Below are the most recent 17 friends' journal entries.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
icarusancalion	3:32p	Power outage The candle made shadows like lace on the wall. The low, omnipresent buzz of electricity was gone. The kitties cuddled close in confusion. Just because they can see in the dark doesn't mean they like to. The laundry silenced halfway through its cycle. The baking had to stay in the fridge. Eastwick was on ... somewhere else. The streetlights vanished. Then the whole world restarted again. Current Mood: artistic (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
icarusancalion	1:52p	Dating article An interesting article about dating. My favorite points -- Values vs Interests: Having the same values as your partner is truly a must. Its the glue that keeps you bonding, growing together and connected. Interests are different. For example if you VALUE a family, a belief in a higher being or power, or a fit and health conscious lifestyle your partner should equally believe these are significant in his/her own life. Interests like playing soccer, dance, rock climbing, fishing, fashion or shall I say YOGA, don’t determine compatibility. You don’t have to share every single interest with your partner to make it work. So true. I've been noticing on online dating sites that people go on and on about interests. Individuality within a Couple: WHO ARE YOU? Do you know what you desire? What are your dreams? Being an individual is probably one of the more difficult things to hang on to within a relationship. We can get lost in another’s own view and dreams. Staying true to our own desires and dreams is equally important. It makes us happier because we are living our desires and growing from that place. You can’t grow living to please another or gaining approval from another. You are then living another person’s life, and that eventually manifests into resentment, hurt and pain. I confess, I relied a lot on WG's advice when we were together. He had a knack for seeing straight to the heart of the matter (which holds true regardless of how he's treating me right now). It's fuzzy now how much of that meant he was steering the boat. Please STOP HIDING who you are! Be yourself, completely. From date one present your authentic self. If you don’t usually wear make up or dress a certain way, then don’t do it for the first date. If you don’t like sports than say so and don’t pretend to be the “sports chick or jock”. If you absolutely dislike smoking than don’t pretend to be ok with that habit in another if you really aren’t. What you are is what you are. Being proud of that is really the first lesson to learn before even attempting to find a date. Pretending to be someone you are not, is not only difficult to maintain but a lie you have to live. How fun is that? This is so tempting. I'm such a no-makeup, misplaced my comb a week ago kind of gal. But I'm thinking of trying out a different look, playing with a new hairstyle, wearing more makeup than I have been in school. But that's for me though, so I think it's not a pretense. Funny. I've never dated. Guys have always found me. Current Mood: thoughtful (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
icarusancalion	10:24a	Why did I trust him? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll find my dresses in one of the boxes, buried under some books. I should never have listened to WG. I was supposed to go to Seattle September 9th. I had the tickets and it was all set. We were going to go through all our things together and split them up. Take things to Goodwill. I was going to help him move. I was going to take him to his oral surgery appointment. I was going to put together furniture for him in his new apartment. I was going to spend some time with Monte kitty to say goodbye. He called me and asked me not to come. He'd send me my things. Why did I trust him? Current Mood: angry and hurt (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	9:13a	Fucking crossdressers. I just discovered that WG kept both of my stretch velvet cocktail dresses, the deep blue one and the black one. That's just beyond the pale. He went through my stuff and just decided what he wanted to keep. Regardless of whose it was. Current Mood: stunned (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
icarusancalion	1:03p	SGA Santa Uh-oh. My requestee for sga_santa requested a rarepair which I couldn't resist. And it's ending up with a totally different rarepair in the final scene. Shit. Any volunteers for a beta? I've been chopping at this fic rather ruthlessly trying to solve quite a few problems. Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 28th, 2009
icarusancalion	12:00a	... with cheesecake. I love sga_storyfinders. And cheesecake. And look, I have both. In fact, every sentence ends better if you add "... with cheesecake." Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
icarusancalion	9:39a	Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. I was just informed that mom and her roommate were expecting me to do the Thanksgiving turkey. Along with pumpkin pie (crust from scratch) and my cheesecake. Whut-? This is going to be one of those weeks, isn't it? Good thing it's 9am. (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	9:26a	And the computer goes *boom* ... the fic vanishes Here's a fanfiction heart attack. Midway through my sga_santa fic, the borrowed laptop suddenly freezes. Current Mood: awake (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
icarusancalion	2:58a	500,000 animals being slaughtered right now. My mom has been talking about this for weeks: 500,000 animals to be ritually slaughtered? On Tuesday, November 24th the Gadimai animal sacrifice festival will take place in southern Nepal. It is said that 500,000 animals including buffaloes, chickens, goats, pigs, rats, and birds will be tortured and slaughtered during this Hindu festival. Write to the Nepalese Embassy: info@nepalembassyusa.org In India, the ritual slaughter of animals in such rites as the Agnicayana has long been replaced with effigies. There is no religious reason for this throwback. Despite the detailed instructions in Leviticus, Judaism no longer sacrifices the fatted calf. Like that. Current Mood: blah (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	12:42a	What no one will tell you about college. I'm tutoring high school students, prepping them for the SAT. I think what they need as much as good SAT scores are some good college strategies. Share yours here. So here it is: What no one will tell you about college (until you get there). 1 - Want to increase your scores 5% without doing anything? ( Sit in the same seat every day ) 2 - Talk to your professor outside of class. ( Disagree with your prof? Good! Take it to her/him at the end of class. ) 3 - Bored? Ask a question. ( Every time I found myself zoning out during a class I would raise my hand ) 4 - Avoid clock-watching. ( Avoid the clock-watching tick by sitting where you can't see the clock. ) 5 - High school is for taking the classes you hate. College is for taking the classes you love. ( Don't be a masochist -- if you can avoid that hated math class by taking a much more interesting astronomy class, do it.  ) 6 - Know thyself. Work with your habits rather than against them. ( If you suck at mornings, don't take that 8:30am Japanese class. ) 7 - Avoid schizophrenia and be efficient: Take related classes at the same time. ( You can use your readings from Indian history as sources for your Indian lit class and vice versa. ) 8 - If the class you want is booked, show up anyway, books in hand, and participate vigorously. ( The professor would rather have you as an extra student than the disinterested slackers in the back. ) 9 - Give yourself flexibility: Plan, plan, plan. ( When you're not sure of your major, take classes that apply to all three of your most likely majors first. ) 10 - The one I learned too late: Build a relationship with professors who are top in their field by taking more than one class with them. ( If they're a bit of a name, their opinion carries weight. ) Current Mood: happy Current Music: Skid Row (1 Comment |Comment on this)
icarusancalion	12:17a	Reason number 211 why I love these high school students. Reason number 211 why I love my high school tutoring students: A student wrote his SAT essay. He detailed how, scientifically speaking, the planet doesn't need humans. <3 (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
icarusancalion	8:22p	Women ninjas. The music awards: Shakira has women ninjas! (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	4:47p	Quantifying a life. Good news on the work front: My tutoring job is going to give me 16 hours a week as of Dec. 1, which is great. It's an improvement. The pay rate is good, and it gives me the required experience I need for teaching. (90 hours is the magic number. I'll have it by the end of December. Then I need a year of school for the teaching certificate.) Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to live off of. I don't have a car in car-dependent Maryland, so I'm having to ask "mommy" for rides to work, to interviews. I have all the time in the world to write -- yet can't find the space because I have to write around other people's schedules. It's been four months and I'm getting the feeling she's burned out. As am I. I want my life back. Quantifying a life. ( When I drove across country to Seattle in 1996, I had a car. ) Aside from the degrees, how did I end up with less than when I started? (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:35p	Mousie report. Mousie report. Some of you may recall this post wherein a family of mouse babies took up residence in one of my fleece jackets (in a box that happens to be outdoors). I discovered this when I pulled my jacket out of the box, scattering mouse infants everywhere. I removed my other jackets, packed the box with newspaper, and used newsprint to scoop the littles back in the box. A week later I discovered I'd missed four mouse babies, who'd fallen into a box I took inside. Noooo.... Then the temperature dropped and I thought the outdoor mousies were history. Three weeks later ... I'm happy to report that the mouse babies survived, and have moved on. But the nest is clearly there, and there are no apparent corpses. Proof of life: the fleece jacket was not so lucky, sacrificed to the cause. The Mousies chewed a few holes. Unless Rainy Pass can fix it. (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:11p	Buddhism questions: passing the buck. People always ask me about Buddhism ... and I'm caught flat-footed. You should ask a good Buddhist! Well we're in luck. And online, too. Tulku Orgyen has offered to help anyone with any questions about Buddhism: http://twitter.com/TulkuOgyen Retweet, tweeters. And thank you, Tulku Orgyen, for letting me pass the buck. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
icarusancalion	3:02p	The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming! If you're like me (in years past) you probably tune in to these winter sports, oh, once every four years. You get a general sense of who the favorites are from the announcers and interviews, roll your eyes at the inspirational life story clips, and root for the home team. Now you don't have to be in the dark. You can be knowledgeable long before the Olympics hit. At least about figure skating. (Everyone, feel free to correct me. I'm not an expert, I've just been following skating to the best of my ability for a couple years.) Right now the horse race is on. It's the Grand Prix. As we speak, world class skaters are competing in a series of competitions Russia, France, Canada, the U.S., Japan, and er, I think elsewhere. Right now they're trying to earn points to get to the Grand Prix final -- and prove themselves worthy of the Olympic teams. You see, last March at the World Championships each country won the number of slots they'd have at the Olympics based on how their skaters did. (The max is three.) China was very disappointed to not win any for men's figure skating. In a real shocker, the U.S. women's figure skating only scored two slots as our current National champ fell apart. But our men are doing fab. Evan Lysacek won the gold at Worlds and we have a "deep field," namely, many guys running neck and neck for the same titles. Let's have a look at our boys. The Americans. The ever-hot gentleman, Evan Lysacek. (The belt buckle is Batman, with cable and bat-grappling hook.) ( Evan has the quad. He has the fire. He's a skater who starts pouring it out in the last 30 seconds of his performance.... ) Finally, there's Mabanoozerabadahblbrghf. Graceful, fluid, fun to watch. I don't know if he'll keep moving up, he's still inconsistent. But he has a musical sense that makes him figure skating eye candy. Only three will make it to the Olympics. Which three? We'll know at Nationals in Spokane, January 2010. Tomorrow: those other guys, yeah, them foreigners. Current Mood: bleary (Comment on this)
Friday, November 20th, 2009
icarusancalion	12:03p	About SPN.... ( SPN: About last night.... (of course there're spoilers) ) The real "oh no"? SPN's not coming back until the end of January? Oh no! Wait, wait. Don't panic. There's still Merlin. Current Mood: entertained (Comment on this)