giefu

Well, thanks to the dragon_age friending meme there's rather a few more of you reading this than there were before, so I thought I'd make a proper HELLO EVERYONE post. Things you need to know about me:

• I like to put things in bulleted lists
• I'm currently alternating my time between Cardiff and London, doing a master's degree in English Literature. I'm just over halfway through now so everything's getting a bit stressful! My dissertation will be on the use of mythology in comic books, with a focus on Wonder Woman.
• This would be great if anybody at all wrote about it :|
• I like to write fanfic, which you can find under the fic tag. I've most recently written for Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Doctor Who, and before that I did a lot of Hetalia fic but nobody wants to hear about that.
• Sometimes I make video reviews of nerdy books in the grand tradition of ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.
• I'm currently gearing up to get extremely excited about the new series of Doctor Who, especially the prospect of more Rory. I tend to fangirl the 'ordinary' characters in things really really hard.
• I like to use italics for emphasis.
• I have a tumblr if you really can't get enough of me.
• I believe that special occasions like these are best celebrated with gifs:

The desktop meme that futuresoon just did:

1. Stop what you're doing. Print Screen.
2. Print screen your current desktop.
3. If you have Photoshop open, print screen.
4. If you have a music player open, print screen.
5. Pick a folder, open it, print screen.

( This will probably surprise nobody )

Why can't I find nerdy girl's t-shirts that are a) nice and b) don't cost silly money to ship to the UK?

I WANT TO SHOW THE WHOLE WORLD HOW GEEKY I AM. CHEAPLY.

p.s I saw the new Star Trek movie for the first time yesterday and holy crap the internet wasn't kidding about it being incredibly good. Even if I did recognise the engine room as a brewery more or less instantly. I don't know what that says about me....

So I promised _solaeris that I'd talk about attending the workshops and recordings that the BBC took to my university, and now's as good a time as any to write it up, I suppose! First things first, I didn't actually end up getting to see the News Quiz being recorded. Apparently Sandi Toksvig was too ill to travel that day so they recorded it up in London instead. As you can imagine, this was incredibly annoying, but as it turned out the workshops turned out to be pretty good so I suppose it evened out in the end!

The Torchwood workshop was all about the radio plays that had been commissioned to promote Children of Earth, and they focused on Asylum in particular. It was a little embarrassing because I hadn't actually listened to the play in question, but they played enough clips throughout that I was pretty familiar with it by the end! The writer (Anita Sullivan) was there, as well as the commissioner for Wales and Tom Price, who plays PC Andy (he was pretty important in Asylum, so that was why he was there). It was really interesting, AND I got to keep a copy of the script at the end! I was also filmed afterwards for a vox pop thing for the BBC- that may go up on youtube sometime, so if it does I'll link to it here and you can all hear how stupid I sound/see what I look like in real life.

The journalism workshop today was also really interesting, although at first the guy holding it started to talk about statistics and I began to glaze over because maths is definitely Not My Thing. However it turned out to be more about analysing what statistics are really telling you, and ways in which the media uses statistical data to create a story. It turned out to be pretty fascinating, actually, and I'll certainly never take figures at face value again! After that I got another cool freebie, which was a bright highlighter-orange BBC Radio 4 Students t-shirt. I shall wear it with pride!

Well, that's all that happened, I guess (it would have been much longer if the News Quiz hadn't been canceled ):). I'm sorry I don't have pictures for you but I don't think they allowed photography at the events anyway. I hope it was fairly interesting, anyway. Somewhat gratifyingly, two of the BBC people I met had English Literature degrees! So you never know, I could be helping out with Torchwood 2015 or something.

It's come to my attention that today is National Poetry Day! I love poetry (I'm doing my dissertation on John Milton, so I'd better) and I thought I'd mark the occasion by putting up a poem I like very much, by one of my favourite women poets: Charlotte Mew.

The Call
by Charlotte Mew (1869 – 1928)

From our low seat beside the fire
Where we have dozed and dreamed and watched the glow
Or raked the ashes, stopping so
We scarcely saw the sun or rain
Above, or looked much higher
Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire.
To-night we heard a call,
A rattle on the window-pane,
A voice on the sharp air,
And felt a breath stirring our hair,
A flame within us: Something swift and tall
Swept in and out and that was all.
Was it a bright or a dark angel? Who can know?
It left no mark upon the snow,
But suddenly it snapped the chain
Unbarred, flung wide the door
Which will not shut again;
And so we cannot sit here any more.
We must arise and go:
The world is cold without
And dark and hedged about
With mystery and enmity and doubt,
But we must go
Though yet we do not know
Who called, or what marks we shall leave upon the snow.

So I am back in Cardiff, finally, and about to start the last year of my English degree. I wish I could say that I was looking forward to it but I am actually bricking it because holy crap I am starting the last year of my English degree. Also I loathe leaving home- so much that I had stomach pains earlier today and have been in such a tizz that I left all my books back in London. None of them were especially important, but, well, when you're already freaking out not having your precious books (and my new Chuck dvds! THANK YOU, THE UNIVERSE) is practically the end of the world.

But, well, there's new Merlin tonight and I have a full packet of kit-kats in my desk drawer. The world hasn't ended just yet.

This fragment of fic came to me from the much better and more prolific writer who seems to dump them in my brain at whim:

( the full version would, of course, include at least one musical number )

I really need to stop posting like, every other day. The sad fact is that I have NOTHING ELSE TO DO but fart about on the internets and inform you all about the silly things that my head has come up with. Anyway, here's some stuff that I found amusing when I discovered it, and you, dear readers, might like too:

British Food, by a British person

Inglourious Plummers

Cup of Brown Joy (super old, but never fails to raise a smile)

Chris vs. Pokemon I'm playing through Platinum right now and just so we're all aware, Fantina is a bitch.

Spamatar

Canada on zombies

And your usual 'argh what is up with my brain' fic idea:

Plague is sweeping towards Europe- in order to avert this disaster, France, England and Spain go on a pilgrimage to Rome and swap stories on the way. Hijinks ensue.

 The Arctic Monkeys just covered Red Right Hand in their live webcast.

Excuse me, I'll just be over here squealing like the little fangirl that I am.




Mind you, Alex Turner could sing the phone book and I'd still listen to him <3