*is ded*

[raven]

Urgh. I'm pretty sure my internal organs want to kill me. Also, I keep hitting Ctrl instead of shift and it is making typing very annoying.

URRRGH. I actually wanted to write about far more interesting things, like being back in Oxford and seeing Brokeback Mountain and hanging out with all the cool people once more, or even the French Fourth Republic (as I now know what it is), but sadly my mind is too fixated on the fact my body wants it to die. I love India as a country, I really do, but all native bacteria should be lined up and terminated with extreme prejudice.

So, um, meme. From chicklet73: The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about each other. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Go on, it'll be fun. Also, I wanted to do the "10 things I assume you know about me" meme from a while back, but I think India intervened.

Now please excuse me while I drown in paracetamol and other assorted over-the-counter analgaesia. (God bless India, where there is no such thing as a counter.)

Comments

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Okay, no, no, my previous question was idiotic. Honestly.

How do you treat LiveJournal? If something amusing happened, would it be filed away in your brain as something to be LJ'd, or just a memory to treasure?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hee, I liked your previous question, so I'm going to answer it anyway. Yes, I did have a dog, a big fluffy German Shepherd dog named Max. I adored him, but as he got bigger and I got older we didn't have the time to look after him properly, so he's gone to live on a farm in Lancashire somewhere. But yes, he was the nicest dog in the entire world, bar none.

I've always written journal entries in my head, and I didn't consciously realise I was doing it until I got my LJ and started writing in it properly. So, yes, I do file stuff away to be LJed, particularly when said stuff happens in the company of other LJ people. Good question. :)

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

DOCTOR WHO IS COMING TO AMERICA!! Please, jump up and down with me. And it's not going to be a shitty remake, either! Oh, March, hurry up!

Max sounds like a lovely dog. A farm dog at heart!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*jumps up and down with you* Gleeee!

*g* Have posted to this effect. Now you must start looking at the website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho), for the Beeb are geeks and it is JOY.

Seriously, I'm really glad you're getting a chance to see it. It is so, so wonderful I have no words. You get TARDIS squee, and Nine, and the Face of Boe omg, and eee Daleks! and the Doctor dancing, and swing-dancing at that, and vodka Martinis, and ooh, Captain Jack shagging everyone male or female in the vicinity, and yes, I will shut up. Squee.

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am afraid to look at the website! Dying of anticipation and all.

...

Oh, hell, who am I kidding! Long live the Beeb!

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether this "should be obvious", but I've often wondered it -

How often did you go to India when you were growing up? I think you've been a couple of times a year since I started reading your LJ - was that normal when you were younger, or is that partly the result of you being older and more travellable? And did you usually visit your father's family, your mother's family, or both equally?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a good set of questions. I was born here in Liverpool, but I think I went to India for the first time fairly soon after, before I was two. The first time I can remember, I was almost four. Back then we used to go once every two years, barring weddings and special occasions that we had to go for, and in the last five years or so it's been every year. I think partly it's because I'm older, and partly because my family are much more financially stable than when I was small, and can afford the flights more easily.

Because of the way Indian society works, I've spent a lot of time with my father's family in New Delhi. My maternal grandfather died in 1979, and the family he left behind live in Assam, which is remote and impossible to get to. But my great-uncle, who brought my mother up, lives in Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi, and so I've spent a lot of time with him too. I guess it has worked out equally, taken over time.

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

Um... I know you said quite a bit about how you feel at christmas, but do you feel set apart in any way because you celebrate things like diwali&go to India&still have quite strong links with there?
It just intrigues me. When I was growing up we'd all celebrate diwali as well as christmas (the area I went to school in has a lot of differing religions all packed into a pretty small space) and I don't think I ever felt left out by it, because they read us stories about it and I thought it was a fantastic idea for a festival (And we always got to do fun things for diwali), but the rest of the small proportion of my class that was christian, I don't know how they felt about it.
I'm rambling. Did I actually ask a coherant question? Ah well, back to my cuppa *sips tea*
xx

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

What it boils down to is quite simple, actually. What gets to me is that I don't get a decent celebration at Christmas, because I'm not Christian and my family have never celebrated it even secularly, but I don't get Diwali either, because I don't live in India (or even an area of Britain with many Indian people), and it's never going to be the same here. In the end I don't get any kind of celebration or festival that I can enjoy properly, and that's what I'm bitter about.

Also: I got a Christmas card from you today! :) Thank you. *loves*

[amchau.livejournal.com]

It is unfair that you don't get either Christmas or Diwali properly. Which is why you should tell me what you'd like for your birthday, so that you can have least have that properly.

*sends evil death wishes to nasty Indian bacteria*

("Die, evil fiend!" shouted the antibody, as he raced heroically into battle, waving his spear.

The unidentified bacteria grimaced as they began hand-to-hand combat. Before long, the antibody-- performing a neat backflip over a red blood cell which accidentally got in the way-- had stabbed the invader to death.

"Hah!" he exclaimed, wiping his spear off on his trousers (which made a passing white blood cell tut-tut disapprovingly). "See, bacterium scum, there is nothing but pain and gory death for you here!")

I hope you're feeling better soon, and can share your thoughts on Brokeback Mountain-- I need help deciding if I should spend precious money on seeing it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I want a surprise for my birthday! (And for you to be here. :))

I got the latest cathedral in my pidge! I thoroughly enjoyed the trouser-wearing theory, and started to laugh in the middle of the post room, which was embarrassing. :)

Oh, my. I have antibody fic! I love it, actually, particularly the spear wiped on his trousers. Poor antibody. *pets it*

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll look for a surprise for you. And I will be there the Sunday after.

I'm glad that arrived. :) And very glad that it made you laugh (though I have now forgotten the details of the theory in question).

Well, it seemed to me to be what antibodies would *do*. (If they were crossbreed with the Nac Mac Feegle, that is.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, forgot to mention - you must see Brokeback Mountain. Opinion seems divided on my flist, but personally I thought it was gorgeous. Emotive, beautifully shot and realisatically imagined. I really liked it.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I will do my best to see it soon, then. :)

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

Awwww :'( Thats really sad. Everybody needs a big lovely celebration to look forward to :/
Also, hee. I probably sent it a bit late to actually catch you still at uni. There again I was house-confined at the time...
I should write you a proper letter. I have paper with Fishies on it. But I have to write back to my lil net sis who I hadn't spoken to for four years before she replied to my christmas card first... Blimey, ever tried to cover 4 years in 2 pages? O_o;;
xx

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

You've mentioned that girl!Doctor is a tiny bit like a Mary Sue. In what ways are you like her (or not)?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's meeeean. I try to make her as little of a Mary-Sue as possible, let's start with that. But bits of me do creep in, you're right. Let's think. Um, my biggest self-indulgence where she's concerned is the way my clothes keep appearing in the TARDIS wardrobe. :) The red skirts are all mine, and so are the "impact validity" pointy suede boots and the red nail varnish. In a fic I'm writing at the moment, she's wearing a vintage dress that I have (only hers is a different colour from mine, for plot purposes). It is self-indulgence, like I said. :)

Beyond that, her sense of humour is a little bit like mine, and although she reads a lot of the same books I do, she reads them because she really likes them whereas I just tolerate them for university. She's more literary than I am, a lot more intelligent, a lot braver, and I can cook much, much better than she can. Does that answer your question? (Which was fab, as I've never really thought about it properly before).

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

*grins* I don't think she is, any more than, say, Rose is a Mary Sue. You made the comment on a meme, and I just wondered how she seemed Sue-ish.

Ah, the clothes. *grin* But they're pretty convincing, more so than if she wore a catsuit or just a leather bra or something.

Hee. I like the idea that she enjoys things that you have to study, because that's completely the Doctor.

She can't cook? Well, I suppose she's never really had the practice. :)

Yes, that definitely answers it. :D Was interesting to hear a bit about yourself and about girl!Doctor.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

A catsuit or a leather bra? *is scared*

She can't cook, I think, because she's deliberately trying not to do stereotypically girlie things. She wants to be perverse, despite the fact Seven and Eight could cook well!

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm thinking of what a female Doctor would turn out like, worst case scenario. *grins evilly* Terrible mental image, isn't it?

I love that she's so against girlish thing, because she even mentions that Eight's more of a girl than she is. Is just interesting to see how slightly bothered she is by it.

[tau_sigma]

Hm... Have you always lived in England? Or have you been to other countries and come back? Sorry, this feels a little random and lame, but I've got the feeling from some of your entries that you've moved around a lot, and was just wondering where/when-ish?

DEATH TO THE BACTERIA!!! Hope you feel better soon. *hugs*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do like these questions. :) And the answer is, well, not quite. I was born in Liverpool (oh, yeah, rock 'n' roll) and I lived there until I was about three. Then we moved to the Wirral, which is only about ten miles away, and that's where I went to primary school, and then when I was eleven we moved to Formby (again, only thirty miles away) where I've lived ever since. It's all been in and around hospitals; there was a lot of living in hospital accomodation, which is, um, not so fab, but gives you a unique view of the NHS.

But as I think you know, I'm a (comprehensively spoilt) only child, and it helps that my parents are doctors. Whenever they went on conferences when I was small, they took me everywhere with them. So I've travelled a lot with them - on the last count it's fourteen countries across five continents - and spent a lot of time away from home. The longest, I think, have been two months in India when I was five, and a month each in Cambridge and in Leuven, which is a university town in northern Belgium.

So there we go. My not-so-modern life. :) And DEATH TO ALL BACTERIA dear me yes. *hug*

[tau_sigma]

Ah, I see. Exciting life! (To me, who has lived in one house all her life, and can count the number of times she's been out of the country on one hand.)

Ooh, and - French Fourth Republic? Is this like the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire?! :P

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*g* It was, it really was, and that's the worst thing about growing up, that that part of my life is over.

Yes! Yes it is like the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire! (At least: if it has changing alliances, twenty-five governments in twelve years and ministers committing suicide, it is.)