The lyf so short

I suspect this may be the happiest thing of the week! Seriously, I love these photos. You can see that the kids are taking it really seriously! Beautiful.
(Except now I want stories based around Indian Hogwarts REALLY BADLY. Like, URGENTLY. I haven't craved HP fanfic this much ever since the days of the glorious Shoebox Project, holy cow!)

Other than that, I caught the tummy bug that made Felix sick last week. Also, I planted a hedge. Mostly before being struck the tummy bug. I DESERVE MY INDIAN HOGWARTS FIC!

As always. Applied for four jobs. One job called back and want me to do sample work. Yay? Autumn is coming in so the garden is crying for me even louder than usual. I unearthed a tater troll and desperately need to make a picture book about her. NaNo? Mission Self-sufficiency is still far from being accomplished but still in progress. The weekend will probably bring me new bees to replace the ones that were stolen. (They must have been stolen. Yes, bees sometimes up and leave, but they generally don't take the entire contents of the honey super - frames included! - with them when they swarm, no?) The kids are growing so fast. Kindergarten continues to be a challenge. (A child that can read and write somehow doesn't cooperate well when asked to sit in a circle and name things that are yellow. WHO KNOWS WHY.) Etc. etc.

elenbarathi linked to an awesome article: Be More Successful: New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Do It. While I'm trying to make my sample work extra-perfect, I'm also trying to internalise its content. And probably everybody should. Be happy, that is. IT IS SCIENCE! (Actually, the whole Bakadesuyo blog is full of interesting stuff. So thanks, elenbarathi!) Seriously though, I find that I've acquired a few attitudes that Shawn identifies in the past years (I'd say that Ich habe mir eine gewisse Entspanntheit antrainiert) and while it definitely hasn't made me more succesful (yet), it certainly has made me more... content? More at peace with myself and my life, anyway. (Most of the time. I relapse into self-doubt, frustration and impostor syndrome regularly, of course. But I get out of it. That's the key, I guess.) So this study is proving me right, which is of course why I'm convinced that it is ALL TRUE!

Back to being busy, in a happy way! Talk to you later (possibly)...

... nur, um bei Chantalismus kommentieren zu können.

Ich mein, die schlechten Witze machen sich quasi von selbst. "Feanor-Elias, hör auf, die Galadrielle an die Haare zu ziehen!" - "Der kleine Feanor-Elias möchte bitte SOFORT aus dem Kinderparadies abgeholt werden!" - "Feanor-Elias, du sollst nicht immer den Finn-Noel schubsen!" - "Feanor-Elias, Finger wech vom Feuerzeuch!"

Wahrscheinlich ist er klein, dick, blond, schielt und hat zwei linke Hände.
Hoffentlich geht er nie auf eine Party mit DJ Morgoth...
[/lästermaul]

Im Wuppertaler Zoo wurde gestern ein Elefant geboren. Sie haben das kleine Wesen "Pina-Nessie" genannt. Nessie nach einer Tierpflegerin, die den gleichen Geburtstag hat, und Pina nach Pina Bausch. Ich als Tänzerin/Choreographin würde mich ja von einer Elefantenkuh als Namensvetterin nicht so irre geehrt fühlen... aber der Pina Bausch wird es wohl egal sein. :P
Jetzt heißen schon die Elefantenkühe wie die kleinen Kinder...

(Ja, irgendwann poste ich auch wieder etwas Gehaltvolles. Aber da liegt so viel an, dass ich nicht weiß, wo ich anfangen soll >_>)

Found via ladyelleth.
A short article about the discovery of the remains of a female Austrian metal worker... from 4000 years ago.

Of course, that sort of knowledge is even harder to come by. For all the gender bias in written records, at least there's written records...

(My cynical inner conspiracy theorist can't help but ask, of course, why of all the bones (and look at the pic, there are quite a lot of them), the pelvic ones would be missing... someone disappearing evidence, mayhaps?)

More details in German here.

So much, at any rate, for "natural" division of labour, etc. :D

(discovered via Elleth.)

The 22 rules of Storytelling, according to Pixar

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

( There's more, of course )

You know why I like these so much? Because they aren't about form, but about content. In the end, story is all about content. In this time and age, form is variable; presumably every rule about form has been broken by someone who was hugely succesful anyway. I'm sick of "Show, don't tell" (YES, but!), "Don't use adverbs" (YES, but!), "Don't use different words for 'say'" (YES, but!), "Eradicate cliche" (YES, but!) and "Use strong verbs" (YES, but!) and so on and so on. Besides, everyone knows the formal rules at some point - everyone's taking the same Creative Writing classes and reading the same specific advice...
Anyway. Yes. Content. Function over form, and all that.

dawn_felagund has summed up pretty much exactly what I think about the topic, so I am - hurrah! - no longer feeling the need to put my thoughts into words. I'll merely quote her:

Let's be frank, folks. If critique of a policy, no matter how heated, was what caused a fandom institution to close its doors, then it wasn't long for the world anyway. I say this as an admin and, again, with the recognition that you have to expect these kinds of problems, and you either deal or you don't. There's certainly nothing wrong with reaching the point where you can't or won't deal anymore, but pretending like an otherwise healthy and thriving fandom institution came suddenly crashing to the ground because of a critique over a ratings policy would be laughably ridiculous if I hadn't seen so much finger-pointing to this effect.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. Signed a dozen times.
(Her full, thoughtful and intelligent entry can be found here. It says everything I might want to say on the matter - only better, and providing background explanation I wouldn't even have thought of.)

(Actually, I might want to say more on the matter, but that would leave the territory of reasonable and diplomatic discourse. So I shall hold my tongue. Unless anything comes up in the comments to this entry here, of course. ;))

- A lovely four-day, four-generational vacation in the Black Forest, courtesy of my grandmother, for Felix, my mom and myself. (The others had to work, so they couldn't come.)

- Felix being an absolutely adorable person (though very clingy) and being adored by everyone. Because his adorability is totally my achievement. :P

- Coming back from said vacation and seeing the hubby again, though the poor soul is still sick (and still has to work too much)!

- Today's xkcd. How true. Sad yet funny.

- A sweet yet powerful letter to young people of the female persuasion that I found via metaquotes. I could sign it, basically. (Sometimes I wish I had a daughter so I could show her these things: Instead I have a son whom I can teach to believe these things, too. Which is good as well, I guess.)

- A fellow dA-er's rant about what she disliked about GoT. I know, I know, how petty of me to harp on about that topic, but it really bothered me that much.

So that's all nice. Who needs birthdays, really? (While I'm being petty anway...)

a.k.a. important announcement!



Two awesome RL friends and artistic inspirations of mine, eliathanis and fuchs, have launched their epic original sci-fi/fantasy webcomic Soraccant. First six pages online, updates every Sunday! Go check it out!

*snickers*

In Tolkien - specifically, Silmarillion - fanfic, there's a sort of movement that strives to explain the originally mythological goings-on and/or backgrounds in other ways, mostly natural science. Sometimes this results in really awesome stories and thought experiments while sometimes I dislike it because it deconstructs things just a bit too much for my taste. Kinda like in real life, really: If it gets too deconstructive, I'm off...
Anyway, among the MEFA nominees is ( OMG SOMETHING SPOILERIFIC IF YOU HAVEN'T READ 'ON THE TWILIT PLANET BELOW' YET! )

(I thought I'd never get to use this icon. Finally! Finally! >:D)

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In more productive news, I cut all the reeds in our constructed wetland (thank you, al_pha!), because that's what you have to do in autumn to keep it nice and orderly and growing back next spring, or something. Most of the reeds I used as mulch for the garden, but some I kept to try making skeps later on. No, I won't use skeps on my real bees, but they'll be cool to have for LARP events. Remember, guys, it's all fun and games as long as it only happens to fictional people! Or bees, as the case may be.

So is anyone on my f-list actually experiencing any of the LJ fuck-ups that get reported all over the place? Or personally knows someone who does?
Because I find myself slightly puzzled. And (amusingly enough) the only people on my f-list who have so far signal-boosted about the trouble predominantly use other platforms anyway...
(Not that I'm not trusting you, or mean to imply that you want to damage LJ, or something... I'm just wondering whether anyone I know actually noticed anything untowards, or whether it's mostly an hearsay-and-dramatisation avalanche thingy. *headscratch*)

No. I'm gonna quote fileg:
I know- any one could be THE one.
But, so far, LJ has never actually screwed me, but the "leave LJ NOW!" scares have......

And it's true. And then I'll have to either run after yet more people who migrated to where-ever. And let's face it, that only happens when I remember to do it. Or even if I am dedicated enough to check a variable amount of journals in other places every day, I may not be able to read stuff there because not all platforms allow easy Open-ID access, or the people often can't be, I dunno, bothered to friend their LJ-ex-friends' Open-ID ID. So in effect, you loose touch. Or you're forced to migrate as well, which I personally am loath to do - not just because of my permanent account here (although that is totally part of the reason), but also because I already have a nice network here that I for my part don't want to loose. So no, if you leave, I won't follow. I'll just stand on the pier, waving sadly, and hope you'll x-post to LJ (as some people on my f-list fortunately do), or otherwise allow us sorry folks who are not members of the sanctified other blogging platform to read your entries anyway...

I have to admit that by now I actively despise Dreamwidth. The Germans among you will probably know the commercials for the ERGO insurance company: That's what Dreamwidth reminds me of. "WE'RE DOING THE EXACT SAME THING AS ANY OTHER INSURANCE/BLOGGING PLATFORM! BUT WE'RE DIFFERENT! BETTER! BECAUSE WE CARE! WE UNDERSTAND! LOVE US! FOLLOW US!" Makes me automatically suspicious.* For the non-Germans: Um, I've never actually seen an episode of V - The Visitors, but from the trailers, it looks like the same principle.
On a smaller scale, naturally. I'm not that paranoid. Just slightly irrational. ;)

- - -

In completely different and MUCH more positive news: OMG zorn made fanart for me. (Disclaimer: Contains harmlessly naked Elves. Yes, skinny-dipping is actually canon. If you count The Lost Road, anyway...)
I sniffled. And I hearted. <3

- - -
*I'm still trying to figure out how ERGO can afford being as nice as they promise. Either there are a lot of loopholes in the small print so they don't actually have to deliver when push comes to shove, or else the whole insurance thing is just a front to win followers in order to take over the world or something. No, seriously. Who said "If it appears too good to be true, that's probably because it is"? Whoever it was, THIS.