Week of Doom and Awesome, Doctor Who season premiere, and a short meme

[lunasariel]

This past week has been busy, to put it mildly. I've almost literally done nothing other than eat, sleep (very little), go to class, and read. Ohgawd, the reading. On one hand, all my classes are interesting, the professors generally make the subject enjoyable, and we're reading some fascinating (if not always exactly to my taste) stuff. On the other hand...200+pages per day, on top of, y'know, life, is going to be difficult to keep up, especially once papers start to come around. Sadly, though, this means that my leisure reading has pretty much ceased entirely, which I've really been feeling. I mean, I got in, like, three or four pages of Post Captain on Friday night, because it was on top of my pile, but that's been about it. This has been especially vexing with regards to Babylon 5, which I've really been hankering for over the past couple of days. This is probably because of my History of Middle-Earth class (more on this in a mo'), but I need me my Tolkien IN SPACE! fix. I'll probably start the third season afresh this weekend, since I'd only watched, like, three episodes and that was months ago, if I have time. That's a big "if," though, as I've got two books to finish by tomorrow (unlikely) and then a bunch of Keats and pretty much anything anyone from the Mayflower ever wrote for Monday. On top of that, I haven't been sleeping well at all (disquieting dreams and worrying about stuff, mostly grad school applications and keeping up with my workload), so I'm constantly in that state of tired where one oscillates between "leave me to die" lethargy and manic twitchiness, which hasn't been helping at all. *deep breath* Wish me luck!



That isn't to say that life has been all doom'n'gloom, though. I hung out with M quite a bit over the weekend, which was fun. We tried out both a new-ish Greek place across from the Asian Ghetto that turned out to be both cheap and tasty, and is fast becoming a staple of my diet, and a new bakery on the same street. The bakery is mostly Asian-inspired stuff, and I'm finding that I like their savory stuff more than their sweet, which is unusual for me. I got a hot dog & green onion pretzel-ish pastry thing (wordsmith at work here, people!), which could have used a little more hot dog, but was all-around tasty, while the red velvet cake that M got was nice and moist, but suffered from lack of frosting. But everything is very economically priced, and it's right on my way home, so this is another place I'm having to restrain myself from visiting too often. We also finished up Hornblower (I liked Bush much better my second time around, although, still, goddammit, Maria/poor Maria), watched a little more Firefly ("Ariel," my favorite! It has everything I love: crew solidarity, complicated heists, lol Jayne, compassionate!Simon, BAMF!Simon [well, for a certain amount of BAMF], Kaylee being sunny, creepifying bad guys [M's guess: androids. My guess: future Buffyverse, so some sort of mutated vampire], and hints of River's powers), and took a stroll down College Ave. to Ici (menu changes about every 12 hours, and is always unconventional but yummy), a locally famous ice cream place. I very much enjoyed my double-malted chocolate and lavender orange toffee, while M got chicory whiskey and double-malted chocolate, which went together very well. Mine clashed a little more, but more importantly, OMG they have candied orange peel! I love candied orange peel, which is both delicious and invigorating, but I can never find it, and I mean *anywhere*, but here it is! I didn't have a free hand to carry any when we were there, so I'll have to go back and get some later, but, squee! Candied orange peel!

But the highlight of this week was definitely last night, my second History of Middle-Earth class. It occurs to me that I posed last week before going to the first class, so now I have two weeks of squee to let out. I wasn't sure I'd be able to take it this semester, since I would already have 17 units without it (minimum number of units is 13, most people carry 14-16), but I'll be taking that Jane Austen seminar (*knock on wood*) and stats next semester, so I figured that I might as well take it while I have the chance. It's a DeCal, and so more of a first-come first-served thing where everybody shows up on the first day (Tuesday of last week) hoping to get in but nobody signs up in advance kind of deal, so I admit I was kinda worried when I showed up and there were, like, 50 people there. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, what with all the hype about the Hobbit movies, but still, yowza. And some of them are coming in completely fresh; a few haven't even read LotR! There was a lot of housekeeping stuff to do, what with explaining the syllabus and introducing the "professors" (yay for student-run classes!), finding out a few demographic bits of information from the students (surprisingly few English/History/Classics/other humanities majors, and more hard sciences/business/social sciences than I would have thought, but I would guess after dealing with chemistry and computer programing and whatever all day, one needs to unwind), filling out a questionnaire (they really shouldn't have asked for our favorite characters/races, and why; I saw some answers that took up an entire page. You guys should know better!), etc. They said they would be sending out the code to sign up for the class later that week.

Over the weekend, I got a notification that I had been waitlisted, which made me very unhappy indeed. I admit the very small Slytherin part of my generally Ravenclaw personality reared its head and, in a rare(-ish) lit snob moment, I groused about how much I deserve to get in, how much I would appreciate the class more than some knuckledragger who's just taking it to fill out his/her (hey, there can be female knuckledraggers as well as male) minimum unit requirement and figured this one looks easy, blah blah blah. Luckily, this didn't last long, as I felt churlish in the extreme afterwards. But the email sent out to all the waitlisted people said that we should still come to class and do the readings, as a lot of people tend to drop out over the first week. So I did that. Our readings for the first week were "On Fairy-Stories" (which a lot of people didn't seem to like, but I found so much "practice what you preach" in relation to his own works, as well as that "Escape of the Prisoner, as opposed to the Flight of the Deserter" quote that everybody is always trotting out) and the first chunk of The Silmarillion (it looks like we'll be reading almost all of it), although, in a fit of pique, I didn't print out the schedule and so kinda forgot about everything except "On Fairy-Stories." Luckily, though, this wasn't my first time around, so I kinda skimmed it in the few minutes before class to refresh my memory. This turned out to be helpful, as each class is going to begin with a short, easy quiz to make sure that we, y'know, actually did the reading. And when I say easy, I do mean *easy*. Like, two of the five questions we got were "What is the name of the Vala who sang discordantly with Ilúvatar?" and "Manwë is the Vala of ___." After that, we had a guest lecturer on the Valar, during which time I learned that I probably shouldn't bother with taking notes, since A) the lecturers tend to move pretty fast and are generally funny, so I don't want to miss anything, and B) I already know most of the stuff anyway. Not to sound like a huge lit snob or anything... So that was the structured, "we is srs students!" portion of the two-hour class; the rest was just fun. We played a game based around an important chunk of that day's reading, the making of the world. Rory, the head instructor, playing Eru, drew a picture on the front board, divided the class into teams of four or five, gave us 30 seconds to memorize the picture, erased it, and then turned us, the Valar loose on the other chalkboards to copy it from memory. But then...disaster struck! Melkor (played by Rory, Danni, Memo, and Kevin, our instructors) defied the will of Eru, and sought to unmake all that we had done. And by that I mean they ran around with big erasers, popping up while we were engrossed in drawing, erasing big chunks of whatever we had done, and then running off cackling manically. Eventually the Valar rallied and defended their creations by building barricades of desks around those doing the drawing, or just bodyguarding them linebacker-style. The evening ended with no injuries, which was apparently a first, although one Melkor Morgoth came very close when he made a spirited attempt to get over a barricade and got tangled up in a desk. So that was unmitigated awesome. And even better, enough people left the class that I got in! YAAAAAAYYYY! Although I didn't get much sleep last night, as they only sent out the course control number that night, and I didn't get it until, like, 11:58, and TeleBears, Cal's class management system, was only open until midnight. So I worried about someone else getting my spot all night and resolved to get up extra-early to sign up first thing in the morning, but *then* I found out that, once classes have started, it's divided into time slots by last name, so TeleBears wouldn't be open to me until 1:00 in the afternoon...which is exactly when my last class of the day starts. But for the first time I was grateful for Cal Time, where classes start 10 minutes late instead of getting out 10 minutes early, so I could sit outside the classroom and get all signed up before class started, which I did. So at least this story has a happy ending: I am now the proud owner of 19 units, including a spot in a class where I get college credit to geek out about Tolkien for two hours a week! #MLIA, as they say on teh Twitterz.



The one fandom thing that I've been able to make time for, that I was going to do come hell or high water, was the Doctor Who season premiere was Saturday night, which you can bet I saw as soon as I could find an even marginally reputable site to watch it on. Overall I give it a, say, 7.5/10 or 8/10, which is low for a season premiere, but, well, you'll see. Apparently Steven Moffat has fallen out of fashion lately, and he's been getting a lot of flak for some alleged sexism and his storylines being all over the map. I admit that he's not perfect: the pregnancy thing was stupid (but then again, I tend to hate "o noez save the helpless pregnant woman!" plots [note the "helpless" qualifier: pregnant Jessica Jones, as we saw in the first few issues of Young Avengers, managed to very handily kick seven kinds of crap out of Kang the Conqueror while seven months along] and Baby MacGuffins in general), River/Doctor was just weird, and I think the sixth season finale had even CLAMP beat for overall WTF-ness, but...I like the guy. I really do. I can't comment on him personally, of course, but I like his work. Even if "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" didn't get me into DW in the first place, I love (most of) his stories and (most of) his characters. I love Amy and Rory and the romance that has built up between them. They're very much a latter-day Zoë and Wash, where she's a sardonic badass Lancer and he's a loveable non-action guy specialist, and like Zoë and Wash, you just don't mess with them. And I don't mean that you don't try to keep them from each other or kill them (although that sure doesn't tend to turn out too well), but any threat to their relationship from a storytelling perspective is srs bznz. However, this doesn't play out quite right. The threat is there, yeah, but it's all potential. The actual situation is wrapped up disappointingly quickly and neatly, with Rory simply dismissing the baby question and declaring, once again, that love conquers all.

This feeds into the all-important question of whether or not Steven Moffat can be considered sexist. Again, can't comment on the guy personally, but I really don't see how Amy can be seen as a weak or non-feminist character. She brought the universe back into being by sheer willpower and memory. The Doctor has this thing about everyone being "the most important person in the universe," but she literally re-created everything that was, is, or will be with the power of her mind, which makes her pretty damn important in my book.. Buuuut getting back on track, I've also seen some criticism over Amy and Rory splitting up over the revelation that Amy can't have children, which I've seen a lot of people decry as unrealistic and once again reducing Amy to a walking uterus, but these things actually happen. Couples do split up over things like these, even strong, loving ones. If one has always planned on having kids and married someone with that goal in mind, maybe not immediately, but maybe five or ten years down the road, once you're both ready, but then you find out that that can't happen, not now and not ever? That can be rough.

Of course, there were a couple more things I liked. Moffat has always been really good at scary, and "Asylum of the Daleks" has a great claustrophobic feel, plus zombie Daleks and the slow, jerky re-awakening of the insane ones, very much proves that the Grand Moff still has it in this department. Also, I also liked seeing Jenna-Marie Coleman early, which was both a nice surprise and a good directorial/storytelling choice. If you're going to replace the Ponds mid-season, then you can't just have a grief-stricken Doctor run into some random stranger, take a shine to her, and decide to whisk her off to see the universe the way he usually does. Although the Amy/Rory split didn't get much buildup, I like that at least it looks like we're going to be getting to know Oswin Oswald (awesome name, btw!), or possibly Clara Oswald (also looking forward to seeing where the switch happens, and why), before she takes over the mantle of Companion. And I like her, I really do. It's a common theme that Companions are bored with their workaday lives and need the excitement and adventure that the Doctor brings, but they're also shown to be fairly ordinary people living fairly ordinary lives (which contributes to the boredom). But I like that it looks like we're going to have a Companion who might be able to interface with the Doctor on his level, who actually is a genius. I don't think we've had a proper genius, especially an oddball genius, Companion who can make the Doctor look anything less than brilliant in areas other than common sense since Classic Who, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they play off each other.

There were some things that didn't work, of course. The repetition of "Doctor Who?" as a question at the very end struck me as more than a little gimmicky, and, seriously Doctor? You've just delivered an infodump that boils down to "Amy, you're going crazy and then you're going to turn into a Dalek and try to kill me," and then you leave her to guard a door that leads directly to a whole roomful of insane, hopefully dormant Daleks? You're way, way smarter than that. And where the hell did Skaro come from? Hasn't it already been destroyed, like, three times? Also, I feel like Amy and Rory's divorce should have had way, way more of an impact than it did. This is big stuff, not to be taken lightly, and there was a minute and a half of buildup in the last "Pond Life," which not everybody saw, and then they got back together in the third act of the episode proper. I would have liked it to have a slow buildup (the one good thing I have to say about the pregnancy/body-swapping plotline in s7 was that it was built up, slowly and ominously, and thus the huge payoff had a nice firm emotional basis), see their relationship end intimately, seemingly for good and all, and then, after a few episodes of painful post-breakup, them getting back together. I would suggest their last episode, or at least second-to-last for this, if it weren't too cliché.


It's been a while since I've done a meme, but I haven't really had the energy for anything long and/or intensive. So, now for something completely different! This is a bit outside of my usual fare, but I had fun doing it, and it resulted in an interesting story. Apparently, the movie of my life is going to be me as a Harley Quinn-esque supervillain meeting and falling in love with a Manic Pixie Dream Boy who later joins me in villainy, with whom I have a son we attempt to bring up to follow in our footsteps, but who ends up killing us. Oh, and cathedrals/churches/abbies/monasteries are involved somehow.


Put your iTunes on shuffle and create the soundtrack to your life.
Opening credits: “Magnificat,” Arvo Pärt. Meditative, peaceful, kind of monk-like. Maybe I was a mysterious orphan taken in by an abbey? There’s going to be a lot of cathedral/abbey/monastery imagery to keep the audience’s eyes busy, so at least there’s that. Kinda long, though, so maybe the movie of my life had a troubled production history.
Waking up: “Mairi’s Wedding,” The High Kings. I am *not* this cheerful waking up. Either this is going to be a sickeningly upbeat movie or I have something to be excited about. (EDIT: supervillainy, apparently. Well, at least I'm excited about my job.)
Falling in love: “Upside Down,” Paloma Faith. (Hey, it’s from the Temeraire fanmix that I’ve been looking for an opportunity to plug! Not my fanmix, which is still only a loose assortment of songs that strike my fancy, but a real fanmix!) I think the keyword here is “quirky.” So either I’m a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (which is how this is shaping up, if the opening credits is taken ironically) or embarking on a relationship with a Manic Pixie Dream Boy or similar.
Fight song: “I Want To Be Evil, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Not the version I have, but w/e. OK, so I guess I’m a Manic Pixie Dream…Villain? This is still a kicky, upbeat song, so maybe I’m in a Harley Quinn vein where being evil is just so much more fun than being good. I could see this as a Start of Darkness song where I basically say the hell with being good, I'm going to enjoy life while I've got it!
Breaking up: “Everything is Ending,” Chameleon Circuit. This lines up well, but is still depressing. Apparently I left my (Manic Pixie Dream) Boy, very much against his will, after a long, slow slide of us just not getting each other. But it appears that I’m not entirely happy with it either…maybe I left him to protect him from the fallout of my villainy?
Getting back together: “Mark it Up,” Repo! The Genetic Opera. Well, it looks like putting the (Manic Pixie Dream) Boy in harm’s way wasn't much of a wake-up call to my life of crime. In fact, I seem to have rather gone the other way. So the (MPD)B seems to have decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and himself become something of a Complete Monster, if one with a perchance for catchy music. And apparently sadism turns me on. Yup, this relationship is gonna go great…
Wedding: “The First Five Times,” Stars. This strikes me as a pre-wedding retrospective of or relationship. Or certain aspects of it, anyway. Despite the fact that we’ve turned out to be two pretty terrible people, it seems to be a happy, loving relationship, in a “the couple that slays together, stays together” kind of way. The wedding ought to be fun, though, even if no superheroes try to crash it.
Birth of child: “Thunder,” The Prodigy. Um, so either our kid has superpowers (not unlikely), I’m really loud while given birth (ditto), or we’ve decided to raise a violent revolutionary to carry on our work when we get too old to do so. Or possibly all three, knowing us. ¡Vive la revolution!
Final battle: “All I Ask of You (Reprise),” Phantom of the Opera. Hmm, betrayal. The hubby has proven his loyalty before, so it’s not him…maybe our son objects to us raising him to a life of supervillainy, and run off with some do-gooder. Also “The Phantom” is either my supervillain name or the hubby’s. Neat!
Death scene: “Wicked Ways,” Garbage. It looks like my, ahem, wicked ways are catching up to me, but I’m not a bit sorry. It was worth it! I guess my would-be supervillain son and his do-gooder girlfriend (or boyfriend, as the case may be) finally took me and the hubby down after a climactic last battle. Like the wedding song, this doesn’t seem like an event song as much as a retrospective, where I reject my son for rejecting me in turn, look back on my life, and decide that it was way more fun to be evil than good. My attempts at reform were pretty halfhearted anyway, so this isn’t much of a revelation.
Funeral song: “Cursum Perficio,” Enya. Hah, perfect! Probably not as bouncy as I would have chosen for myself, but if the supervillain community gets together to mourn our passing, then this is an appropriately grave and vaguely ominous song. Or alternately, my reformed son is having some sort of ritual performed to ensure that we don’t rise from the dead, just in case. The translated lyrics could go either way.
End credits: “Up In Arms,” Sinead O’Connor feat. Aslan. Actually, I could see this as an afterlife/together in death/”no regrets!” song for me and the hubby. Aww, this is actually kind of sweet, in a “I’m going to hell, but it’s okay because you’re with me (and we’ll figure a way out sooner or later)” way. Sequel hook, perhaps?

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, the Berkeley ice cream place combinations sound amazing! Also, nom, candied orange peel! (My grandmother used to make it at home, which was extra cool, because I would help with the candying and then, eventually, get to eat it!)

It occurs to me that I posed last week before going to the first class, so now I have two weeks of squee to let out.

Yes, you hadn't posted yet about your HoME class yet, so I was wondering if you didn't get into it -- glad to hear it's not the case and that you're now officially in the class!

surprisingly few English/History/Classics/other humanities majors, and more hard sciences/business/social sciences than I would have thought, but I would guess after dealing with chemistry and computer programing and whatever all day, one needs to unwind

That's probably part of it :) But also, a lot of us hard science people are LotR nerds too :)

I love the "On Fairy-Stories" essay! (Also, "Leaf by Niggle", which I think works almost as well as a kind of credo as "On Fairy-Stories" does :)

And by that I mean they ran around with big erasers, popping up while we were engrossed in drawing, erasing big chunks of whatever we had done, and then running off cackling manically

LOL XD I was wondering if that's what "unmaking" would add up to, but I still laughed. Best class ever! XD

or I have something to be excited about. (EDIT: supervillainy, apparently. Well, at least I'm excited about my job.)

*snerk*

Randomly, the Irish breakfast place where I often meet up with my friend M often pipes this song (different version though); it is a pretty good way to wake up (though not straight out of bed).

Also, the movie of your life came out hilarious!

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

My grandmother used to make it at home, which was extra cool, because I would help with the candying and then, eventually, get to eat it!
*drool* Jealous! I don't exactly know how it's done, except that it involves orange peels, lots of sugar, and I think a big pot of boiling water, but I imagine it's a neat process, even aside from the more, er, tangible benefits. :)

I was wondering if you didn't get into it
Heh, I kinda didn't want to jinx it, since it was up in the air for a while. Why, yes, I am a rational and intelligent person who doesn't in the least believe in outdated superstitions. XD

But also, a lot of us hard science people are LotR nerds too :)
The call of Tolkien is irresistable! Oops, re-reading this, it sounds a lot like "wow, hard science people actually like reading! gasp!" but it's not, I promise! I guess this just surprised me a bit, as I've known a lot of hard science/business/etc. folks who are very vocal about being CREATURES OF INTELLECT AND LOGIC and having no time for kid stuff when there's grownup work to be done changing the world, and just generally ugh. Of course, there are an equal number of humanities folks who will just as quickly turn up their noses at "unimaginative" "boring" hard sciences, so I guess every field has its own proportion of cool, fun people, and...not.

I love the "On Fairy-Stories" essay!
It's fantastic! I especially liked his bit about the necessity of Joy, which isn't the absence of sorrow, but the balancing of it, which reminded me of so many moments - the Grey Havens, Beren & Lúthien, pretty much all of Faramir's life, so on and so forth.

Best class ever! XD
IKR? Seriously, this is now in my Top 5 Academic Experiences Ever. Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am to be going to Cal, and stuff like this is exactly why.

the Irish breakfast place where I often meet up with my friend M often pipes this song (different version though)
Yup, my version is different, too, with female vocalists instead of male. Also: there is no part of "Irish breakfast place" that does not sound delicious.

Also, the movie of your life came out hilarious!
Hee, thanks! Some creative license was taken, of course, so I don't think they can add "Based On A True Story" anymore, but I imagine it would be fun to watch, in a "Saturday night popcorn flick" kind of way.

[hamsterwoman]

except that it involves orange peels, lots of sugar, and I think a big pot of boiling water

That's pretty much what I remember, too. I think I remember her letting the peel sit in its sugar solution or semi-candied state for a couple of days -- it certainly felt like I had to wait forever to get at them, but I was a kid, so a couple of days probably felt like forever.

I kinda didn't want to jinx it, since it was up in the air for a while

I totally understand that thinking! I mean, there's rational and intelligent, and then there's just human nature :)

re-reading this, it sounds a lot like "wow, hard science people actually like reading! gasp!" but it's not, I promise!

Aww, I didn't think it was :) It is a little surprising, maybe, considering Tolkien's almost pastoral themes, but I think sci-fi is the transitional step maybe? Like, hard sciences people tend to like sci-fi, and sci-fi is often grouped together with fantasy, so they get exposed to fantasy too? Dunno... But also, Tolkien appeal *does* transcend barriers of major and so on.

(And, to be sure, there are plenty of silly snobs on each side, as I got to see while hanging out with my fellow ChemE's and taking upper div English classes with the humanities majors. :P)

I especially liked his bit about the necessity of Joy, which isn't the absence of sorrow, but the balancing of it

I read "On Fairy-Stories" out of Tolkien completism and didn't expect to actually learn anything from it, but I did, and really do use "eucatastrophe" as a term inside my head (and maybe occasionally even outside it, on LJ). Because, yes, that's really important, and I've seen books I would have liked suffer due to insufficient Joy.

Everyone keeps telling me how lucky I am to be going to Cal, and stuff like this is exactly why.

My one regret about not living on campus is that I didn't get to take any fun DeCal classes (although I think I did tag along with my friend VT once to the Simpsons class he was taking, which was fun).

Also: there is no part of "Irish breakfast place" that does not sound delicious.

It's a bit overpriced compared to regular "diner" places and the selection is pretty spare, but they bake this amazing brown Irish bread on the premises (also, soda bread, but I'm less of a fan), and their Irish breakfast (sausage, Irish bacon, eggs, fried tomato and grilled potato bread for the "mini" version and yet more stuff for the full) is really good! It took M and me awhile to find what we really liked there, because they also serve some regular diner dishes like pancakes or breakfast burrito, which aren't as great. But the Irish delicacies are very good for a once-in-a-while breakfast.

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

it certainly felt like I had to wait forever to get at them, but I was a kid, so a couple of days probably felt like forever.
Heh, I remember being worried about remembering where my school was after *two whole weeks* of winter break. XD Of course, the near prospect of having candied orange peel to nom on probably didn't help time move any faster, either...

(although I think I did tag along with my friend VT once to the Simpsons class he was taking, which was fun)
Ooh, that does sound fun. That's what I love about DeCals: they're about *everything.* There are a fair number of fandom ones, of course (my old roommate is taking a Grey's Anatomy one right now, and there's a Sherlock one, a Murder in Fiction one, Batman as American Mythology, Pokémon, GoT vs. NotW, etc.), but then there's, like, Jewish Medical Ethics, Traditional Korean Precussion, Dictators in the 20th Century, writing workshops, archery, *Scrabble*... My theory is that this is where professors who have a really awesome idea for a class but can't justify spending two to four hours per week on to their department go.

I did, and really do use "eucatastrophe" as a term inside my head (and maybe occasionally even outside it, on LJ)
Aha! "Eucatastrophe" pinged my "neat-but-not-nearly-often-enough-used word," but it wasn't in the dictionary app on my phone, which is usually pretty reliable, but I knew I'd heard it somewhere else.

their Irish breakfast (sausage, Irish bacon, eggs, fried tomato and grilled potato bread for the "mini" version and yet more stuff for the full) is really good!
Mmm, Irish (or English) breakfasts. *Homer Simpson drool*

[hamsterwoman]

Heh, I remember being worried about remembering where my school was after *two whole weeks* of winter break

Aww! I think I remember being worried about stuff like that over vacation too (though, to be honest, in my case it could actually happen, I'm so bad at fidning my way XP)

Wow, that is an awesome range of DeCal classes! I never looked too closely because I knew it wasn't really feasible for me to take one, so I didn't want to bum myself out. But, wow, Sherlock and GoT vs NotW and archery and stuff all sound awesome! *jealous*

but I knew I'd heard it somewhere else

:D (I was impressed Wikipedia had an entry, when I just now looed it up)

[brit-columbia.livejournal.com]

I love candied orange peel too! Sometimes I furtively dig the bigger pieces out of the marmalade jar and eat them.

There's a chocolate shop downtown that sells candied orange peel coated in dark chocolate, but I try not to go into that shop too often.

I really enjoyed Eartha Kitt singing "I Want To Be Evil". I've never heard that before.

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

There's a chocolate shop downtown that sells candied orange peel coated in dark chocolate
...I am not allowed in that store. I can see why you try not to go in there too often, if they have stuff like that! I've literally been looking for chocolate-covered candied orange peel for years, and dark chocolate is my favorite kind of chocolate...*drool*

Eartha Kitt is awesome! The version I have is a cover, with a male singer, but the original is great, too. And it's just such a fun song, even if it is about, well, how awesome it is to be evil.

[brit-columbia.livejournal.com]

It puts me in mind of the motto of Google, which is "Don't be evil."