one more miracle

As posted by crediniaeth, a meme!

- Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal.
- Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
- Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on.

( You get three guesses as to what my wallpaper is of. First two don't count. )

I really have been able to think of nothing but football (soccer...) recently. I honestly thought that after the World Cup I would sigh sadly and go back to my normal, football-less life, BUT NO. Bastian Schweinsteiger put his beautiful, strong hands around my heart and refused to let go. Honestly, I'm not complaining! *____*

Yesterday, Bayern München had its first game of the season with anything resembling its A-team! And it was the SUPERCUP! I watched it using a variety of crappy, pixellated feeds with German, Spanish, fuzzy English or no commentaries, AND IT WAS SO FUN! I figured I should document my first experience with a Bayern match, so come on behind the cut if you care at ALL! ( Bayern lifts its first hardware of the season! )

So in conclusion, YAY BAYERN!!!!!! It was certainly an excellent way to begin my time as a Bayern fan! \o/ I'm already very fond of the entire team, and I can tell this is going to be so much fun. I'm really really excited about the Bayern-Real Madrid (!!!) game next Friday - hoping for my boys to get some revenge against the Spain dudes. (Yes - I'm still bitter. Especially since it was BOTH the Euro and the WC, grr.) It would do my heart so much good to see Bastian triumph over Sergio Ramos and co. (Sorry, Spain girls. We know where my loyalties lie!)

So an awesome side benefit of this whole new footie obsession is that I've reconnected with an old, dear friend of mine, novafairy! She was one of my FIRST LJ friends, way back in 2005 in the Queer as Folk fandom! It's not that we've ever fully gotten out of touch, but we've both been very busy girls and didn't really have a fandom in common. But she's German and a huge Bayern fan, so this is a really great thing that we now share! I love you Steffi! <333 We're already discussing plans for me to go over and visit, tentatively for September 2011 during which there will be Bundesliga, international, and all other kinds of fun games! She lives near Munich so we could even go watch Bayern train, and I could possibly tell Bastian how much his American fan loves him. *g* Of course it would also just be marvelous to finally meet her, but we could have SO much fun with the football. Whee!

Oh man I can't believe I just wasted an hour making this post. I spent all of today in my lab, doing one experiment but also trying to put together my presentation of my research for tomorrow morning. I was woefully unsuccessful in the latter goal, and still have quite a bit to do, including going back into lab to do the last step of my experiment. Yes, it's 11 PM. *facepalm* Sometimes my procrastination astounds me.

OH ONE MORE THING! Last night, I went out drinking with friends for the first time in a MONTH - much needed, let me tell you. This included a neat whiskey from a local distillery, nnngh it was so good, but also made me very drunk very fast. :P Anyway, while we were out and having a blast, I saw a guy in a - wait for it - BASTIAN SCHWEINSTEIGER NATIONAL TEAM AWAY 2010 JERSEY. Oh my GOD. If you asked me what my favorite jersey in the entire world is, THAT WOULD BE EXACTLY IT. What are the odds?? Especially since they're not selling the away jerseys in America yet! He had to order it from Europe or a replica from Asia (like I did!). Now THAT'S dedication. I totally would have stalked him down and told him how awesome he was, but when I found him he was on a date with a girl and I didn't want to interrupt. It was still super awesome though. As was the rest of the night, including when we went to a German bar and drank a boot and sat at a table decorated with a panel on the wall that said München! Hee!

OKAY I'm going to go be productive now! I am such a failboat. I really did want to document this though. While I love Twitter and the immediacy of it, I hate that it is not recorded in any permanent way, so while I have to force myself to make LJ posts, I really want to do it to have an ongoing record of my life still. I am sorry that I've been so MIA - I'm unbelievably behind on my flist. :( Tell me if something astounding happened in your lives? ♥

This morning, two guys were doing maintenance on our cell culture hood. I squeezed by them to get my dish of cells out of the incubator. One of the guys made some comment about that looking cool or something, and I said "Well, it's breast cancer!" and he was like "Really??" and I laughed and showed him under the microscope. He thought that was so awesome, and that they looked like ceiling tiles or something. He said "I'm gonna go home and tell my wife, 'Guess what I saw today honey? Breast cancer!' And then I'm gonna have to answer some questions." HEEHEE. He was so precious. And it made me feel like a Real Scientist! :D Kind of a necessary boost since last week made me feel like a Shitty Scientist, so ya know.

And that's my fun story for the morning.

Oh, random thing. brightedelweiss tagged me for the 7 quirks meme, but I don't think I can think of that many. However, there's one that I feel like sharing: I feel so much more uncomfortable as a pedestrian than I ever do as a driver. I have short, stumpy legs and I'm out of shape, so I'm not a very fast walker, and I get VERY PARANOID about holding people up. I also just get super super uncomfortable when someone's walking close enough behind me that I can hear them at all. It's like being tailgated, but even worse. I start to get all nervous and out of sorts and wondering if they're looking at me and hating me for walking slow, and as they near I'm just chanting "pass me pass me pass me" so that I can stop being supremely stressed out by walking in front of someone. I also get stressed out by whether I should walk across the street in front of a stopped car or not, and all kinds of other neurotic things. On the other hand, in a car I'm completely 100% confident and self-assured.

Yeah, I don't even know.

Good morning, lovely flist. How are you? :)

I suppose this meme has a title, maybe 30 Days of Meme, but idk what it actually is. Regardless, you've all seen this around, yadda yadda bandwagon jumping whatever. :)

Day 01 → Your favorite song
Day 02 → Your favorite movie
Day 03 → Your favorite television program
Day 04 → Your favorite book
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobby of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

Hmm. Favorite song. I think... I think I'm going to have to go with Extraordinary by Mandy Moore. There's something about the quiet assertion of pride and hope and joy in this song that really speaks to me. The instrumentation is light and spirited and layered and has something new to discover on every listen, while Mandy's voice is slightly throaty and elegant and mature. The lyrics are whimsical yet comprehensible, and I can really relate to the sense of loneliness that one consciously transmutes into confidence. I have the chorus as a ringtone on my phone, and whenever I know I'm going to need a little encouragement to get out of bed, I set it to sing "And now I'm ready to be extraordinary." It works wonders. ♥

That represents one kind of music I like (understated and uplifted by a beautiful vocal performance, usually female, that I can sing to), so to represent my other great love (crunchy thrashy guitar-driven rock'n'roll) my other favorite song is Thank You For the Venom by My Chemical Romance. I'm sure you're all shocked. To be honest, I would really put the entirety of Three Cheers here, but it asked for songs! Venom is just this incredible piece of high-energy shred-your-face-off rock that I could never, ever tire of. (According to Last.FM, I've listened to it 202 times - the only song to break 200 other than MCR's Desolation Row, hee. And 9 of my top 15 tracks EVER are from Three Cheers; 14 are MCR. Obsessed? Me? Nah.) It has this incredible riff and solo (Toro <33333) and from the first measure it picks you up and never puts you down until the last note, at which point you're disheveled and slightly debauched. I also love the message of defiance and the rejection of the culture of "emo" which they find damaging ("give me a better cause to lead"). It's just a dirty, in your face piece of rock and roll, and I love it beyond all reason!

And good night. ♥

Stolen from sorchasilver, a TV meme!

Pick your five favorite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don't cheat!

1. Supernatural
2. Friday Night Lights
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4. Bones
5. Firefly

(This is kind of a "now" skewed list - I love far too many TV shows!)

( The questions! )

I do so love TV! I'm in the process of deciding what to watch next. I feel SO BEREFT without any more Bones or Big Bang Theory to watch! I finished both in the same night, after months of devouring them together. It's strange - they're completely different shows, but my emotional focal point for both is the same. An oddly matched pair (a geek meets a sexy yet semi-awkward cool person) that is obviously magnetically attracted yet cannot seem to acknowledge it themselves. Both do a sort of yo-yo of requited and not. And it's VERY FRUSTRATING. But I love them both so much. (OMG PENNY GROW A SPINE!!!!!!!!)

I am going to continue with Freaks & Geeks, because it is all kinds of charming, but I need something else as well. Generation Kill? True Blood? Legend of the Seeker? How I Met Your Mother? Help, o wise and all-knowing flist! Tell me about characters I will love (without spoilers!), because that is my key to loving any show.

In other, sad TV news, Stargate: 90210 is made of a million kinds of fail. At this point, I'm wondering how the fuck these people ever gave us Atlantis. SGA was not close to perfect, but it was deeply charming and showed real heart sometimes. I'm wondering if that was truly a result of the cast and its glorious chemistry, because I'm seeing none of that in the SGU bits we've gotten. UGHHHHHH.

In other happier news, I'm LOVING Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon. LOVE!!!!!! Will Laurence, come here and be my empathetic, elegant boyfriend right now!! I fell in love with him within two pages and he has only endeared himself to me further. It's fascinating living inside his head because he is such a product of his time, but lacks any sort of malice in his prejudices. For instance, when he's shocked and appalled by a female dragonrider wearing men's clothing, and muses that riding dragons must be very trying on her slight frame, he's not repugnant, simply a fascinating example of the mindset of that time. He has no hostility towards her, merely surprise and curiosity. I love himmmmmm somuch! And Temeraire, oh Temeraire! *draws a lot of hearts*

Now I'm going to watch last week's Leverage, which I somehow forgot about!

I love this lyric from Something Corporate's "Little":

And little holes in parachutes
Won't leave you falling
If they do
It's because you wanna land.

It's just a really neat way to express an interesting idea - if you let little problems get in the way of achieving something, you're probably self-sabotaging in a certain way. I always liked SoCo better than Jack's Mannequin, I must say!

Let's have a meme! imntsaying proposed that we picspam five things we love. ( Here we go! )

You all should do it too! Spread the love! ♥