The lyf so short

And thus ends my first year as a teacher.

I hope I'll manage to write more about it later (I know, I know, I always say that) but for now, let me just join my students in exulting at the beautiful prospect of FREEDOOOOM!!1!!

Sooo, time to fess up: I wasn't just internetless for a week, I was away from home for two, too! Nobody will be surprised at this point that this year's vacation - the last vacation in which we were independent from the school holidays and their ludicrously raised prices for presumably a long time - took us to Britanny once more. Yes, it was good. No, it was not long enough. A picspam is probably imminent. If I manage to sort through the hundreds of pictures while trying to take care of stupid adult priorities and the garden, that is. Don't hold your breath.

Speaking of school, while we were gone Felix' future teacher called and left a message. True to the school's assurances that each and every student is supported individually, she would like to meet Felix in advance so she and the classroom will be familiar, and also so she can decide which (if any) books to get for him instead of the standard. I am positively impressed.

Speaking of books, while we were gone, my signed copy of Flowers of Luna arrived! Fortunately, the post office held it until I was back. Snail mail was faster than expected. Thank you so much, Jen, your dedication made me blush and it's going to be so much fun to read FoL as a real! physical! book! <3

Speaking of books again, re-reading A Game Of Curule Chairs the Cicero trilogy for the third time. Repetitio obviously placet because I CANNOT STOP. Are we witnessing the beginnings of a new obsession or are we already well past the beginning stage? You decide. Seriously, ALL THE FEELS.

Speaking of obsessions, the gorgeous Vanity Fair shots from The Last Jedi are also instilling me with all the feels. ALL THE FEELS YOU GALS. This one, for instance,



begs two questions, namely,
1) how long until I try to replicate that rebel alliance gambeson, because seriously, it's awesome and
2) does the slash write itself or DOES IT WRITE ITSELF?

Having now proven that I have a long way to go as far as adult priorities go, I think I shall retire to bed. YES, WITH CICERO. I know, I know, desperate stay-at-home moms in their mid-thirties are supposed to fall for Edward the Sparkle Vampire, not dead Roman politicians! (Guest commentary from Jörg: "I know you have a thing for older men but that's a bit excessive, don't you think?") Whatevs!

Night night!

"Not everybody is permitted to go to Brest", as the learned old pirate in the Asterix comics sagely observes. As it happened, we actually made it to Brest - whereas other places of interest, such as Quimper, Concarneau, Pont-Aven or the previously mentioned Douarnenez, dropped off the agenda. On the whole, it felt to me as if we weren't doing anything culturally relevant at all. This is not wholly true (as this picspam will show), but compared to the high amount of educational sight-seeing that I normally enjoy on my holidays, this year the most I seemed to get was a Japanese-style photo stop (rather than the extensive study of ruins, let alone leisurable strolls through museums). I now feel with my father, who began to chafe when my brother and I insisted on a beach day during family holidays back in the day! Now I, too, have become that sort of restless traveller! No wonder I resorted to repetitive photographing and competitive sandcastle-building!

It needs to be said that it wasn't only the kids who sabotaged my educational ambitions; it was also extremely hard to get the mother-in-law and Marc to express interest (let alone delight) in any sort of activity beyond the daily grocery shoping. But they didn't say "No walks or excurses for us, please", either. So Jörg and I made suggestions, they agreed without much enthusiasm, we went, and sometimes they seemed to like our excurses well enough, but it was like pulling teeth. Having to push both the kidlets and half of the grown-ups, all the time? Are you not interested or are you just insecure? Aaargh. No thanks.

Nonetheless, we managed to see a few interesting things. And now you will, too.

( Here goes another cut for length and picture-heaviness. )

Oof, that's again enough for one post! Some hiking, the Holy Mountain of Menez-hom and our journey back (incl. Le Mont-St-Michel!) will follow some other day. Hope you enjoyed!

... not that anyone would notice when I'm gone for a while, since I'm only active every other week anyway. But hi! I was on vacation.

I didn't actually make a New Year's resolution to keep better track of Real Life (TM) at least once per month, but as it's the last day of the month, I may as well use this post to catch up with January events.

So in January...

- I did write an article about the micro-pilgrimage. Actually, I wrote three, in different genres. One is pretending to be live coverage, one is a matter-of-fact report, and one is a sort of cross-over between the two styles. I sent the latter two to the magazine that asked me to write the article. That was a bit of a risk, as it might make me look indecisive, but I honestly don't know what exactly they're looking for. (I figured that the live coverage was too long for their purpose - they were looking for something concise for their website.) Fortunately, they took it as proof of my versatility and enthusiasm (since I wrote two articles for the price of none) and took me on board as a freelancing author. So I can officially call myself a journalist now. Cautious yay.
As I'd already written the lengthy "coverage" and didn't want it to go to waste on my virtually unread blog, I sent it to the pilgrim's guide, who got very excited and posted it on his website. So I can use it for my publication history, at least.
Doing more than requested for exactly zero pay: Ladies and gentlehobbits, this is why I will never be rich.

- Having been taken on board, I got to do two very short articles for the next print issue of the magazine. They managed to greenlight the topics precisely three days before deadline day, so it was real fun to try and phone and e-mail the responsible people and gather enough information to satisfy the magazine's standards. Not. Especially as on one of the three days, I had agreed to meet a guy who breeds bisons (well, currently he just feeds them, but they'll hopefully start breeding soon). Also ostriches, but they already did a feature on the ostriches a few years back so I was only asked to write about the bisons. But not for the print magazine, only for the website, so that wasn't deadline relevant. I figured it would look awkward if I cancelled the appointment on short notice, though. Stomping around in the snow to photograph real live bisons and talk to their owner while ostriches watched us curiously mistrustfully obtusely was genuine fun, but it was an afternoon missing for working on the deadline articles. On the other hand, the people I tried to reach weren't calling back in that time, anyway, so I probably couldn't have worked on those articles anyway. FWIW, I got them handed in on time. Exept for one photograph. Which is a pity, because photos pay better.
Damn it, Lyra, when did you get so obsessed with money?
On the plus side, the bison research really was awesome, and if one or two of them should be in calf (it was too early to tell, but the farmer was hopeful), this year would see the first locally born bison calves since the 15th century (OK, those were European bisons, these are American bisons, but whatever), which would warrant print publication. (Also, ADORBSLE LITTLE BISON CALVES?)

- So yeah, we got a bit of snow after all. A very little bit, but along with a relatively harsh frost (for these parts), so we got to feel it was actually winter! For a week.

- So we may have nine planets again. I hope we do. If so, I hope they call it Proserpina, not just in the interest of planetary gender equality but because that would be appropriate on so many levels. Yesterday I read that there have been suggestions that it may get called Persephone, which is all Greek to me is fine, I guess, though I'm not entirely sure why they'd use the Greek form, since the overwhelming majority of planets have Latin names. Uranus is an outlier and shouldn't be counted. Eh well, I guess quod licet Iovi, non licet novo or something? Oh God, I'm trying to pun in Latin. Someone stop me.
Then again, I read this on Tumblr, so it should probably be taken with a grain of salt anyway. -- Well, by now I've seen that there are asteroids named Proserpina and Persephone. Bah. Rename the asteroids, this is more important.

- Christmas tree is still up. (Germans normally take their Christmas trees down around Epiphany, which is January 6th.) On January 6th, I felt that our very pretty tree hadn't yet been appreciated enough, so I wanted to keep it up for another couple of days. Then with one article and another, I just didn't get around to taking it down. Oh well. In Austria, where I spent the last week, they leave their Christmas decorations up until Candlemas, which is on Groundhog Day, which is Not Yet. So I'll pretend that I did that on purpose, waiting for Candlemas.
I also notice that my LJ is still sporting its Christmas default icon. WELL THAT CAN WAIT UNTIL CANDLEMAS ALSO.

- So yeah, Austria. Very barely Austria, almost still Bavaria, but officially Austria. My parents go on a skiing/hiking trip to the Achensee with my father's "sports" club every last week of January. (I put "sports" into quotation marks because they're not exactly exerting themselves. Mind you, it's a sports club for people who've had heart attacks, so they shouldn't exert themselves anyway. My father is accompanying them as a doctor, not as a patient. So far.) My brother and I used to tag along when we were kids, and my parents invited Jörg and me and the kids along this year. For Jörg, it was the first time skiing in 13 years. For me, it was the first time skiing in 8 years. It didn't matter much, since the region got only marginally more snow than home, and on our second day, most of it had already turned into muddy slush. So from the third day we could nurse our sore muscles in relative peace. We tried to interest Felix in bobsleighing, with varying success. (The first hour was Grand Tantrum Central; the next three days were fun and excitement; then, as the song goes, he got into a drifted bank and got upsot, which upset him so much that he hated bobsleighing henceforth. We managed to talk him into one last try, which was a success, so I hope on the long run he'll remember that rather than the accident.)
At any rate, it was fun to see the hotel and the region and all the places I regularly visited in my teenage years again, and it was relaxing to share child-care duties with my parents. Also I was talked into a rather pretty traditional dress, the price of which had been lowered to "only" a hundred bucks, which is really cheap for traditional garb it's probably two seasons out of fashion, but what do we Bergians know about traditional Austrian fashion?, so we bought it. Jörg talked me into it! I would have been more thrifty!

- Two days before leaving, my father complained about an ache in his leg muscles; the next day, he broke out in a fever and could barely walk, so he put himself on meds; the next day he was marginally better, but still needs meds to function semi-normally. So it seems to be more than the bug some other folks caught. But what? I have no clue, but I hope they'll figure it out and figure out how to treat it, too.
Yesterday also happened to be his 61st birthday, but what with the meds and the driving, he didn't care to celebrate.

- There was one particular mountain which gave me a lot of Himring-related thinky thoughts. So I may break my resolution to first finish my published WiPs before properly starting on the sequel to TTS, because currently my brain is all AVALANCHES! THE MOUNTAIN PRACTICALLY DEFENDS ITSELF! BUT WHAT IF IT'S CLOUDY AND YOU CAN'T SEE WHAT'S GOING ON BELOW! THAT'S WHAT PALANTÍRI ARE FOR, N00B! BUT HOW WOULD YOU EVEN GET ALL THE BUILDING MATERIALS UP THERE! CURUFIN CAN INVENT A TREADMILL! WELL NO MORGOTH PROBABLY INVENTED THAT FIRST BUT MAEDHROS CAN GIVE CURUFIN A SUFFICIENTLY USEFUL DESCRIPTION. BUT WHAT DO THEY DO WHILE THE FORTRESS IS BEING BUILT? AND WHAT DO THEY HAVE FOR DINNER? These things need to be explorrrred. Possibly.
Also, no, Lyra, the world doesn't need 36 Views Of Himring Hill, and you don't have the time for it, either. STOP MEEEEEE.

- On the other hand, all traces of winter have gone around here, so I may disappear into the garden soon instead of writing (or painting) anything non-work-related. Or maybe winter will come back. (The American Blizzard (TM) is supposed to be sending its brother here next week, but you never know how much of it will actually arrive?) We'll see.

Will there be pictures? Who knows! There might be, but I've learned better than to promise anything. For the same reason, I'm not promising to catch up with the f-list. WE WILL SEE.

Back from Brittany (physically, anyway).

I have decided that I won't even bother to try catching up with my f-list. If you've posted anything in the past two weeks that's important to you or that you'd like me to see, please let me know - otherwise, I'll pretend that the internet only started existing again today. ;)

Happy belated birthday to everybody whose birthdays I missed!

- 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...)

It's been an.. enlightening weekend!

We visited Jörg's best man in distant Swabia, who has three sons and no plans for more, so we got a huge box of baby clothing + a nursing pillow + babyphone + stuff from them. That was very nice (though to be fair otherwise they'd just have thrown it out because they no longer needed it and it was blocking up their attic, or so they said). Weekend as such was slightly stressful, as two of the three sons are rather complicated and noisy and continually demanded attention and threw stuff down if they didn't get it (or even if they got it). By Sunday it was kind of hard to keep back and not constantly tell them what to do, because the parents clearly didn't so the boys just kept on being fussy. But that would probably have looked pretty bad, the not-yet-parents-guests acting as if they knew better than the actual parents. So we mostly managed to keep our mouths shut.
Sunday afternoon we went to the local Fasenetsumzug, which for some reason starts there as early as right now. Swabian/ Alemannic carnival is rather different from what we know from Cologne and surroundings - limited range of traditional costuming options but going a loooooong way back. Despite the different background, however, the actual practice was much like in Cologne: Groups with more or less impressive costumes and displays parading through roads lined with drunk people stepping on each other's feet. Pity. I think in Cologne at least the audience participates more.

Since we were in Swabia already, Jörg dropped me off at barbardin's on the way home, where I had two more vacation days! Quails were cooked and devoured, movies were watched, Terry Pratchett was fangirled, so that was good. (Also, one night on barbardin's fantastic air bed cured the knotted muscle in my neck that I'd suffered from all weekend. Yay!) Went home by train, which against all probability reached Cologne exactly on time, so I got an earlier bus than expected, so Jörg couldn't pick me up because he was still at work. Managed to walk home (in the last daylight, too!) just fine, although mom-in-law would probably be extremely cross if she knew how heavy my bag was...
Train journey had its surreal moments; for a long while the tracks go through the beautiful Middle Rhine valley, which due to the massive snow in December and the massive thaw of the past weeks was quite flooded. Weather kept changing between foggy, rainy and bright sunshine perpetually, and the river was insanely vast. All the usual riverbank had disappeared, Pfalzgrafenstein castle was no longer upon an island, roads and gardens were under murky water. A bit more and the train tracks would probably have been impassable...

Back home I was welcomed by a parcel from rahja which contained - more cute baby stuff! ^^ Thank you so much! I watched the DVD today and was indeed hugely amused by them expectant parents and their overacting *g*

And my aunt Karin (she of the five sons) has also invited us to drop by and pick up used baby clothing. Seems like the only part we'll have to worry about is a nursery...

(Which is indeed going to be a bit difficult. Eh well, we haven't been working on the actual house for such a long time, serves us right that now we've got a sort of deadline... ;))

And today I got a letter from mirien which contained the most adorable felted crow ever. Thank you! So cute. ^^

So this is a good week. Until tomorrow when I find out that there are still no further results to be had, I assume...

- - -
An die Kölner: Ich hoffe, von euch war keiner ins/ums Stadtarchiv? O.o Heiligs Blechle.

- - -
Home again.

The kittens are incredibly cuddly, the snowdrops are in full flower, the first crocusses are copying them, the temperatures have risen over zero, the deer have nonetheless grown desperate enough to walk into the gardens and eat the hazel blossoms, the hedgehog is still hibernating, the carpenters have removed the upstairs corridor floor so we have to balance across the beams, and a family of owls has taken up lodgings in our barn.

- - -
Back to work tomorrow. Ugh.
Have to try and prolongue my contract. No motivation, but it's well-paid. >_>

- - -
Heh, Schwarzenegger said "Hasta la vista, baby" to Merkel. This wants to give birth to an essay-ish ramble about the power of context, culture and pragmatism and on why colourless green ideas are not an oxymoron and can indeed sleep furiously.
Not tonight, though.

- - -
There was something else I meant to say, but I forgot what it was. Eh well! If an edit appears in this place, you know I remembered it.
EDITH: YES! RIGHT! B2MEM! Is it happening this year? Is anyone doing anything? Is anything special planned? I am so ill-informed this year.

Y'ello!

Am alive, slightly sunburned, only mildly injured, and quite happy.

Namibia was amazing, but we didn't have enough time. Will def. have to return.

Have not sent any postcards yet, but fortunately you're not in it for the Namibian stamps anyway, right? Right?

Am on modem time which is slooooow, so that's it for now. Take care, don't do stupid things, talk to you later,

Lyra, Queen of the Desert

Sooo! Concerning the Drachenfest LARP (Wednesday to Yesterday).

Good parts first: On the whole it was way better than in the past two years. The Grey Camp was back on the road to knowledge and wisdom rather than self-destruction; the backstory has improved greatly, or perhaps the new plots just made it clearer; communication worked way better; we had a brilliant Avatar who really fitted his role; there were lots of plots, almost too many; there was always something in-gamely important to do.

Which brings me to the bad parts.

I know I am probably fairly alone in this; I know I am probably taking the whole thing too seriously; but if I go to a LARP, I am there for LARPing.
Cue sounds of surprise here.

I am not there for quaffing, or gluttony, or shopping, or smoking illegal things, or spending fun time in town. I am there for the bloody gaming. If my character's involvement with the plot means living on a diet of cookies and raw veggies because I don't have time for cooking or walking up to the "town" for supper for a coupla days, so BE it. I know that this is overdoing it, and I don't expect other people do be quite so extreme - but I do expect them to spend more time roleplaying than partying on the whole (unless, obviously, they play characters who party all the time). I do expect them not to sell their characters into slavery just for kicks and because the goblin pirates are OMG SO MUCH FUN. I expect them not to miss a good part of the important briefings, councils, elections and speeches because they spend most of their time elsewhere, unless they happen to play spies or messengers who by nature have to run around a lot. If they miss most of the important briefings, councils, elections or speeches, I expect them at least to have the grace not to kick up a fuss because "nobody told them anything" or "they weren't asked".

Because frankly, if my idea of a good holiday is chilling and drinking alcohol, I daresay I'd be better advised to go to Majorca or Ibiza.

Because if you only see just how many people you shared camp with when people gather for the final battle in which everyone wants to take part, and find out it's not 30 but in fact 120 - something isn't quite right.

Nor do I think it is at all necessary to bash other camps all the time. Of course we all think our own camp is the best there is. Of course we may - privately, OOCly - think that, damn, there's only nerds following Grey, only idiots following Chaos, only Mary Sues following Silver, only tree-huggers following Green - but IC, they still all represent the manifestations of in-game gods, and I rather think most characters, no matter how powerful, chaotic, cool they may be, wouldn't go and insult the manifestations of "their" gods all that easily. Yes no perhaps?

Eh well.
I should just ignore the idiots, but together with people who refuse to take hits even if it's obvious they got them, people who behave like assholes on general principles and people who think they have to assassinate me AFTER the collective OOC signal they're getting too annoying to ignore. Actually the latter instance wouldn't have counted as an assassination anyway, because the rules clearly state that you have to sneak up to your victim without them noticing you, and I noticed him when he was still five meters off. Anyway, everybody was OOC at that point, so sneaking up to people and attacking them in the darkness in the middle of the night is not such a good idea. I, at any rate, was in a bad mood anyway because the abovementioned powerful, chaotic/copper, cool people ruining the final ritual and because of the disgraceful fire dancers (all of them but two dropped their torches or pois at some point; two of them actually set their own beards on fire: I understand people aren't perfect when they start to learn things like fire-juggling, but if I am still that likely to drop my torches, do I have to perform in front of an audience of roughly a thousand people (and that's just because not all of the 4000 participants leave their end-of-LARP parties to join the final ritual)?!); and I was surprised and, I admit, a little scared; and I am really sorry I dealt the poor guy a bruise on his shoulder and a fist to his face, and a little ashamed for overreacting: but frankly I am also a little proud of my reflexes, and of the fact that he apologised profusely, and if my overreaction means one less stupid assassin next year, ON THE WHITE TREE IT WAS WORTH IT! WORTH IT! WORTH IT!
...
...

Finally, after the good annd the bad: The ugly.
There were, for the first time in my Drachenfest experience, the kind of assholes who get kicks out of vandalising, cutting cables and piping and pushing over Port-a-potties. And that after I was so proud that us abnormal people who go to LARPs act, in fact, way more normal than "normal" people who go to Rock festivals. *sighs*
Gah.

- - -

Aaanyway, those people who were not idiots, assassins or away all the time were all the more fun to RPG with. There was a bunch of elemental clerics and a house of Drows who were great company and great players, lovely bards, a dedicated and conscientious night watch, good plots and GMs, and I can't praise our brilliant, funny, intelligent Avatar enough (one of the highlights was the "Discussion of Magical Theory" with him and the Black Avatar, which wasn't strictly IC but so amazingly funny it didn't even matter (and why shouldn't Avatars be relaxed and funny on occasion?): for those who know Ring*Con, imagine Craig Parker as the Grey Avatar and Mark Ferguson as the Black Avatar and you roughly get the idea). There wasn't a moment in which I could've felt bored. By the end of it I was really missing clean clothing, and water that didn't taste slightly murky, not to mention proper toilets and showers: I am after all growing old and hamfæst. Jörg and I already noticed that in London last weekend: although London was nice, and we did lots of interesting stuff, we missed our construction site and the woods, in only four days.

There, 'nuff rambling for one night!