This journal is only semi-friends only from here on out. All fic is now up at my AO3 page.

If you friend me, it is because you want to read about my personal life (which will include fic musings, school stories, dog updates, family drama and random sociopolitical thoughts). I'm currently a student, studying to become a nurse (so lots and lots of science courses). I tutor people for a living. I have a dog named Abby who is basically the cutest thing ever (on four legs). She's sleeping on my feet right now.

Current fandoms I am involved in:
- GLEE
- Hockey RPF
- fringes (FRINGES) of bandom (basically if friends wrote it)
- Buffy Crossovers
- White Collar
- Misc. random stories (did you know there was fiction about Brokeback Mountain? AND that it's *good* and Jack and Ennis *live* in it?)

I was raised in a reform Jewish household. Very very reform, to the point where I'd almost say we were more culturally Jewish then anything else. In college I explored Judaism in a lot more depth, through Hillel and Chabbad and my circle of friends. I explored Religion, too, which is part of what I feel college is all about, trying different things on for size and seeing what fits comfortably and what feels as though it's going to strangle you.

I think what stands out to me most about college was my friendship with a girl named Michele (barefoot Michelle!) and her view on religion. She is easily the most religious person I have ever known, but she was also the most open minded and most loving individual too. She was part of the Intervarsity Christian club, and I met her because she literally always went barefoot and (the first two times I met her) she was also carrying a Pogo Stick, just incase she ever felt like Pogoing around. I'm not making this a post about Michelle, but she literally changed my view of the world. Every time I see one of those "question authority" stickers or posts, I think of her. She's the type of person who hated sleeping in a bed, so she hung a hammock from the ceiling. She went to more Hillel events then I did, because she liked learning about other religions. She took Hebrew as a language and liked it so much, I took it as a language too.

Everything I learned from Michelle is something I still treasure to this day--don't take things at face value; if it doesn't hurt you or someone else, it's none of your business; everyone just wants to live their own lives; singing is fun, especially when you do it at the top of your lungs; live for today because who knows about tomorrow. She went to college for 5 years and, aside from the degree, I think the thing Michelle walked away from college with that she treasured the most was a scuba certification, to teach scuba.

I'm not in touch with her anymore, which makes sense in my head because she taught me what I needed to know, what I need to know. I can see her literally going all over the world (she isn't big on personal possessions or having a home) and teaching scuba wherever the weather and water takes her. It makes me happy, to think of her like that.

But how does this tie into religion? It ties into religion because over the past 6 years, since I graduated college and have since gone back, my views on my own religion have gradually changed. I was sitting at work the other day, talking to my bosses boss, who is this big time Buddhist/Eastern Religion philosophy guy, and I was saying that I think everything happens for a reason. And, well, somehow over the past 28 years, that has gone from being something my mom says occasionally to something I firmly believe in with all my heart. And Edward, my bosses boss, looked at me and just had this look on his face that I can't describe, and he said that he was really happy he hadn't gone home early as he'd been planning too, because talking to me changed his entire day; it hadn't been a good one, filled with stressful budget meetings, and just hearing someone sound happy about things, and genuinely want other people to be happy too--it just lifted his whole mood.

So, I'm not sure if that is a religion, or just Karma, or G-d, but it's what I believe, for me. I'm not sure if other people have had this happen to them or not, or if its part of your daily life. But everything I do, the tiny things and the big things and everything in between (kind of like meeting Michelle, amongst other people) means something, changing something, makes the day better.

My mom says that I'm the most happy person she knows, because I don't look at what I want or what I don't have, that I just kind of exist and let other people exist without judging them (too much--dude, my stat's teacher? I *REALLY* want to turn her into 'what not to wear' and let Stacy and Clinton deal with her because NOBODY should be witness to that). But that's only one thing in the grand scheme of everything. I dunno.

Just--yeah. *shrug*

Now, it's 7 am and I have to shower and get dressed, because The Avengers is playing at 9 am and I will be there! EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT! WOOOOOOT!

I really liked the character Chandler. I thought his texts to Kurt were fun and witty, and he seemed to be a fun character to write. I'm sad we won't see him again in the Glee 'verse, and after thinking about it for a while (and reading Glee Angst and Glee Fluff meme prompts), I came up with a quick plot bunny that is EATING my soul.

( Kurt/Chandler/Blaine story... )
So, yes, I need to plot out more and figure out details and like, actually write this thing. I want it, though. SO MUCH. *nods*

Life has been keeping me pretty busy, so busy that I haven't posted in awhile. So, yes. A quick update.

1) Stat's homework can suck it. I spent four hours today at the library doing Stat's homework, and only finished 1 chapter. Now I have to do another 4 hours tomorrow on a separate chapter. *whine*

2) I am going to be leading a science kid summer camp this summer, all about getting kids to like science. Yay! science. Yay! paycheck. Just, um, yay! in general.

3) I got a PFLAG scholarship. I don't know how much for, $1,000 or $2,000 but it's pretty exciting! I like monies and free monies are even better!

4) I get monies back from tax returns = yay!

5) I'm almost done with school for the semester! Woooooot!

6) I take my GRE and TEAS this summer and then start actually applying places. *scared*

The podfic I talked about a few days ago went live! SO AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL. Linky Link to the story. Go listen and be amazed!

The story that was podficed was: The Motions You've Been Going Through which is a Bandom story, Pete/Patrick pre-slash/friendship gen. WARNING: This story does talk about abortion, so, yes. Don't read if that is a trigger.

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Work wise, things are slow this month, and I've been getting a lot of cancelations. This means sad things for me, money-wise. :( Things are going to be tight for the new few months; I expect I shall start cooking a HELL of a lot more, and hopefully the things I cook will be cheap.

Weight loss wise, I am now down another size, to an 18. I haven't been an 18 since college, freshman year, so this is just kind of amazingly wonderful. I'm walking my doggie 40 minutes a day, which I suspect is helping. AND I'm enjoying it between the sunshine and the podfic and everything put together. :) My goal is to be a size 14 by the end of June, which I think is pretty doable.

~~

This summer it looks like my sister might score me a job as a camp counselor for the camp she helps run, which I would greatly appreciate. YAY full-time work! Yay! monies! I am quite happy about this idea. I am also taking GRE and TEAS test this summer, which means I'm applying fo schools this coming fall (except UCSF, which I will be applying to shortly, because that is my dream school and I don't think I have a chance in hell in actually getting in, but I might as well reach for the stars, right?)

Okay, so, this is a quick hit-and-run post because I have some serious writing I'm slowly attempting to do (read: another chapter of Two Ducks in Love is probably coming out sometime this week) but OMG, somebody (read: fire_juggler) made a podfic of my story! A PODFIC OF MY STORY! THANK YOU fire_juggler!!!

It isn't live yet, so I can't link you to it, but trust me when I say it's amazing and stupendous and just, I'm grinning ear to ear and I can't believe that my story is now something that has an AUDIOBOOK format. This is totally a first for me.

It occurs to me that I should maybe mention what story it is, so here you go:

The Motions You've Been Going Through which is a Bandom story, Pete/Patrick pre-slash/friendship gen. WARNING: This story does talk about abortion, so, yes. Don't read if that is a trigger. But I wrote this story years ago, when I was trying to figure out if I should write another bandom story, a longer one wherein Patrick Stump is ftm, but that doesn't matter because he's Patrick Stump, and the reader would go through most of the story *not* knowing that Patrick was stealth and just having thinly veiled references to it, but then I decided that wasn't a good thing to do so I didn't and instead I wrote this.

In an unrelated note, well, kind of related--after Patrick's recent blog post that made me feel ALL the feelings in the world, I kind of want to write a story about him finding himself again, about him finding a life outside of music that is still all about music, and okay, apparently? I only have one trope of Bandom fic that I like to write, which is basically the idea that music isn't forever and there is always something after that, while it might not be better, is different enough to live for. Seriously, but then I decided not to write that story because I wasn't sure I should use Patrick's real-life angst to write fic and I got onto a whole quandry of questions and self doubt.

Mostly I want to write a story. A story that is angsty. And about people having imperfections and being human and not knowing how to deal with the imperfections so they make stupid mistakes and ruin things that shouldn't maybe be ruined, but once they are ruined they can't be unruined. So instead you keep going forward and living and finding new things that you haven't ruined yet.

For those of you who are interested, tonight 8 the play is live streaming on youTube at 7:30ish pacific standard time. This is the play that has George Clooney, Brad Pitt, um, the dude from White Collar, and a zillion other famous people in it and it looks to be SUPER good.

http://www.youtube.com/AmericanEqualRights

You can watch at the link posted above.

I ran away this weekend, to stay with a friend for the whole four days. Well, I ran away and took some people (and my dog) with me. I'm sitting in Vicki's living room, with my dog curled on my feet, and just smiling because it's been such a good weekend so far (and I have hopes of it getting even better before I have to return to the real world tomorrow).

Yesterday we went to a festival called Whisky Flats and walked around and got to see this really cool reenactment piece meant to represent what had happened in Kern Valley from pre-colonization to the gold rush. I got to shoot a bow-and-arrow (which I kind of sucked at, until I turned out to be the only person able to get it into the hey at the other end of the range) and throw a hatchet.

In other news, for the first time (in possibly forever) I walked into a Gap store on Friday, tried on a pair of jeans, and HAD THEM FIT. I can now officially shop in actual-fax clothing stores! :) I bought the jeans and they're super comfortable, although a little long. I'm going to lose a bit more weight and then buy like four pairs, because seriously, seriously, SO COMFORTABLE. ;)

Somehow, without noticing, I kind of got a life. And it kind of rocks. I guess that old adage is true, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Now, off to study my muscles before I get pulled into a day that should include the watching of Sherlock (season 2, episode 3....) and maybe, possibly Battle Royale, so I can understand all these damn Hunger Games/Battle Royale comparisons.

Then tonight--a smallish potluck/party! I'm making Baked Ziti, yum.

I love social theory. I've *never* hid this, because seriously? Dude, I got a degree in the stuff. I love trying to analyze actions through different lens, different filters, and then seeing what can be interpreted because of what I see. There is an *amazing* blog out there called Letters from Titan wherein [Unknown LJ tag] deconstructs much of pop culture and just, blow my mind. Her recent post, about costumes in Glee, got me writing a really long response. But more then that, it got me thinking about one of my favorite social theorists, Erving Goffman.

Erving Goffman's main theory, that I learned about in school, was about how people basically put on a costume/role before going out into society. And they perform the *hell* out of the roll, never sliding in front of people they don't trust/can't trust for various reasons. And that, when people are in the company of people they truly trust, at home or someplace safe, they begin to let their true self out. He went beyond this to explain that when people are inconsistant with the role they play, they risk being humiliation/ridicule, which is why a lot of people so closely guard their costumes and roles and even when they are someplace where they feel safe, they might not drop their act. The theory goes much further then this, talking about how people react the way other people expect them to react, and how that reaction changes depending on who they're around, so in essence people actually wear multiple costumes that overlap with one another and become very tiring to wear and that's when people make "mistakes" and let some part of their role drop.

Anyway, this theory can be used to describe everything about Glee. EVERYTHING. Because Glee, at its heart, is about the roles people are assigned to wear in high school; the roles people take up themselves in high school; the differences between the two identities and how that causes a lot of the conflict and drama. And finally--how people really aren't that much like their roles, and the behavior that they exhibit when they are some place safe, some place where they don't have to perform and react in specific ways.

And okay, so--this? Total material for a longer essay about Glee being analyzed under Erving Goffman's theory. And suddenly, for the first time in *years*, I want to write that. Damn social theory! I have all these *THOUGHTS* now!

Quinn, and her transformation at the beginning of the season!
Puck, and his mohawk!
Dalton Uniforms!
The obvious--cheerleaders/football players!
etc.

Today is LGBTQ day for 14valentines. For those of you who don't know what 14valentines is, take a second to explore the community. It was started ages ago (like, 5+ years, even! *snerk*) to celebrate women in the days leading up to V-day. I am a huge supporter of 14valentines, and every year I try to write at least one thing for it. This year has been really hectic, and I'm incredibly busy with school and work, which is why I haven't done anything until now.

But now--now--I have something to say.

Today is LGBTQ day, and part of me, a tiny part, is a little annoyed that there isn't an I or A there. I for intersex (which, yes, I realize is problematic and most intersex individuals would not choose to be incorporated into the LGBTQ spectrum) and A is for asexual and/or ally. Which I am--that is to say, both asexual and an ally.

And this is a bit of my story.

( Alphabet Soup and Label Bingo )