So apparently I am a college graduate. B.A. in Environmental Studies, with an Environmental Chemistry concentration. No honors. Fooling around with being a Bio and Chemistry major ruined my GPA, but it led to good things so I won't complain. Although I am disappointed that I don't have a B.S., because it sounds funny and I'm really not mature enough to be a real live adult.

(Oh, and I'm a red belt in karate. That felt like more work, actually. Probably because I got lost on the way to the atheletic club and walked two miles in the wrong direction. Yay Google Maps.)

Um. More later, because I'm exhausted, but please don't ask me "what are your plans now?" because I really don't have any, and I anticipate having to say that eighteen thousand more times before I finally get some. However, I am considering law, because it seems like I could do some good there with my writing skills and scientific knowledge and environmentalism, whereas I don't think I'm really cut out to do scientific research anymore.

Anyway, as I told Kitty, I keep looking at the diploma and thinking "Wow, they put a seal and a ribbon on it and everything. It almost looks like a real degree!" and then remembering, that, um, it is.

I apologize for the total lack of music posts and pretty much anything else lately; I have been consumed with finals. BUT I just got out of my last final exam and now all that stands between me and graduating with a BA in Environmental Studies is a week-sized clump of timey-wimey ...stuff.

I mean, I have other shit to do -- pack, clean room, deal with kvetching parents who want to get the fuck out whining about how Bloomington-Normal has no good restaurants (adults, so spoiled!), convince kvetching parents that I should be allowed to stay for a few minutes longer to say goodbye to all the Environmental Studies people, and figure out how on earth I'm going to be able to serve hot tea and sandwiches to my friends during our hike at Starved Rock. That last one is really the only problem I'm looking forward to solving because if I can do that it will be the epitome of needless luxury that I can actually appreciate.

(Anyway, I think I offended Professor Jahiel by warning her that I might not stay very long after graduation, because of the whole whiny parents deal, but I actually would like to stay. I am being honest here, literally ALL THEY WILL TALK ABOUT at this point is how much they want to get out of Bloomington-Normal quickly. They won't even discuss, like, the dogs. They will always discuss the dogs.)

Also, I got my May Term journal assignments back, which is awesome because I forgot a lot of what I wrote about (a lot of it I now take for granted, actually) and rereading it is awesome, because I completely failed to keep the non-academic journal up. (I think I got halfway through the month. Yup! Detailed entries including drawings of plants up to May 14th, when I realized exhaustion was something to be avoided.)

Anyway, technically I have karate practice mentally scheduled for Two Hours Hence, but Awkward Physics Blue Belt Guy stood me up last time, so I think I'm going to do that tomorrow and today I'll listen to music and write. Or maybe draw. Or both! My Lovecraftian romantic comedy is from three points of view, with text and pictures (See? It's totally Lovecraftian, y'all know my drawing is terrible.), and I need to research postwar fashion and work on my character designs.

...oh yeah, and I didn't eat lunch. Guess I should do that before my stomach rises up and eats me.

...Cassie, I will respond to your email eventually. Sorry. Lunch comes second, triumphant LJ post comes first, sleep or at least brain rest comes third. Haven't read the book, though, alas.

And yes, I will try to make up for the Lost Music Posts. But I'd love it if you suggested themes. And I'd love it if they were easy for me to do. (Not steampunk. I suspect there will be a steampunk music post soonish but I would rather save it for when I'm at my best, and that is not now.)

( Brief spoilerly whine about the Doctor Who Easter special. )

Oh, and there's Amazonfail, of course. I have nothing of import to add, except that if you are boycotting them, you might also want to take a look here. Some notable things owned by Amazon: IMDB, Mobipocket, Audible.com, AbeBooks, and they apparently partially own LibraryThing. I have no personal experience with anyone's recs for alternate internet book retailers, but apparently there is talk at Powell's of having an LGBTQ-themed Amazonfail sale, which suggests that they are at least willing to take advantage of their competitors' craniorectal issues rather than imitate them.

Um. Music post tomorrow, I think. I have the songs picked out but not uploaded or blathered about. Tomorrow is still a weekend for me, though, so it totally counts. I can brighten your Monday with mp3s!

Tomorrow I also have a paper to write on Bellamy Clubs and the Chicago Tribune's frothing hatred of socialism in the late 19th century. As opposed to the Trib's current frothing hatreds! Though, to be fair, they're pretty good about the frothing lately. The sports page is by far the wankiest, they're always getting into it with the Sun Times. But I digress. It shouldn't be as bad as most of my term papers because it's supposed to be much shorter and poor Professor Schultz was like "...but you have enough to write a paper with just that," when I was going ON AND ON about how I wanted to find sources on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and other early SF novels, could only find tons of articles on the evils of Looking Backward.

Also, he mistook me for a history major. I do not need to switch my major another eight times.

And semi-related, but the reason I am exhausted right now, what is it with everybody and their crazy aunt saying "You know, I need to publish this novel. I KNOW, I WILL SELF-PUBLISH! ...good, now that's over with and I have all these books in my garage! Hey, you, random person on the Internet! How do I sell my books?"

It's not that I'm against self-publishing. I accept that there are situations where it's the only logical choice, even if it isn't your great-grandmother's recipe book. I just don't see why you'd put in the effort to self-publish without either accepting that hardly anybody will hear about your book, or doing some research into what it takes to publicize a book without the backing of a publisher.

Also, uh, you might want to get a blog, or at least an LJ. And for the love of Gutenberg, proofread your website. And make sure the graphics don't suck.

I mean, let's face it, if you're so bad at this that I can give you advice you haven't heard, you are not doing well. I am the girl who doesn't advertise her fanfics in the appropriate communities for fear of seeming egotistical. If I know it, everybody probably knows it.

So this one was weird, because I kind of had to stretch the rules a bit. See, normally I have to do that anyway, otherwise the mix is basically an hour of TMBG and the Beatles. But TMBG and The Beatles are like, the KINGS of word salad. But rather than giving you pure nonsense, I tried to select the most interesting and varied nonsense in my collection. And forgive me, but some of it might even make sense. Still, it is my earnest hope that at least one song in this post will make you stop what you were doing, pause the song, relisten, and shout, ( 'What does that even MEAN?' )

So, in case anyone was not yet convinced that you could find nearly anything on the internet if you looked hard enough, I bring you something I found on a random GoogleImage search of the quoted phrase "the doctor."

So, I bring you a series of Doctor Who and Torchwood characters (and some OCs, apparently) drawn as the artist thinks they would look if they all happened to be lions. I have to say, I think Jack and the Doctor look all wrong, but Gwen and Martha look very much like themselves. If they were lions. Of course, I am ignoring the sexual dimorphism in lions, particularly with regard to mane and tail tufts. And also the fact that lions don't come in blue. But I think when one is drawing a time-travelling immortal alien who at the moment looks strangely like David Tennant, except when he looked like Christopher Eccleston, or Paul McGann, or -- you get the idea -- these small facts of leonine biology can be safely ignored.

Also, earlier I had been trying to find a URL for that Carl Sagan "Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey ...stuff" icon to show to a friend, so if anyone has that, cool.

So despite my general sleep deprivation for the past week or so, I had an awesome day. Why?

1. I wore my supervillain boots and was generally rocking the "I don't give a damn how much fucking space I take up, hellz yes I'm a fat chick, but I can still kick you in the head" look.
2. We were given the task of creating an ecologically-motivated doosmday cult with past failed prophecies swept under the rug in Religion, and I think my rant against the Fleas Upon The Back Of Our Mother rant I came up with sounded pretty scary.
3. A couple of classmates complimented me on my drawings today. Yay! I am not remotely an art student, so this doesn't actually mean that my drawing was good or particularly extraordinary, but that always makes me happy, especially since I was just taking notes, not being all LOOK WUT I CAN DOOOO.
4. At least three people were taken in by my music post yesterday. As for those of you who downloaded without listening, forgive me for the cardinal sin of changing the mp3 files' metadata, but it seemed like just a little more work than anyone would expect me to put into a prank, so I went ahead and did it.

For those of you who really wanted a copy of Glass Onion or something, fear not -- that is roughly the tracklisting for the post I intend to make.

Here is the real tracklisting:

( Never gonna give, never gonna give, GIVE! YOU! UP! )

Okay, guys. Here is the REALLY REALLY LATE music post. Basically, I am full of fail and I let y'all down twice in a row, but apparently these things come in threes. Seeing as how I have a paper to write today and the blather and lyrics and stuff are really the least necessary part of the whole "hey, here's some free music!" and also the part I agonize most over and thus enjoy the most, I will blather tomorrow in favor of giving you music today.

( Word Salad, such as it is. )

I never do these things, but I had to make an exception. Come on! It's one of those internet black holes that only emits information. What's not to like?

the meme

ARGH.

Now that that's out of the way. My professor has emailed me asking me to bring in the commented-up copy of my rough draft so she can scan it for her files, because she says she handed it back to me the day before break without having made the copy. The final is due Wednesday at noon. Okay, whatever. That would be totally fine if she, in fact, had handed it back to me. This year my stuff is actually well-organized, so I can confirm that no, I do not have it.

Alas, no such luck. What she did hand back to me was the heavily revised version of the outline, which she still did not like, so I basically have to rewrite the thing anyway and I already have enough shit due this week and argh. ARGH ARGH ARGH.

Okay, I guess that wasn't out of the way.

ARGH.

Poll #1367278 Music post #4
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should the theme for the next music post be?

If you chose to suggest something, do it here.

This weekend has been incredibly busy, so for this week's music post, ( I just hit random. )

... guh.

So you know how there are some things you just should not, under any circumstances, GoogleImage?

I have found the opposite of that. 'Mechanical hand' got me this.

So the winner of the poll was "generic mad scientist." It was really damn hard to do this post, guys. Partly because my week was shittastic. (Roughly in order: Illness, identity theft, midterms, term paper, assholes, AN HOUR DISAPPEARED, tornado.) But also largely because when I had finally gotten rid of all the music I thought was really, well, essential to the whole mad science thing? I had four and a half hours. Most of it not by TMBG, Abney Park, or Jonathan Coulton, actually -- they are currently the go-to artists for mad science music, but everyone knows them so I tried to ensure that my songs were at least half not them, because I figure anyone interested in mad science music probably has a lot of stuff by them, and the Dr. Horrible soundtrack besides. (I will say, though, Jonathan Coulton's science songs kind of gets on my nerves for the same reason Dr. Horrible does. But at least Penny has a personality.) Anyway, I think the end result was pretty decent.

Remember, suggestions for future themes are welcome!

( SHOW THEM ALL. )

It's been a while since anyone has been enough of an asshole in person to instill homicidal rage in me. Thank goodness I was on my way to karate anyway. In karate I get to hit people without them pressing charges, and it gives me time to really understand that violence is not the answer.

So, a public service announcement: any joke where the punchline is that group X will get cancer and die horribly is not funny, and if group X includes one of my loved ones, oh hey! Homicidal rage! But since violence is not the answer, the next time you decide it is funny to follow my coughing, sick, plague-ridden, feverish ass and insist that I stop smoking because you are just so concerned about my health, I am not going to hit you. Instead, I will blow my nose into a tissue, force-feed it to both of you, and see how long it takes you to get as sick as I am. You know, for science. Then, if you don't stop coughing (because coughing is clearly not polite when you're walking by yourself in public) I'm going to track down your mothers and make them breathe asbestos for several days. Then I'll wait. I bet the cancer jokes at their funerals will be hilarious, but they were bringing it upon themselves anyway. If they hadn't raised a couple of assholes like you...

I really really hate people. Did I mention that? Really. Hate.

Some fucker has been buying surveillance equipment with my debit card.

I am not a happy camper.

So, I don't know what to do for next week's music post. Since nobody suggested anything and I am Captain Indecisive, I decided to post a poll.

...Also, if this totally doesn't go through as a poll, blame the LJ interface.

Poll #1358012 Next music post!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should the theme for my next music post be?

If you chose to suggest something, do it here.

Kaesa's music taste is:

So I've decided to try and upload about an hour's worth of my music once a week. This week, I just went into the My Top Rated playlist on my iTunes and put it on Random until I had an hour's worth of stuff, but if anybody has a particular theme or a fic character of mine that they want me to upload music for (yes, I know this sounds egotistical, but music help me a lot with plotting so I actually have playlists for them already) please comment. Also, tell me if there's anything wrong with the uploads. I tried to de-DRM and mp3ify everything, but I make mistakes.

Oh, and I'll blather. I like blathering about music.

1. Dives and Lazarus // Maddy Prior
Then Divès looked up with his eyes / And saw poor Lazarus blest; / "Give me one drink, brother Lazarus, / To quench my flaming thirst."

This one comes from Maddy Prior's (I think) newest album -- if you are not familiar with Maddy Prior, I know her mostly from Steeleye Span, a British folk-rock band which was (apparently) one of the things that brought my mom and dad together. I discovered them in middle school while stealing my parents' CDs, and never fell out of love with the band. But Maddy Prior has this amazing voice which is basically the highlight of any Steeleye Span vocals. The song itself is a lovely little hymn about how basically the world sucks, but if you shoo beggars away rather than giving them , you also get to spend the afterlife in hell, and no one will feel particularly bad for you! A version of it was playing when I was Christmas-shopping at Barnes & Noble this December, which I remember confused me because, while it is religious, it isn't Christmasy at all.

2. You Can't Stop the Beat // Original Broadway Cast (Hairspray)
'Cause the world keeps spinnin' / 'Round and 'round / And my heart's keeping time / To the speed of sound / I was lost 'til I heard the drums / Then I found my way!

I love Hairspray. I've only seen the Broadway version, so any "omg the movie was so good, remember that part where [thing that is played out totally differently]!" will be met with some puzzlement. My only annoyance with it was that after our choir saw it on Broadway, all the tall thin girls said wistfully, "Man, if only I was short and fat! Then I could play Tracy!" and I was like "Someday, I will take over the world and the sentence for your complete insincerity will be having your eyes clawed out, since I am against the death penalty." But that's more something that annoys me about my high school choir. The actual musical is great.

Although on one level this song is totally ruined for me by this amazing New Who vid. (HUGE SPOILERS FOR SERIES 3.) Then again, as I mentioned, this is the Broadway version, and that vid uses the movie version, so clearly they're different. Right. Totally. ...Oh god my feet are tapping. AUGH.

3. The Big Chair // Da Vinci's Notebook
I think I might / Get to my new home by night. / I wonder, should I phone? (Hahahaha!)

This one makes me laugh, especially the part about the Mexican radio. Because somehow, whenever we're going on a multiple-hour drive, none of the good or entertainingly-bad radio stations last very long and all of the really weird ones stick around forever. And it also makes me laugh because it captures that horrible feeling of uncertainty and inadequacy that you get when you're running away from something and you know damn well it's your fault, but actually admitting that to the other person would be going too far.

4. Only Us // Peter Gabriel
Seduced by the noise and the bright things that glisten, / I knew all the time I should shut up and listen.

I think I got this from an Aziraphale/Crowley fanmix. My enjoyment of it is mostly aesthetic -- I love songs that just wash over you. Probably because of the Aziraphale/Crowley, this song makes me think of some kind of attempt to return to the Garden of Eden.

5. Beethoven // Trans-Siberian Orchestra
[Instrumental]

I know it can be a little confusing, but this is "Beethoven" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, not a rare recording of Beethoven's "Trans-Siberian Orchestra." About half the songs from their album Beethoven's Last Night are things I routinely add to Sparky/Mad/just plain overdramatic characters' playlists when they are experiencing Pain and Angst and are not dealing with it well. This is one of those. And it doesn't even have lyrics!

6. These Boots Are Made For Walkin' // Nancy Sinatra
You keep lyin' when you oughta be truthin' /You keep losing when you oughta not bet / You keep samin' when you oughta be a'changin' / What's right is right but you ain't been right yet.

I also have a weakness for kickass angry songs. And boots.

7. Mysterious Whisper // They Might Be Giants
Mysteeeeerious whisper! Mysteeeeerious whisper!

Yes. This track is really only twenty-eight seconds. It's, uh. Mysterious. I love They Might Be Giants.

8. Hide and Seek // Imogen Heap
Spin me 'round again / And rub my eyes. / This can't be happening.

Sophomore year, when my life was hell but I had an awesome roommate, Katie, she bought Speak For Yourself, which this song is from. This was the only song she loved, because it contains the lyrics "trains and sewing machines," and Katie was at that point a theater/costume major. Later, upon listening to it, we both realized it also had the words "crop circles in the carpet," which cracked us up because over the summer she'd visited and we bought one of the last issues of the Weekly World News, which informed us of the latest threat to planet Earth -- tiny carpet-inhabiting aliens bent on WORLD DOMINATION! Needless to say, she let me copy the whole CD (which I love) and this is now one of my favorite songs.

9. In the Dark of the Night // Jim Cummings (Anastasia)
I was once the most mystical man in all Russia. / When the royals betrayed me they mad a mistake!

I could pretend that my biggest motivator to write good villains is that I want to be a good writer overall. This would be a lie. I mean, I do want to be a good writer overall, but my primary reason for writing good villains is because even the most one-dimensional evil cartoon villains get great songs.

Also, it has Rasputin. I love songs about Rasputin.

10. Faster Kill Pussy Cat (Roman Holiday Remix) // Paul Oakenfield
Better wake up, little sleepy head, / The big old world will pass us by. / So many things we could do instead, / Get what you want with your lucky eyes.

You know what? Sometimes I like loud mindless songs too. My music taste isn't bad so much as it is petty.

11. Pretty Little Horses // Barry Phillips
[Instrumental]

I really like instrumental folky stuff. It lets me write or read while listening to something that isn't a movie soundtrack but still has emotional meaning. This particular track is an instrumental version of a somewhat melancholy lullaby, or so Wikipedia tells me. It feels familiar, but that might just be that the tune scans to the title and I guess it's easy to extrapolate lyrics from there.

12. Road Rage // Da Vinci's Notebook
You know I'm driving / On a highway I happen to own. / You're riding in the middle / Of this battle zone.

My dad is ridiculously polite, except when he is driving, at which point he swears even more than my mother. (For this reason, I think it's a good thing she doesn't drive.) He would say that this song describes everyone on the road except him. Yeah. I bet.

13. I Lost You (But I Found Country Music) // Laura Cantrell & Gordon McIntyre
And I miss you, but luckily there’s music / Luckily there’s music, to get me through.

I'm not sure where I found this, but it's a short, pretty little track apparently grabbed off of a BBC live radio thingy.

14. Zero Wing Rhapsody // TmsT
You have no chance to survive make your time / Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha!

Okay, yes, this is that song from that video and it's really oldmeme, and some of the guys in it can't sing, but I DON'T CARE. <3

15. Je ne sais pas choisir // Emily Loizeau
Quand je veux me jeter du Pont du Carroussel / Je me dis finalement non la vie est belle. / Quand quelqu'un me dit: "Dieu que la vie est belle!" / Je voudrais me jeter du Pont du Carroussel

It's a song about being indecisive. I'm not good at bringing meaning through in translations, but a very approximate translation of the quoted lyric is "When I want to throw myself from the Pont du Carroussel, I tell myself that life is beautiful. When someone tells me that life is beautiful, I would like to throw myself from the Pont du Carroussel."

But it's cheerful enough if you don't know French!

16. The Secret Life of Dr. Calgori // Abney Park
Hired and sacked behind locked doors, / A man in uniform fighting cold wars. / Invented steam saviors and taught them to fight, / And they stopped things going bump in the night.

SPARKS. I mean um. >_> I like steampunk and retrotech, obviously. Also, I use this song to represent the Noble Mad Scientist in character playlists. I don't actually have any completely noble mad scientists, but Clovis Espis actually did do good things, they just were never made public. And of course, his daughter Ed got all reformed after, yanno, Azkaban. Of course, neither of them managed to invent "the radio-transmitting toe," which is one of the more amazing lyrics in the history of stuff.