Line breaks

I am not the only one happily schnoogling LJ. Thankfully Clare, Colleen and Hannah were here last night to soften the lack of it. Particularly annoying, actually, because it wasn't down when I brought up the Update Journal page, but was by the time I came to press the button. Anyway, this is what I was writing when the power failure or whatever-it-was happened:

This is going to be an odd-and-ends post (with line breaks!), as I have nothing of major substance to say but a lot of little things.

First of all, A2 Chemistry and Biology are the worst things that have ever happened to me (well, they're not, but in the melodramatic world of my head, they are). Do you know what a sarcomere is? I do. Do you care? Of course not. But I have to, and I still am not sure what an acylation is and I need to know. Along with alkylation, Friedel/Crafts, the dissociation constant of water at 25 degrest Celsius (that I do know - one times ten to the minus fourteen) and why I bore you all with this, I do not know. I need to tell someone. I need someone to sit down and be taught A2 Chemistry Module 4 (Further Organic and Physical Chemistry), so I know if I know it, or not.

Anyway. Moving on. Here is the first line break:

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I haven't had any time to write lately, which is a shame, as I really do want to scribble at present. Angel/Doyle or Angel/Wesley are still on the agenda, but I don't have a)plot bunnies (donations welcome) or b)the luxury of writing. However, I did do this week's open_on_sunday (the theme was simply "lost" and I was, as usual, the last person to post) and it turned out to be neither of the above pairings but, instead, Giles/Ethan. Because trkkr47 requested that specifically, I am cross-posting here:

( puffin's blood )

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Two nights ago, I was deep in Chemistry following a slight mishap involving me sitting down for a minute and sleeping soundly for three hours, when the doorbell rang. It was - surprise! - Clare, Colleen and Ron. They came to drop off my fairy lights ("We know you're revising!") and I said come in for a minute at least, and we stood in the hallway while a minute turned into an hour. We were discussing Collectormania 7 mostly - we've decided to take Ron and add up how much we owe Clare for petrol. Five of us (Em's having a party and can't come) plus Am-Chau (and maybe Miranda!) may mean for cramped-ness, but I don't think anyone really minds.

Colleen wants to make a double CD for the journey. One will be the fannish version, involving mostly theme tunes (Stargate, Buffy, Angel, Red Dwarf, Battlestar Galactica) and the other will simply be The Colleen Show Greatest Hits. I am all in favour of both, but am particularly fond of the theme tunes. I love television themes in general, and am particularly fond of the Angel one at present (it's now my ringtone, because I am v. sad).

The other thing we planned was the Phantom of the Opera. The others have seen it many, many times. I haven't. They're coming round tomorrow post-Chem to take me to see it. It is the thing sustaining me. My parents aren't home all weekend so they can't complain.

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My current (strangely short) playlist. I am listening to this obsessively at the moment, and offer it out to everyone in the hope it will be meme-like and encourage other people to do the same. I do like knowing what everyone's listening to.

Ewan McGregor; Your Song (Moulin Rouge OST)

(omg love triumphant and other such melodrama and so so a hundred times so much better than Elton John)

Snow Patrol; Grazed Knees (Final Straw)

(oh-so-sad and pretty and sigh)

Darling Violetta; Angel opening title theme

(omg gloomy violinscellos and yay for evocative freaky-cool)

I get incoherent when talking about music, can you tell? Lemme know if you download, just so's I can keep track.

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gamesiplay just did a meme where she posted an aerial photograph of where she lives. I thought it was a very cool meme, but the website she used only covers US addresses. I was going to moan about that fact and leave it there, but it dawned on me I do have a (small and smudgy) aerial picture of where I live. I think I got it from one of the Sunday broadsheets giving out free discs or something like that; anyway, I give you the tiny and not-so-cool version of Leigh's meme:

( pic )

If I lived anywhere else, I wouldn't have posted this, but it so happens that you can actually tell which is my house. It's very clear where the road runs from Formby down to the beach; if you were going down that road towards the sea, the last house you would see on the left is mine. At least you can see the entirety of the nature reserve and some of the beach, and can make out the fact the tide was in when the picture was taken. We have a proper aerial picture hanging up downstairs; for all I know this is the same one, made smaller and fuzzier. It's an instantly recognisable landscape; at least, it is to me. I'm going to miss it when I leave.

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One more fandom-related thing: musesfool is running another remix challenge (Remix Redux III: Reloaded), which makes me extremely happy, as it's my favourite ficathon-type event.

And yes, I'm done now. Bedtime.

Dun! Dundundundundun! Dundundundundun!

[Wrote this last night, natch.]

I keep writing, you know. Make a mental note to backdate and keep on going, on and on. I sometimes feel only my death will put an end to this, or a similar, journal. Morbid but quite possible true.

I spent today pushing myself into revising. Not the desultory way in which I usually do so, but pushing myself, on and on, into acyl chlorides and aromatic amines and the dissociation constant of water; I feel that if I fail now, it will be my fault and really, no-one else's, because it's never anyone else's fault when you fail. Not in the habit of failing. Hence, revision.

I'd managed to revise myself into an organically-synthesised stupor when Colleen arrived. She was fresh from Homebase, and I was on another planet myself, but we settled down to conversation about sex-linked inheritance and the illegitimacy of the British royal family. We had graduated to diagrams and scientific notation by the time the others appeared.

Tonight's trip was for the sole purpose of my seeing Phantom of the Opera, but they were early and we sat around in my room for a while, making playlists. Hannah found the card from Leigh propped up on my desk and seemingly had the same double-take-moment as I have whenever I catch sight of it: Leigh, a girl I have never seen nor spoken to, wrote that in America and on the strength of some 1s and 0s, it has somehow appeared here, a tangible thing, where I can pick it up and look at it.

Once they had mauled my playlist and we had all expressed dismay at the lack of LJ, we went out. My parents called - they have something for me, apparently, and they say I will love it and it is wrappable, and oh my, they're actually getting into the swing of the birthday thing and this makes me happy - and we clambered into Ron and left. First to Tesco's, because Hannah is still on an Innocent smoothie kick, but we didn't find them. Hannah is ill - she left home early after throwing up everywhere, definitely not of the good - and this apparently brought out the moodswingy side of her. More on that anon.

McDonald's. Definitely not classy. Besides, the food is vaguely gross; I had a salad. Hannah had chicken nuggets and a milkshake, that was supposed to be chocolate but was actually vanilla; at least I thought so when I tried it. I used another straw. Colleen aimed for Hannah's straw. Somehow or other this erupted into a random bitchfest, with Clare and I watching on in amused bemusement.

The carping went on as we wandered down to the cinema (along the lines of "Bring it on, bitch!") and abated a tad while we bought tickets. The moodswing passed. Life was calm again. The film started.

I have seen the stage show of the Phantom of the Opera, some years ago now, and adored it thoroughly for the music, and to some extent the plot. The Phantom works as a sympathetic character before he starts killing people, and afterwards if you consider him as actually being insane, and I do like him as a character and think he's far cooler than Raoul. And Christine, with her dignity, is something else to like. I did not like the changes from the show - the constant flips back to 1919 were gratuitious and irritating, the scene at the circus was also slightly superfluous, and I can't have been the only person in the audience who went "wha-huh?" when the chandelier remained in place at the end of the first act. I think it could have stood trimming by half an hour or so, and the cemetery scene particularly could have gone.

But barring all my quibbles, it was lovely. The details, the opulence, and above all, the music. I adored the music when I saw it the first time and now I have an excuse to listen to it more often. I'd like a copy of the CD, I think, with the dialogue; it's more fun that way. The end of the film was my favourite part; the rose, with black ribbon, on the grave. Terribly romantic. Lovely.

The way back was without incident unless one counts my accidentally pushing my thumb into a chocolate truffle, which I don't. We came back here via Ormskirk, which involves winding, unlit country roads and darkness. The road opens out towards the bypass, lines of light in each direction delineating where the fields end, and by then we were listening to Music of the Night where the crescendo carries the song to a finish. I remember it.

I gave Clare coffee, but when Hannah fell asleep on my bedroom floor, it was time for them to go. It took a moment to wake her up and lead her downstairs, and when they'd gone the house seemed so empty.

More revision tomorrow.