philosophy supernatural nude

In times of stress, I tend to... make a mess.

Today is my fourth day of school, and ( this is what my floor looks like )Admittedly, I have no idea what any of those bits of paper actually are. I suspect ring binders may be in my future.

Anyway, I don't know what I expected from the LPC, but mostly, it has neither surpassed nor fail to meet my non-existent expectations. Since Monday, I have been Going To Class, Doing Homework, sitting quietly and waiting for my name to be called, doing quiet group work, start over. It's a lot more tiring than it sounds; being out of the house nine to five is one thing, and having a lot of homework is another, but both together is really rather painful. I have discovered, however, a new fun sport: torturing careers advisers. We had one, very solemn, very practical, very worked-in-City, had wisdom to impart, wanted to know if we had any particular issues to talk about.

One girl raised her hand and said, "Global recession?"

"Ah," he said. "I don't think we should over-emphasise..."

"The Law Society says training contracts are so few that people shouldn't even bother with the LPC if it'll lead to debt," she went on.

"There's a hundred applications per place," said someone else.

"Most firms aren't recruiting."

"Our chances are slim to minimal."

"Recovery isn't happening."

"So do you have any advice?"

He blinked for a while. "Um, there was a recession in the mid-eighties, and, um. That improved. You shouldn't... er... write yourselves off."

"How about our debt?"

...and so on. Poor man; I suspect he probably knew that no one in the room had the sorts of problems that can be fixed by re-formatting your CV, but there's such a thing as a small victory.

Other than this, I have nothing in particular to say. There has been new Merlin this week, and also I have not been sleeping, and thus I have been lying in bed plotting a Merlin-and-Arthur accidentally swap bodies epic. Maybe not an epic. Maybe just some sniping and Merlin taking the opportunity to push Arthur into a lake. And then both of them being afraid to wash. And Gwen guessing immediately, and Uther having no idea, and a long philosophical discussion about whether magic rests in the body or in the mind while someone who looks a lot like Arthur turns very slow somersaults in mid-air.

Also, speaking of not sleeping, I have been medically-intervened. My GP, who is very nice, has finally listened to me telling him that no, warm milk does not help, and neither does CBT, help me I need help, etc. He has prescribed me a low dose of amitriptyline, a drug I am wary of for the not-unreasonable reason that last time I was prescribed it the doctor in question wanted me to stop cycling around Oxford. ("Because you might... fall into traffic.") But this time around the dose is much lower, and I hope for better things. Am keeping a sleep diary, something I have always meant to do. Better things.

...that's it, I think. jacinthsong is coming to see me at the weekend, I have a lot of homework to do, it's still September. Still a murky mercurial September at that, one that swings between blunt splashes of cold in the mornings, and warm dusks; yesterday evening had that strange late-summer feeling of heat radiating from the earth, but nevertheless we are in that odd limbo of the last few years, somewhere between Eid and Diwali where no one knows what season it is. I do not approve of autumn, I think; I want hot, cleansing sun or snow. I also want a training contract, a hard-boiled egg and a pony. My life is very hard.

I should go and do some work.

(Oh, and! I keep meaning to mention this. After having a dormant account for a while, I am now using Twitter. (Don't worry; I don't plan to import my tweets.) If you would like to follow me, or would like me to follow you, or would like to tell me whom I should be following, please tell me about it. I'm singlecrow over there.)

Hi, I am a crazy person. I spent Thursday afternoon sitting by the river, under the bridge where the people take their canoes down, watching the geese and the pleasure craft and the occasional solemn, athletic canoeist. One of the large passenger boats from Iffley had cut power and drifted into the middle of the river in order to turn around; there was also an elderly, very fit man sculling furiously. Backwards. After the shouting and crashing were over, I sat back against my tree on the bank and though, huh, I am the only person in the world who saw that coming, maybe I should have said something.. And then started cackling like a loon. I related this story to my long-suffering headshrink dude the next day, and he noted that was very healthy, sitting by the water watching the boats go by. I may have, um, shouted at him.

Basically: I am not very well, I am in that place where you don't think life is worth living at all, blah blah blah whatever.

There are still quite a few days of posting for lgbtfest, but I thought it was worth noting a few of my favourites while we go:

We Few, We Happy Few by toujours_nigel, Harry Potter.
Aurors, and institutionalised homophobia. This is stylish.

Time (of change), by soft_princess, Merlin.
Uther prefers not to father bastards. It's all very logical. Unexpectedly sweet and lovely.

The Rules, by gilesonnen, Discworld.
A new wizard at Unseen University has questions about the celibacy policy. Ridcully is very literal. The story is a gentle, rollicking delight.

Love Like A Djelibeybian, by gehayi, Discworld.
Ptraci is enjoying being queen. But people have strange ideas about what handmaidens ought and ought not to do.

And these two you must read, if nothing else:

Modern Love, by penknife, Discworld.
Show me something of Penknife's I haven't loved, but this is special. This is the Disc's dwarfs getting used to gender, and sex, and not getting used to it, and embracing the human notions, and rejecting the human notions, and it is... not beautiful, but right, and shaped perfectly into a few thousand words. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece of writing, and something I hope Pratchett nods at, later.

The Pattern of the Process, by raedbard, The West Wing.
This is about Toby's babies-who-come-with-hats, Huck and Molly, only they're not babies, any more - and more than that I wouldn't want to say, because this story is perfect and complete and self-contained. It's immaculately thought-out and immaculately executed, and at something like 19,000 words, an astonishing achievement for a few months' work.

Couldn't sleep. Fic happened.

Fic:: In The Bleak Midwinter
by Raven
R, Merlin, slash, 3500 words. Merlin and Arthur, freezing cold, at the start of things.

( it's raining in Camelot... )

Merlin! ( now I'm up to 1.05, Lancelot )

The fact there are only thirteen episodes is going to kill me, isn't it?