddis for her very helpful feedback on the pictures. She'll have noticed that I didn't take her advice, for which I can only defend myself by saying that I ran out of time, and ink drawings unfortunately don't lend themselves to much last-minute revision. But it was very much appreciated :D Also, I *am* aware that I spelt 'thief' wonky. Mea Culpa!
- Mood: content
- Music:ZZ Topp
With grateful thanks to K, E, R, and Mum for ideas, PR (and Ro) for number 98, and Sir Terry Pratchett for number 7.
Edited umpteen times because a) LJ still hates me, and b) I can't count.
- Mood: cold
Edit: And I managed to embed it properly on only the third try! Go me!
tencups_i_swear may also know that she has a Deviant Art page on which she posts quite a LOT of Queen's Thief art. http://goat-foot-baa.deviantart.com/Being her big sister, I'm biased, but I think a lot of it is quite good. She's also made a Queen's Thief picture meme! Now, I don't even draw, but I had heaps of fun filling this in, even with all the ink and scanner and cropping dramas it entailed.
I do apologise that it's so tiny. Clicking will bring it up larger, but I can't figure out how to make it bigger on the page...
Why is it impossible to keep time in this city?
A. The University does not appear to have ANY wall clocks, anywhere, excepting, of course, the ones handily placed BEHIND the projector screens. WTH?
It also has cellphone coverage that is patchy to say the least, so I can't look at my screen to divine the time. Everyone on campus must own a phone - what is wrong with this picture??
B. I spent two hours tramping around the central city this morning trying to find a pendant watch. Why is that so difficult? This *is* an honest-to-goodness city, don't people need to get to, I don't know, appointments and meetings on time? Without having to fork out $200 for precious ones from actual jewellers?
Also, it would be nice if Metlink didn't randomly cancel the off-peak trains. Ok, some of them were replaced with busses, but NOT the ones from my station, and more importantly, HOW in the world would I have known if they had been? So I had to wait 40 minutes (in a freezing cold wind, I might add) to catch the next, and missed my tutorial. Which was compulsory. Gahhhh...
*headdesk*
Ok, complaints over.
- Mood:
annoyed
Pick any fandom you know I know about, and I'll tell you:
1) the first character I fell in love with
2) the character I never expected to love as much as I do now
3) the character that everyone else loves that I don't
4) the character that I love that everyone else hates
5) the character I used to love but don't any longer
6) the character I would shag anytime
7) the character I'd want to be like
8) the character I'd slap
9) a pairing that I love
10) a pairing that I hate
11) my favorite character
12) my five favorite characters
13) my five least favorite characters
14) which character I am most like
15) my deep, dark fandom secret
- Location:University Library
- Mood: restless
- Music:the tickey-tack of keyboards
Tonight I had this little gem of a conversation:
Sceintifically-minded Uncle: It's nice having you, Te Aroha, cause you've brought all these great new books to the house.
Me: (looking around happily at my stacks of books) Yeah, they're fun reads. Feel free to borrow...
S-M U: It reminds me of when (Scientifically-Minded Aunt) was studying environmental sciences. She'd bring home all these books...
Me: Environmental Sciences?
S-M U: Yeah, great books, and - (catches sight of my face)
Me: *Is laughing hysterically*
S-M U: What? What?
To each his own, I guess...
For anyone interested, today I bought:
A lovely copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S Lewis, my absolute favourite of the Narnia series, and the indispensible Penguin History of New Zealand, by the great and sadly lamented Historian Michael King. This is pretty much required reading for New Zealanders, and still in the top 100 NZ best-sellers list 5 years after publication. Not bad for a History book :D
- Location:Land of Nod
- Mood: amused
- Music:The dryer
Dear Sounisians: You won't believe this.
Remember this post?
Looks like our esteemed authoress has taken a break from 'Eugenides and the Bath Bomb of Doom', upped sticks and taken a stealth visit to New Zealand.
With her knitting needles.
Cuba Mall, Wellington
( Looks like this is the Summer version of the tree cosy ( )
I think this was actually part of the Cuba Street Festival, which was on last week.
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- Location:Wellington
- Mood:
giggly - Music:Lithium - Evanescense
Optional RULES:
1. Put your MP3 player, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Tag at least 10 friends (make me #11 so I can see your results). Gah. Do I have to?
5. Everyone tagged has to do the same thing.
6. Have Fun!
IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
'Cloud Nine' - Evanesence. Well, that's pretty chirpy of me :-)
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
'Reverie' - Brooke Fraser. Well yup, most of the time I am off in my own world, thank you very much.
( Cut! Cut! CUT!!!! )
Hum. I think this proves more than ever the utter randomness of things more than anything deep and meaningful :-P
For Northern-Hemisphere People: that's around 80 degrees F. AAAAARGH.
