one more miracle

I fail so much at LJ, you guys. Fail ever so much. :( I really really miss it, but I also feel like my life has progressed past that phase. I don't have time to lose myself in fic or the details of so many lives, as much as I'd want to. Even though I feel like I'm kind of a shitty grad student, I'm still a grad student, and that means busy. :(

Life updates since June... well, lots! I did a three month internship this summer which was... okay. Not exactly revelatory. I spent half of it writing a grant for my grad school work and trying not to puke because I'm SO BAD AT PLANNING SCIENCE, and the other half trying to figure out what I want to do instead because research is clearly not my destiny. I landed on science publishing, which basically entails working as an editor at a scientific journal, coordinating with authors and reviewers and generally shaping the journal's content and interactions with the world. I obviously need to finish my PhD so I'll do that and then look for editorial positions. I'm really excited about this new direction and hope it turns into a rewarding career.

I also went to Germanyyyyyy :D And also Dublin but that was a short visit, sadly. Still got to see some of my favorite friends though. But the majority of the trip was two weeks backpacking through Germany with my friend Sarah (who I met through the German football fandom!). We went to (in order) München (Munich), Chiemsee, Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Mainz, Karlsruhe, Köln (Cologne), Oldenburg, Hamburg, Fehmarn, and Berlin! The trip was whirlwind paced but I was so glad we got to see all the things we did. We attended four football matches, I met MY BELOVED LEWIS HOLTBY *points at icon and makes high pitched noises* after he scored 2 goals for the German U21s, we watched Germany beat Brazil, Mainz beat Leverkusen, and Bayern beat Wolfsburg. IT WAS AMAZING. We stayed with lots of friends of mine, new and old, some I've known forever but hadn't gotten to meet yet or only met once (*waves at novafairy, nebulein, and maleyka). My favorite city was Berlin (we only had A DAY! I want to spend a week there!) but they were all beautiful and unique. It was truly an amazing trip and only whetted my appetite for travel (and Europe) even further. And I cannot recommend backpack travel enough!! Sure I didn't have many clothes, but we did laundry twice and I only had ONE bag to deal with that I could just sling on my back, easy peasy. Such a freeing experience!

Josh and I fizzled out in September, a little while after I got back from Germany. It was a long time coming, sadly. We burned bright but only for a short while. I learned things about myself from that experience AND I had a hell of a lot of fun, so what more can you ask for? I haven't met a new guy yet, though there's a couple I've been talking to on OK Cupid who are intriguing.

I also moved apartments so now I live with one person instead of four (my current roomie was also one of the four, so no big adjustment there). We love our new apartment and I LOOOOOOVE my room. We're staying here for at least two years.

Fannishly, I have two new major TV loves: HAVEN and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. To sum up: sdlkfjlsdkfjlsjfOT3OT3OT3!!!!! The triangles on these two shows BLOW ME AWAY. They have some similar dynamics but are at the same time drastically different and I love them *so much*. Some people choose Duke/Audrey or Nathan/Audrey or of course Duke/Nathan... I say why choose? They're ALL amazing and deserve to have each other. Furthermore, Audrey clearly loves both of them, and the *waves hands* nonsense between Duke and Nathan is so clearly ANYTHING BUT platonic, so really it's the only logical solution. Yup. And if you haven't heard of Haven, do yourself a favor! It's a surprisingly incredible SyFy show set in Maine but filmed in gorgeous Nova Scotia on FILM (not digital!). It's a bit like X-Files, with weird goings-on and a great male-female buddy cop dynamic, though they're both believers. There have been two (short) seasons so far and it got renewed for a third so you should catch up before season three starts in April!

And DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON VAMPIRE DIARIES. Lots of people told me they loved it but I was like pffff it's either marginally better Twilight or going to disappoint compared to Buffy. In fact, any comparisons to either vanished after the first few episodes. It starts in a place where it could become either, but really becomes its own thing. I've tried to articulate to myself how it's different from Buffy, and in the end I think the two are fundamentally different types of stories. Buffy is about the girl with a burden who has to fight evil with only love to support her, and it's about doing the right thing even when it's the most difficult. Vampire Diaries, on the other hand, is about loving so fiercely and blindly that almost anything is on the table if it's necessary to save that love. Elena and co. don't so much fight evil as do everything they can to protect their own, at nearly any cost. And the romantic part of Elena's love, at least, is focused on two incredibly dangerous dudes, no matter how defanged Stefan may seem. Um, in conclusion, I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS but TVD is really wonderful storytelling all on its own and I highly recommend it. If you've watched it, COME FLAIL WITH ME. CAROLINE. MATT. ALARIC. STEFANELENADAAAAAAMON. <3333 I tend to forget that shipping a OT3 with brothers in it might weird some people out, but uh, veteran of Supernatural fandom here, soooo... yeah that one wasn't such a leap for me. Whoops.

Speaking of Supernatural, I skipped season 6 but I'm really enjoying season 7! I'm afraid to say this because of the rotten tomatoes that will come my way, but it feels so much more like the show I know and love with Castiel gone (not just him but the whole angel nonsense). Dean and Sam are making me clutch my heart again! I have missed my boys everso. <3

SO! My dears! What on earth have you been up to? I'm gonna try to poke around my flist but clearly I have missed so much. (Again.) And if you really want to reconnect with me, I can now be found on Twitter pretty much all the time - I'm exsequar over there too! I'd love if you'd say hi! ♥

Ugh, I'm so tired I almost can't see straight. X___x Have arrived safely in Salt Lake City, many hours ago after 12 hours of travel. (There are no airports within a decent distance, and I had a connection. Blah.) Me and my fellow chemists from F&M (we're at the American Chemical Society conference, if I didn't make that clear) went out to dinner and then went over to the evening poster session, mostly for the free beer. So I am now a little drunk on TOP of being so tired I might fall over. A happy consequence of the time difference is that it's only 10 PM so I'll get a good night's sleep, so I can face a very long day tomorrow.

The in-flight movie was TWILIGHT. I didn't bother to listen, but it's such a horrid LOOKING film, all washed out and blue, and the bits that I glimpsed were so ludicrous! One second they're practically flying up a tree trunk, and the next they're sitting at a piano together. ?! Later they're playing baseball and looking utterly ludicrous in their uniforms. I LOL'D. The most hilarious part though was the fact that the old man sitting next to me got out a headset and WATCHED THE WHOLE THING. I don't know how he managed it! I was boggling.

Instead I chose much better entertainment for myself. I read half of The Umbrella Academy (the first volume) because I've owned it for a while but never got around to reading it. After successfully making it through Watchmen the novel though I felt like I was primed for more comic goodness and I'm really enjoying it. I also watched half of Rachel Getting Married, which is a very difficult film to watch (hence only getting through half - I'm sure I'll get to the rest later), the Doctor Who episode The Idiot's Lantern, and the BSG episode Maelstrom. KARA ;_; That scene between Kara and Lee in the hangar deck is simultaneously my favorite and SO painful. The way he looks at her, with such open love and trust and confidence... it's beautiful, but it's totally the wrong thing to do at that moment in time. SIGH PILOTS WHY MUST YOU RIP MY HEART OUT.

Also, Leoben/Kara paint!sex is HOT.

Ok I'm just rambling. I'm bored on the internets recently because my choice of fandom has severely limited my sources of amusement. I don't even have the source (Watchmen the movie, obvs) at hand so I can't rewatch obsessively like I want to! There's only so many times I can watch the Rockstar trailer or Matthew Goode's Screen Test interview (though, HEARTS FOREVER). And the fic is extremely limited, particularly because it's not a pairing I fangirl so much as a character. CLEARLY MY LIFE IS HARD.

Oh the one nice thing from the poster session was that I met a lovely woman from UMich who's doing some post doc research on how to improve the graduate experience so as to encourage women to stick with science longer. It was really interesting, a lot of the stuff I've been thinking about recently, and she was very nice. I look forward to seeing her again when I go to UM!

Okay sleepy times. <3

&SEATTLE;

More later. Home now. Tired and displeased at the thought of school. But still thinking fondly about the weekend, tempered with a little fear of exactly what I've gotten myself into, and already missing Ken and Neil and Sarah and Kaitlin and Dave and Oksana. Such a cruel tease!

It's 2:30 AM and I have to catch a flight to Germany at 7 AM. This entails leaving my apartment at approximately 4 AM. Ew. D: I'm going to go try to get an hour of sleep, but we'll see :-/

What ISN'T ew, however, is that waiting for me at the other end is a NEB!!!! I have known nebulein for about three years, and she is made of awesome and sunshine and win. I am so excited to finally be meeting her! We are gonna have a fabulous time together. Then I'm going to come home late Sunday night and have to go to class 10 AM on Monday, but WHATEVER. I did it over winter break, I can do it again, and it will be 110% worth it. Bwee! :D

All the Panic nonsense is just making me flap my hands with glee. The Blue Room performance was all kinds of darling, more so because we got to see their precious banter between songs. Ryan's percussion debut! Jon will drink to that! Spencer needing to bend to use the mic! Bden's noise of disgust at having to play Sins! Bden's performance of Holy Spaces, omg that song is so much better live! Everything about all of them! And then there was Jimmy Kimmel, and Ryan messing up in the middle of TGG and them keeping perfectly on track anyway, and Spencer banging the fuck out of his drums (I swear I rewound the bit at 1:40 in the TGG video about ten times), and OH HOW I HEART THEM. Now - I can has deluxe edition? *Grabbyhands*

Time to attempt sleep! Wish me luck! <3