Bearshorty's musings

A week or so ago this meme was going around and it got me thinking about my fandom loves. I figure that instead of posting this and responding individually, I will just write up my answers for 6 fandoms in one post. I picked these six fandoms because I'm much more deeply entrenched in them due to fanfic - I either read a lot (and bookmarked lots if anyone wants recs) or I wrote fic myself. So while I love many other things like Supernatural or Doctor Who or Dresden Files, or other Star Trek or Dollhouse or Agents of SHIELD or Battlestar Galactica or Farscape etc, fanfic in these 6 fandoms in particular lets me to think about the show/book and understand did a bit deeper. If anyone wants to ask me about other show/TV, I will do this meme in comments but here are my main ones.

These fandoms are, in order of my involvement: Harry Potter, Star Trek: Voyager, Buffy, Torchwood, Highlander: TV Series, and Glee.

Here are the questions.

* How I entered that fandom
* Favorite character
* Least favorite character
* OTP(s)
* Pairing that everyone likes but I don’t get
* Favorite thing about the fandom
* The thing I most dislike about the fandom
* If there is something I would change from said game/show/movie/etc., what would it be?

( Harry Potter )

( Star Trek: Voyager )

( Buffy )

( Torchwood )

( Highlander: TV Series )

( Glee )

I made fried potatoes for dinner after my omelet plan went awry after one of the peppers did not look right. But potatoes were really good.

This day has been a bit weird – I was a bit lazy and I really can’t afford to be. Well, tomorrow is a new start and I’m going to make it count. A year ago I was in Minsk, visiting my family and my birth city, waiting to turn 30. And it has been an interesting year. I really like being in my 30s. This year I got to teach history again, which was unexpected and interesting and I really learned a lot about world history myself. And I started writing fanfic too. And I met interesting people online too. I had good trips to New Hampshire and Montauk. I watched and fell in love with “Highlander” and “Queer As Folk UK”. And my friends and I are really adults now, it feels like, especially with Marianna’s baby about to be born any day. This past year definitely had many good memories. I’m looking forward to being 31 because it actually feels like a crucial year. Either I finish my dissertation or I’m done. Either Bear and I move in together or …not something I want to contemplate but I know I can’t be in limbo anymore on anything. So this year feels important but I really need to take it one day at a time and figure out my life.

( Avatar: TLA S3 E13-15 )

SYTYCD Atlanta auditions were great - great girls with bodies of real people and great guys too. (I refused to watch the last ten minutes of wacky auditions and went to the other room to go online). New York auditions were great too – lots of impressive people. And I really love it that this year the producers are showing mostly great auditions and very little terrible ones. Very excited for Season 8.

“Men of Certain Age” is back! I love this show.

There was a TV spot for TNT’s “Falling Skies” the Spielberg’s alien invasion tv show. I won’t have time for it this summer but I would be interested in reading reviews for future reference.

( Highlander S6 E11-13 )

Grading today so TV served the needed break in grading. I need to return Paper 3 to the students on Tuesday. Bah.

I also took a break to order Papa some birthday presents from Amazon. I wish I had the money to get him a Kindle, since I know he really wants one. He had a really hard year with his mother's open-heart surgery and his own thyroid cancer and all (although technically, he had it for years and just didn't know it) and I wish I could get him something to really make him happy. I hope he will like the stuff I got him.

( Dexter S5E7 )

( Brothers and Sisters S5E7 )

There is some trouble with Bear’s sister and her ex-boyfriend that feels very surreal. That kind of stuff happens on TV; I never encountered people this troubled and crazy in real life. What kind of person calls ex-girlfriend’s elderly parents and threatens them, instead of just waiting for his small-claims court date with his ex? And then hits the cops that come to arrest him? There are harassments, threats to the family, restraining order, cops, jail and other stuff like that. This all is really getting to Bear who is rightfully unsettled by the whole situation since he is being threatened too and the guy is out on bail. And I wish I had a way to make this ok, since I don’t like seeing Bear upset in any way. And there is really nothing I can do other than try to stop Bear from overthinking.

I did some cross stitching this afternoon. I did the pink bear slippers today, a toilet roll and part of bear himself. I am still amused by this project.

I also started grading midterms. It is actually easier than grading papers and not just because the exams are shorter. They seem to be clearer in their idea when they had a rough draft day to think about it before the final draft day. I wish they applied this technique to regular writing. Favorite silly line of the day – “Humans have been around for decades.” Hee.

“Just Wright” It was a nice movie, I do wish the trailer did not give the plot completely away. What I really liked that her friend who was dating the guy because he was a basketball player, stepped aside rather graciously when she realized the guy is in love with Leslie. And they remained friends. I really hate stories where the other person is so obviously wrong for the main characters that it becomes a caricature. And I like that the main characters fell in love over three month where they got to know each other really well. Some of the supporting acting was subpar, but these kinds of movies are not about acting.

( Highlander S6E9 )

Internet is failing me. On the last Highlander episode I heard that song again that was in the beginning of “Forgive us Our Trespasses” episode. After a massive search trying to figure out what is was I still could not find it. It is a dance club song with a fun beat. I give up.

“Community” I love you, show, but, please, why do you have the impulse to spoil the only movie I haven’t seen yet that I deliberately avoided any spoilers for! I haven’t seen “Inception” yet and I’m looking forward to the DVD and I tried really hard to avoid all internet chatter about it. Thankfully, I really didn’t understand the spoiler fully and once I realized it was a spoiler I made a deliberate effort not to retain the information to my long term memory. I don’t know, of course, if this would just make me connect the dots sooner once I actually see the movie. Really, show, did you have to do this? I get it that lots of people saw it in the movie theater but some of us are waiting for the DVD.

Hathor Legacy had a link about Star Trek: Voyager and the women in it that I just had to link here. I love Voyager. TNG is my favorite Star Trek as a series but Voyager has my favorite characters, and no matter how uneven the storyline, I just love that show for the characters. Janeway and Chakotay are one of my all time favorite ships (I pretend the whole Chakotay and Seven thing hadn’t happened). This is a really good article about it.

I don’t like getting up at 6:30 but I had to this morning because of work. Teaching was easy today since I only had to take notes as my students talked about their midterm article. There was a weird division today - one class gets the text but can’t get to connection with Kingsolver and the other class is the opposite. Now I just have to write the midterm question.

I finally went to the health center today in the hope that they solve the mystery that is my bladder. Really, body, why do you have to be mysterious. I had a really nice registered nurse today and I could have a good conversation with her so hopefully they can figure it out. So the actual appointment went fine. It was updating my medical history that really got to me since I actually have something to add since I last went to the health center in April. Actually saying ‘my father had thyroid cancer’ to the nurse was not pleasant. (Papa is ok with me talking about it on my blog now since his treatment is over and everything. He is fine; it has just been a stressful summer.)

I have these Netflix movies just sitting there and I just don’t feel like watching movies lately. It is weird. I watched “Highlander” instead.

( Highlander S6E7 )

I picked up the New Yorker Magazine yesterday while I was at the New Yorker Festival. I read an interesting Malcolm Gladwell article “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be twitted.” He was challenging the idea the social media can actually influence real meaningful change in the status quo since real activism is high-risk and depends on real personal connections between participants and on hierarchies, both of which social media like Twitter or Facebook lack. He doesn’t deny that social media can be good for some things like networking and information gathering and new ideas but he points out that it is not how real meaningful change (like the Civil Right Movement type of activism) works.

( House S7E3 )

( Highlander S6E5 )

This morning I did my exercises, I think I’ve settled on every other day since I get a house to myself in the morning. I did crunches, 15 minutes on elliptical, sit ups and push ups. I will conquer the damn push up! It is a worthy goal.

Dan Savage is doing “It Gets Better” Project” posting videos to tell young people, especially gay teenagers, that life gets better after high school. This was prompted by a suicide of a 15 year old boy. I think it is a worthy cause. This was his and his husband’s video and it is very amazing. High school sucks for most people mostly because being a teenager sucks in many ways and it is hard to imagine life after high school until you actually leave. My high school experience was pretty good, actually, much better than junior high, mostly because I met my girls there and I wasn’t bullied in home room, but there was still some teenage angst. But I know too many people for whom it was much worse.

Some new policies under new health care law – this USAToday article actually spells out the new rules in a chart on the bottom. I was actually curious about it all and ashamed that I didn’t know too many details before. Health insurance is sort of important.

I started reading “Theatre” by W. Somerset Maugham since I’m irritated at the writing style of “Catherine the Great” biography. I really like his writing style and, now that I read the first chapter, I’m really looking forward to the rest of the book.

I went with Mama to her doctor’s appointment and was sitting in the doctor’s office grading papers to Mozart’s Requiem. It drowned out the TV and the noise and was actually great music to grade to. After Mama was done we visited my grandmother’s cemetery to water the plants. We only had two water bottles so I was going back and forth to fill them with water for a while. After all the morning exercises and the sit ups my legs were mad at me.

( Highlander S6E3 )

Teaching today – all about quotes. I woke up at 7 and finished the rough drafts. I also brought Oreo cookies to class to teach them about paragraphs. I liked the second class more today mostly because the first class already came up with examples for me.

I did my patriotic duty this afternoon by voting in the primary election – just attorney general and senator for me. There are new voting machines. Scanner ones. Instead of the trusty level, now we fill out a form and then feed it into a scanner machine. I’m just glad it is not all computer and there are paper copies.

I apparently forgot my flash drive at school. Good thing the department secretary emailed me before I even realized this. The way their computers are set up is really makes forgetting the drive easy. I’ll just have to pick it up on Friday. At least I know where it is.

I watched “The Daily Show” today. I kind of took a break from it this summer, I was not in the mood to interact with the world too much. But now it feels right to watch it again. I really wish it was still on Hulu, their website likes to buffer a lot. Making fun of media’s overreactions to current stories on Quran burnings and the community center near Ground Zero (or as Jon Stewart calls it “Community Center of Death” was great to see.

I should really finish Season 5 of “Highlander” since there is only one episode left, but I’m not a fan of that storyline so I rather read my book instead.

Some links:

Climate changes and melting ice are uncovering lots of archeological artifacts . The ice is actually melting too fast to get to everything and preserve it.

The wage gap between men and women is shrinking due to crappy economy. Sounds a bit like Bennett argument that while things sometimes improve for women, it is special circumstance that won’t last in the long term. I just love that they need to qualify and justify why the wage gap was diminishing.

In other news, for the first time ever, more women than men earn PhDs in the US .

Get Medieval has an awesome writer – my type of snarky humor. This time: maidens and dragons and general badassery of women saints.

Tonight is Yeva’s birthday party at a Russian restaurant so most of the day related to this outing in some way.

I woke up this morning and turned on the radio to listen to 9/11 memorial. TV was on too as I was eating breakfast and I was watching the names of the dead being read. I watch it every year and it always makes me feel sad. I do like that part of the memorial is listening to all these names for hours and hours. It makes it more real, and not just an abstract tragedy. Just the number of people lost. A sister of one of the dead, I think Christopher Epps, read a poem referencing his love of Star Wars and while it was a pretty simple poem, it made me teary and emotional.

I spent the rest of the morning vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom since Bear would be staying over my house after the restaurant.

Mama was talking to my Aunt on Skype on my laptop, so I couldn’t go online. I just read Stephen Fry for a while.

At around 3:30 I left with my blue duffle bag full of restaurant clothes to go to Yeva’s apartment. Since Bear was working left, he was driving straight to Brooklyn and it made more sense to go to Yeva’s and change there. I had to take a slightly different bus route since MTA changed lots of bus routes this summer. There is a longer walk from a new bus stop to Yeva’s but the day was nice and clear so this wasn’t a hardship.

Yeva is very much a girl’s girl and she knows all about make-up and hair, beyond by paltry basics. She helped me with my make-up by showing me what to do and how to put it on and she has all kinds of lotions and foundations and other stuff to put on the face. One of these days, I will go with her to a make-up store where she can show me some basic things to buy beyond my lipstick and eye-shadow. I wore my black dress again with my new Thai pearl necklace.

Bear actually got to Yeva’s just as the family and boyfriend gathered to leave, so we took Yeva’s brother in our car and left for the restaurant. Instead of circling the block looking for parking, which is really impossible, we actually just went to a parking garage nearby. I’d rather pay $15 and have less stress.

The restaurant was a typical Russian restaurant with lots and lots of food, delicious too, with seafood appetizers and wonderful mushrooms with potatoes, and beef, fish and foie gras made with soaked pears, and good Napoleon cake. Russian restaurants don’t just ask if you want fish or chicken, they give you both. I don’t like that they start at 8pm because we only get to deserts at 12:30am but the food was delicious. One of Yeva's friends mixed some drinks and I had a really delicious pomegranate with vodka cocktail.

There were good singers accompanied by scantily clad women dancing around. At one point the back-up dancers wore pink leather corsets, at another they were in a fake boxing ring in bikinis. One of the parties in the hall was for a 12 year old boy, so I’m sure he had a very happy birthday. They were good dancers. One of the singers won a famous Russian singing competition a few years ago and she had a wonderful voice. And we danced a lot. I even got Bear to dance not just to slow songs but to some fast ones, although he mostly stood there handing my hands as I danced. There was also a guy who played the saxophone and he was wonderful. At the singing break, they randomly put on a screen and a silent Charlie Chaplin movie, while continuing to play music a bit softly. The music was a bit loud; Bear went to his car to get ear plugs at one point, and after a long bit of dancing the two of us stood outside the hall for a bit to get some air.

We got home at 1:40 in the morning, although we could have stayed later. But I not really a late person and Bear did have to go back to work the next day. It was a fun party.

( Highlander S5 E15,16 )

I’m performing a community service for Netflix. Highlander’s “Modern Prometheus” episode is only 26 minutes on Netflix. The whole episode is available for free on Hulu, so it doesn’t bother me too much, but I did call Netflix and let them know that there is a mistake on their site.

Happy Birthday, Yeva!

I finished all the blog entries for the previous year today. This year I will try to write on the day I mean to post and not just make notes and come back to the full entry later. I looked at my entries from the beginning of last year, and I wrote a lot more and much better too. I changed the blog’s name to something simple and not that original (maybe I’ll think of something better later) and the layout as well (from pink to purple) to usher in a new year.

That fire that raged yesterday in our vicinity was back again. My grandfather could see it from his window in Brooklyn and he got all concerned. We kept hearing fire trucks all afternoon. But as long as we don’t see black smoke near us, we just take it easy.

I took a walk to the library today to pick up the books on hold for me. There is a new Dresden Files story told from Marcone’s point of view called “Even Hand” that finally came in. Also I got the original “Sex and the City” novel. I got curious about it a few month ago. But I want to finish Stephen Fry autobiography first.

I also stopped by Stop n Shop and got oreo cookies for my class next week. I teach them paragraphs with the cookies – the black parts represent their own ideas like a topic sentence and point to paragraph, and the white parts are quotes or evidence.

My student who I want to transfer to a class that has more reading help sent me a very grammatically and stylistically unsound email not really wanting to transfer. She claims being overwhelmed by the beginning of college and therefore composing a bad writing sample. Maybe she should check the writing of the email first before tackling actual papers. I think I will have to deal with her this semester because she thinks she can do better. It is her choice. We are not trying to trick her here or punish her, but she doesn’t get it.

First of the month = Global Giving . It will be harder to keep track of first of the month now that I won’t use the Jewish calendar dating system in my blog entries but I’ll try to consult my little Jewish calendar often enough.

( Highlander S5 E10-12 )