Chaos, werewolves, bathmats.
Jun. 19th, 2004 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI’m getting a little lax in updating, mainly because I’m stuck in some sort of space-time warp where everything happens around me rather than to me, if that make sense.
Tomorrow morning at eleven, I’m off to the airport with my parents to help navigate and suchlike. We’re going to meet various family members who will probably become characters in my journal for a few months, so quickly rendered here:
Mashi – aunt (technically – mother’s cousin). Had a radio show until lately. Too cool for school, etc. Has been to England twice before, and finds it “quaint”, but does like it. Fretted for years that she’d never ever get married, but this was rectified last year and she’s coming here now to celebrate her first anniversary. Seems to likes me, because I was a cute baby and have grown up with that ultimate street-cred factor – I was born in the West. I have always wondered if she’d like me nearly as much if this were not the case.
Hemang – her husband. I have never met him, but he sounds nice. He emails me on occasion, says he’s heard a lot about me, and I figure he has a sense of humour.
Dadu – grandfather (again, technically – is mother’s father’s younger brother). Has been like father to my mother. Has wanted to visit Europe his entire life, but refused to until his daughter (Mashi) was married. Now she is, and he’s more excited about this trip than he has been about anything else in his life before. Calls me “Lady Iona” because of my accent.
Didibhai – grandmother (well, not really related to me by blood, but still). Appears to be looking forward to it, but could be going along with the flow. Rabid chocoholic. Has one ambition in her life – to see snow. May well decide to stay here until she does.
Mashi and Hemang will be here for two weeks – Dadu and Didibhai possibly two months. Should be fun. I know them all (except Hemang) very well, unlike my paternal grandmother, as we’ve been visiting them every two years for as long as I can remember. They live in Chittaranjan Park, which is in the Bengali colony in south Delhi and heaven on earth to four-year-old-me. They spoil me, to be honest; I’ve never been sure why and have always been afraid it’s more to do with my unusual upbringing and birthplace than anything about me personally.
So, yes. They’re arriving tomorrow morning. Mashi wants to go to London, and accordingly, all of them plus my parents are going down on Tuesday. I wanted to go, but can’t – Biology field trip, of all horrible things – and I know I sound incredibly bitter, but they’ve made it very difficult for me. They want me to come, and have been trying every blackmailing trick in the book to try and make me, whereas I know I can’t. I really can’t.
On the plus side, I get another week on my own. Hopefully I won’t be driven to quite the same state of loopiness as last time.
Because of this London trip, there’s less time for socialising than there would be otherwise. My mother therefore decided she must hold a party on Sunday night. This party, which now involves forty people and a great deal of food – is the stuff nightmares are made of. She’s driving everyone crazy with her paranoid preparations and I will be very glad when it’s all over. Becca’s coming round to keep me company, though, and Pedar beckoned me to the fridge and showed me the bottle of peach Archers Aqua secreted there for my benefit, which can only be a good thing.
The party is what I occasionally call, in speech marks, an “Indian gathering”, and for the record, this means there will be no alcohol. Not because there’s a rule against it, but simply because. There will, however, be a lot of food – a lot of food! – and a lot of people, orange squash and children all put in a single room to be quiet and watch telly and play nicely. Normally, we have this sort of party for Diwali so at least they get sparklers and fireworks to keep them quiet, and this time I’m hoping we can put them in the garden. It keeps them out of my room, at least – invariably, it gets wrecked and I’m not having that.
I’m lucky in some ways. At least my name is Iona and I never learned Bharat Natyam.
The last few days have been vaguely interesting, but have mostly played out as a backdrop to all the chaos in the house. I went back to school on Thursday, and can’t believe that two days on, I’m already stressed about module 4. I don’t want to do A2 modules now – I haven’t got AS results yet! – but it seems I have no choice in the matter. To make things that little bit worse, our first Biology field trip is next week and we need to learn all the relevant theory from module 4 by Wednesday. This involves actual work. I can only conclude they’re all insane.
This trip to Formby Point (I live here, for crying out loud) is a test run for our week-long field trip to the place-with-the-unpronounceable-name in August. I mean, I can just about pronounce Betws-y-Coed. But we’re going to a place a little further on from there, called Rhyd-y-Creuau. This, I cannot pronounce. It actually sounds quite fun in a weird way – we’ll be on our own, and hopefully the weather will be nice, and three people out of the group have birthdays while we’re out there, so it’s all good. We got the sheet yesterday asking us to detail any dietary requirements and/or psychological or physical disorders we may have.
Reading it out, Rice-Oxley went on without missing a beat, “Unfortunately, Iona’s particular sequence of psychological disorders do not count.”
Off my look, “I get worse at A2.”
No kidding.
So, yes. That trip ought to be fun, too. If I make it out alive from this weekend, that is.
Last night, I went to see PoA again. With my parents, this time, and I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t want to go, but went just to humour me. Anyway, I’m glad I made Pedar see it.
Some of my own observations on the second time round:
-This time, I didn’t see Sir Cadogan! I was watching out for him, and yet I never saw him. I don’t know what happened there.
-Lupin’s first Defence lesson – he calls Neville out to the front and gives him this cute little hello I never noticed the first time round. So cute.
-I can’t get over Remus’s lines about Lily on the bridge – but in a good way. I think I want to use them for the FAP challenge.
-The ghosts on horseback smashing through the window – fantastic! Also, cookies and kudos to whoever suggested Dementors could fly.
-Both Dumbledore and Lupin lighting candles with their hands – I like the complete unconsciousness of it, as if this is just normal. The attention to detail throughout the film is astounding.
-Sirius trying to hold Remus from transforming – oh, so lovely. Even if you ignore the blatantly slashy aspect – and believe me, I find that difficult – it’s still such a powerful, emotionally charged thing to do, and says a lot about the film in general. Just think – Sirius knows from experience that what he’s trying to do is hopeless, Remus will transform whatever happens. Besides that, Sirius has a lot on his mind – Peter, Harry, impending Dementors, etc. But despite all of that, he still holds Remus in the moonlight, because such is his loyalty and love (platonic or otherwise) that he has to try.
Which leads me on to Pedar’s comments. When the credits rolled, he leaned over to me and said, “If this isn’t noir-ish, I don’t know what is.”
I suppose I ought to make clear that although he is a general film buff, Pedar’s particular interest is film noir. He loves anti-heroes and darkness and angst and futile strivings towards redemption.
I was pleased he showed signs of liking it, but had to ask, “How is it noir-ish, exactly?”
“Nothing is ever what it seems,” he said happily. “This man, Sirius, was supposed to be the villain, but…”
I, being an idiot, had honestly forgotten that he would have thought Sirius was the bad guy until the Shrieking Shack scene.
“Right,” I said. “How else?”
“Harry says it at the end,” he went on. “It didn’t make a difference. Nothing we can do makes a difference.”
“That’s depressing,” I said.
Without listening, he went on, “And the other one had to leave [probably Lupin!] and they even go back in time, and they don’t make a difference!”
“So you liked it?” I said in the end.
“You know me and fantasy.”
I groaned. “Allowing for that…”
Well, it looks like he did like it. He agreed with me on the lovely visuals, and the theme of passing time, and of course the actors. I eventually asked him, “So, you see why I insist on writing fanfiction about these characters?”
“They have layers,” he said solemnly.
That’s good enough for me. He didn’t know who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs were (the film didn’t really make it clear, and I do think it could have been rectified easily just with Sirius and Remus calling each other Moony and Padfoot) so I told him, and also had a bit of a moan about the CGI werewolf (urgh).
Then I asked my mother what she thought. Her response?
“You saw this twice?”
Remind me again that we’re related.
Today has been spent in a whirlwind of chaos, cooking and my mother’s new obsession with bathmats, but in the midst of all of this, I have managed to get my email account working. My new address: iona.raven[at]gmail[dot]com. – email me, etc.
I love Gmail’s interface and the amount of storage. Fabulous.
I think I’ve probably talked enough for now.
Tomorrow morning at eleven, I’m off to the airport with my parents to help navigate and suchlike. We’re going to meet various family members who will probably become characters in my journal for a few months, so quickly rendered here:
Mashi – aunt (technically – mother’s cousin). Had a radio show until lately. Too cool for school, etc. Has been to England twice before, and finds it “quaint”, but does like it. Fretted for years that she’d never ever get married, but this was rectified last year and she’s coming here now to celebrate her first anniversary. Seems to likes me, because I was a cute baby and have grown up with that ultimate street-cred factor – I was born in the West. I have always wondered if she’d like me nearly as much if this were not the case.
Hemang – her husband. I have never met him, but he sounds nice. He emails me on occasion, says he’s heard a lot about me, and I figure he has a sense of humour.
Dadu – grandfather (again, technically – is mother’s father’s younger brother). Has been like father to my mother. Has wanted to visit Europe his entire life, but refused to until his daughter (Mashi) was married. Now she is, and he’s more excited about this trip than he has been about anything else in his life before. Calls me “Lady Iona” because of my accent.
Didibhai – grandmother (well, not really related to me by blood, but still). Appears to be looking forward to it, but could be going along with the flow. Rabid chocoholic. Has one ambition in her life – to see snow. May well decide to stay here until she does.
Mashi and Hemang will be here for two weeks – Dadu and Didibhai possibly two months. Should be fun. I know them all (except Hemang) very well, unlike my paternal grandmother, as we’ve been visiting them every two years for as long as I can remember. They live in Chittaranjan Park, which is in the Bengali colony in south Delhi and heaven on earth to four-year-old-me. They spoil me, to be honest; I’ve never been sure why and have always been afraid it’s more to do with my unusual upbringing and birthplace than anything about me personally.
So, yes. They’re arriving tomorrow morning. Mashi wants to go to London, and accordingly, all of them plus my parents are going down on Tuesday. I wanted to go, but can’t – Biology field trip, of all horrible things – and I know I sound incredibly bitter, but they’ve made it very difficult for me. They want me to come, and have been trying every blackmailing trick in the book to try and make me, whereas I know I can’t. I really can’t.
On the plus side, I get another week on my own. Hopefully I won’t be driven to quite the same state of loopiness as last time.
Because of this London trip, there’s less time for socialising than there would be otherwise. My mother therefore decided she must hold a party on Sunday night. This party, which now involves forty people and a great deal of food – is the stuff nightmares are made of. She’s driving everyone crazy with her paranoid preparations and I will be very glad when it’s all over. Becca’s coming round to keep me company, though, and Pedar beckoned me to the fridge and showed me the bottle of peach Archers Aqua secreted there for my benefit, which can only be a good thing.
The party is what I occasionally call, in speech marks, an “Indian gathering”, and for the record, this means there will be no alcohol. Not because there’s a rule against it, but simply because. There will, however, be a lot of food – a lot of food! – and a lot of people, orange squash and children all put in a single room to be quiet and watch telly and play nicely. Normally, we have this sort of party for Diwali so at least they get sparklers and fireworks to keep them quiet, and this time I’m hoping we can put them in the garden. It keeps them out of my room, at least – invariably, it gets wrecked and I’m not having that.
I’m lucky in some ways. At least my name is Iona and I never learned Bharat Natyam.
The last few days have been vaguely interesting, but have mostly played out as a backdrop to all the chaos in the house. I went back to school on Thursday, and can’t believe that two days on, I’m already stressed about module 4. I don’t want to do A2 modules now – I haven’t got AS results yet! – but it seems I have no choice in the matter. To make things that little bit worse, our first Biology field trip is next week and we need to learn all the relevant theory from module 4 by Wednesday. This involves actual work. I can only conclude they’re all insane.
This trip to Formby Point (I live here, for crying out loud) is a test run for our week-long field trip to the place-with-the-unpronounceable-name in August. I mean, I can just about pronounce Betws-y-Coed. But we’re going to a place a little further on from there, called Rhyd-y-Creuau. This, I cannot pronounce. It actually sounds quite fun in a weird way – we’ll be on our own, and hopefully the weather will be nice, and three people out of the group have birthdays while we’re out there, so it’s all good. We got the sheet yesterday asking us to detail any dietary requirements and/or psychological or physical disorders we may have.
Reading it out, Rice-Oxley went on without missing a beat, “Unfortunately, Iona’s particular sequence of psychological disorders do not count.”
Off my look, “I get worse at A2.”
No kidding.
So, yes. That trip ought to be fun, too. If I make it out alive from this weekend, that is.
Last night, I went to see PoA again. With my parents, this time, and I’m pretty sure my mother didn’t want to go, but went just to humour me. Anyway, I’m glad I made Pedar see it.
Some of my own observations on the second time round:
-This time, I didn’t see Sir Cadogan! I was watching out for him, and yet I never saw him. I don’t know what happened there.
-Lupin’s first Defence lesson – he calls Neville out to the front and gives him this cute little hello I never noticed the first time round. So cute.
-I can’t get over Remus’s lines about Lily on the bridge – but in a good way. I think I want to use them for the FAP challenge.
-The ghosts on horseback smashing through the window – fantastic! Also, cookies and kudos to whoever suggested Dementors could fly.
-Both Dumbledore and Lupin lighting candles with their hands – I like the complete unconsciousness of it, as if this is just normal. The attention to detail throughout the film is astounding.
-Sirius trying to hold Remus from transforming – oh, so lovely. Even if you ignore the blatantly slashy aspect – and believe me, I find that difficult – it’s still such a powerful, emotionally charged thing to do, and says a lot about the film in general. Just think – Sirius knows from experience that what he’s trying to do is hopeless, Remus will transform whatever happens. Besides that, Sirius has a lot on his mind – Peter, Harry, impending Dementors, etc. But despite all of that, he still holds Remus in the moonlight, because such is his loyalty and love (platonic or otherwise) that he has to try.
Which leads me on to Pedar’s comments. When the credits rolled, he leaned over to me and said, “If this isn’t noir-ish, I don’t know what is.”
I suppose I ought to make clear that although he is a general film buff, Pedar’s particular interest is film noir. He loves anti-heroes and darkness and angst and futile strivings towards redemption.
I was pleased he showed signs of liking it, but had to ask, “How is it noir-ish, exactly?”
“Nothing is ever what it seems,” he said happily. “This man, Sirius, was supposed to be the villain, but…”
I, being an idiot, had honestly forgotten that he would have thought Sirius was the bad guy until the Shrieking Shack scene.
“Right,” I said. “How else?”
“Harry says it at the end,” he went on. “It didn’t make a difference. Nothing we can do makes a difference.”
“That’s depressing,” I said.
Without listening, he went on, “And the other one had to leave [probably Lupin!] and they even go back in time, and they don’t make a difference!”
“So you liked it?” I said in the end.
“You know me and fantasy.”
I groaned. “Allowing for that…”
Well, it looks like he did like it. He agreed with me on the lovely visuals, and the theme of passing time, and of course the actors. I eventually asked him, “So, you see why I insist on writing fanfiction about these characters?”
“They have layers,” he said solemnly.
That’s good enough for me. He didn’t know who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs were (the film didn’t really make it clear, and I do think it could have been rectified easily just with Sirius and Remus calling each other Moony and Padfoot) so I told him, and also had a bit of a moan about the CGI werewolf (urgh).
Then I asked my mother what she thought. Her response?
“You saw this twice?”
Remind me again that we’re related.
Today has been spent in a whirlwind of chaos, cooking and my mother’s new obsession with bathmats, but in the midst of all of this, I have managed to get my email account working. My new address: iona.raven[at]gmail[dot]com. – email me, etc.
I love Gmail’s interface and the amount of storage. Fabulous.
I think I’ve probably talked enough for now.
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no subject
on 2004-06-20 01:43 am (UTC)And I have e-mailed you. Fic. Lily and Remus. My (very slashy) reading of what Remus says on the bridge.
no subject
on 2004-06-20 08:57 am (UTC)Haven't read fic yet, because of CHAOS INCARNATE, but I'm on it. *groan* Let me read fic, you evil people!
no subject
on 2004-06-20 09:01 am (UTC)