lace_agate

Title: tree at the end of the world
Day/Theme: June 6 - deep roots
Fandom: Original, one-off
Characters/pairing: umm... none?
Rating: G
Warnings: Probably plagiarising multiple mythologies

( They say that its leaves are of all colours, and no colour at all )

I spent a week out in the Wairarapa mapping sedimentary sequences a little while ago. Had some good fun, collected some cool fossils, and pondered the differences between archaeology and geology as presented in fiction. The Adventurer Archaeologist is a very common character in many storytelling media. On the other hand, Adventurer Geologists are rare to nonexistent (the only character I can think of is Nasreen from those two Doctor Who episodes, although Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan probably had at least some basic geology training). And yet field geology is an adventure! I've only done a few fairly tame undergrad field trips, but I've seen some spectacular scenery, waded through rivers (you do A LOT of this in geology, as rivers tend to have the best outcrops), collected fossils, mapped faults, fallen in love, had my boots fall apart, drunk lots of beer (geologists are great beer drinkers!) and all sorts of other things. Now consider the geologists who climb active volcanoes, or spend months in Antarctica's Dry Valleys, or the geologists who accompanied Scott on his ill-fated trip to the South Pole. How about some scifi - geologists exploring and mapping other planets and moons? Actually, I may write some of that myself...
A search for "Fictional geologists" on Wikipedia led me to this article, so Sarah Andrews's books are now on my to-read list. She also has an intriguing essay on the geologist as detective.

I recently downloaded Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series and am thoroughly enjoying it. It's quite old but most of the science still stands up. The second episode has some really fascinating speculation of the sorts of lifeforms that could survive in the atmosphere of a gas giant (GIANT FLOATING JELLYFISH THE SIZE OF CITIES!) and there's also some cool stuff on the history of various scientific ideas. Highly recommended.

I seem to be turning into more and more of a lurker, but I thought I should post something to justify my continued use of this site. So here are some cool things I found around the internet recently.
How to Rebuild the Wizarding World, according to Foreign Policy magazine. This is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in politics, Harry Potter, or both.
A Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris (scroll down for the video). Be warned, this will get stuck in your head for some time.
Calm Blue Oceans, a fun webcomic.
Knite, an absolutely beautiful flash comic that I can't recommend enough. Go and read it.
Some of those Viking warriors were actually women.
Rainbow cupcakes!
And a non-internet-related rec: the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm about halfway through this series now after shadowsinfire persuaded me to read it and it's lots of fun. It's military sci-fi with a disabled hero who survives on his wits, a left-leaning, progressive political viewpoint, a good sense of humour, and some really interesting ideas. It also crosses into other genres: whodunnit, political intrigue, and, I kid you not, Regency romance. Highly recommended.

Went to my boyfriend's place yesterday to watch the new Doctor Who episode with him and his flatmates. One is also a Doctor Who fan and the other we have now converted, having showed her "Midnight", "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" and the new episode, "The Eleventh Hour". The episode was slow to download so we watched other videos while we waited for it, including the one from which the title of this post is taken: New Zealand's first home-grown internet meme. Or at least, the first home-grown New Zealand internet emem I've heard of. Basically, a guy from ACT on campus, the student arm of the ACT Party, was on a morning current afairs show talking about why Earth Hour is a bad idea. Hilarity ensued. The interview contains some truly headdesk-worthy logic (If pollution from our power consumption is causing environmental problems, let's just consume MORE POWER to solve the problems!) but also some gems: "It fails on three fun-loving levels" and the meme "I think my argument is so powerful, it's not necessary to talk about it".
( And here's the video )
( Aaaaand my thoughts on Doctor Who )

Have some videos.

( New Within Temptation song and Doctor Who Season 5 trailer )

My grades for the second semester finally came through and WOW.
A in International Relations, A+ in Political Science, A+ in Geology and A+ in Environmental Science.
I'm completely bowled over.

Uni is now over for the year! And I'm glad! Four papers + Nationals + world's second-worst exam timetable = stressed, exhausted me. I'm now in the process of catching up on sleep.

I'm not very good at posting, am I? Half the time I start to post and then something shiny goes by and I lose interest. Stupid ADD.

In order to prevent this post from being entirely pointless, here are some links to Melissa McEwan's steampunk wedding ring, the TV Tropes page for Walking With Dinosaurs and Syaoran and Watanuki cats

♫ leave me a comment saying "SAY IT TO MY FACE, BITCH",
♫ i'll respond by asking you five questions so i can get to know you better.
♫ update your journal with the answers to the questions.
♫ include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.
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one; if you could inject yourself into any fandom, which one would you choose?
At the moment? Probably Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic universe. I really like the way magic works in that universe, and the fact that, unlike many other fantasy universes, there's very little discrimination based on race or gender.
two; do you think australia and new zealand should become one country?
No. I like New Zealand as its own country with its own identity. Although if they appeared in Hetalia (and weren't siblings) I would totally ship them.
three; you have superpowers but superheroes are being persecuted. a loved one is in danger and you can save them but will be exposed: do you save them?
I think so. Of course, it's always easy to say that when you're not actually in that situation, but I think I'd rather be exposed than sit and do nothing. I hate feeling helpless.
four; you discover that you will lose the use of your legs tomorrow. what do you do today?
Um. What with Irish dancing, cycling, walking, Scottish country dancing and so on, my legs are very important to me. I can't really imagine losing that. So my answer would probably be some sort of cop-out like 'invent fully functional artificial legs'...
five; would you ever bungee jump?
I'd have to be in the right frame of mind, but I think I'd give it a try. I might freak out when it came to actually jumping and end up having to be pushed, though.

Uni starts up again on Monday. I feel as if I've barely recovered from the last semester.
I got my results today, though: A- in Political Science, A in Earth Science and A+ in Geography. I am slightly bowled over.
This is quite interesting, not to mention hilarious. It's a mash-up of clips from Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, showing how some of Edward's behaviour towards Bella is pretty disturbing, despite being portrayed as romantic. The comments are also worth a read.
Note: I have never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer and don't really intend to. I understand it also has some issues; however, this clip is brilliant.

I wrote a fic. A rather cracky fic.

Title: In Which Tsuna Wishes He Could Disappear
Fandom: Reborn!
Character/pairing: Tsuna, Reborn, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Ryohei, Hibari, Chrome, Haru, Kyoko; lots and lots of UST
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Set a year or two after current canon; no significant spoilers though. Contains rather a lot of multishipping.

( Interpersonal relations in the Vongola base have recently become a whole lot more complicated... )