Expedition log

Song meme

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:33:57 GMT

I'm back! Interesting year, might write something about it sometime, but 1st going to do things.

From cereswunderkind Post 20 songs you never get sick of

1. Full of Grace (sarah McLachan)

2. Be thou my vision (Eleanor H. Hull)

3. Burn (Alkaline Trio)

4. The Widow's Curse (Bellowhead)

5. Phantom (Kikuko Inoue)

6. Salva Nos (Yuki Kajiura)

7. Flow (Sign, Naruto op 8)

8. Ta Mo Chleamhnas A Dheanamh (Van Morrison)

9. Closer (Sign, Naruto op 6)

10.Ansach na Ansach (Aoife Ni Fhearraigh)

11.Real Folk Blues (Yoko Kanno)

12.Bat out of Hell (Meat Loaf)

13.Running up that hill (Within Temptation)

14.Arcadia (Yoko Kanno)

15.Sad eyes (Bruce Springsteen)

16.Sleeping Sun (Nightwish)

17.In the Arms of the Angels (Sarah McLachan)

18.Dear Lord and Father (John Whittier)

19.Princess of the Kingdom of the Sun (Sound Horizon)

20.If I should Fall from Grace with God (The Pogues)

favorite character meme

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:26:15 GMT

meme from el_staplador

- Post a list of 15 fandoms
-- Have your friends list guess your favourite character from each one.
-- When guessed, bold the line, include the character name, and write a sentence about why you like that character.

I just have too many fandoms, so it seemed a pity not to go for it. A certain theme may be detectable in the final answers....

1. Fullmetal Alchemist (Wrath)

2. Death Note (L)

3. Northern Lights (NOT Tony Makarios...Will Parry)

4. Naruto (Hinata)

5. Lord of The Rings (Sam)

6. Battle Royale (Sugimura)

7. Wolf's Rain (Hige)

8. Harry Potter (Neville)

9. The Sandman (delirium)

10. The Matrix (Smith)

11. Noir (Mireille)

12. Madlax (Limelda)

13. To kill a Mockingbird (Tom Cunningham)

14. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Huck, who else?)

15. The Bible (Elihu, from Job)

Mexico photos

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:34:05 GMT

Just returned from Yucatan, Mexico, where it was hot, the buses were cheap, and trios of old men with white suits and guitars stood around on random street conners of an evening. Mum and youngest brother Henry came as well, after a week...this must be the first holiday when I've given useful street directions. We were trying to teach english to young kids at a soup kitchen. And older kids at a children's home, some of whom were bootleg anime fans, all of whom just wanted to have fun and teach us new handgrips.

Here they all are, with a volunteer called Holly in the middle. Front cover of a very alternative rap album anyone?

One of our better distractions...sorry, ideas. Mum's the one with glasses.

Photo I rather like of Mum and Henry at an art gallery

I mentioned the random Mariarchi? This was random;

Finally, a gratuitous Chitzen Itza pyramid. Nice sky....

Fanfic: The last day

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:33:35 GMT

Hey, y'all, still around. Just when I think I'm finished with L...writing Near and Mello will be a relief, though that won't be too soon, since I'm heading to Mexico for a similar volunteering holiday to the one in Ghana; only this time my Mother and 13 yr old brother are coming a week later. It won't be somewhere in the most desperate circumstances, but still some people who could be happier, even if just by teaching English and introducing them to cricket.

Title: The last day
Genre: angst, character
Words: 900 total
Rating: PG
Characters: L, Light, Misa mentioned. L/Light if you want it
Warnings: Character death, mild unpleasantness
Spoilers: L's name, middle of series
Summary: Three linked short pieces. Life, death, struggle, and love. And L.

A noteworthy thought: Life is data. It’s stupid to call that ugly or beautiful; it’s life. The school someone goes to, the job they find, the sweets they like, the individual who raises feelings alien to normal existence–the one they marry, or murder. Death is data too. Just the single black chocolate in the box of white.

There really weren’t any noteworthy features connected with my last practical assignment. But I must apparently describe a single article;

For the last four hour, the woman stared into the hidden camera, unbrokenly. She knew of no one who might view the film, excepting the Yakuza who imprisoned her, and their clients. Her life had held nothing to recommend its continuance. But her gaze spoke almost to the camera itself–preserve me. Remember.

It can’t be wrong to care about such a thing, but I can only judge it as stupid as placing a useless and respected victory over one significant and unseen. The woman had a 0.03% chance of defeating her captor’s efforts, and should have concentrated her life on escape. People locked in a darkened attic to lick moisture from the walls until they die alone cannot afford to care about anything else.

–‘Report on Infant Section end-of-year assignment’ written by L Lawliett, aged 6, destroyed 7 years later, by order of L

“You know that I’ll protect you, right…L?” Raito whispered through 4am silence with the so-plausible sweetness that was only his.

“What for, Yagami-kun?”

“Because you’re afraid of Shinigami. Terrified of losing, and your unplanned death. Like some kid with a monster under his bed.”

“At this moment, I have a 52% chance of defeating the greatest murder in history, Yagami-kun–at an estimate. If I do fall victim to Kira…my death can only yield evidence leading to his inevitable fall.” Light smirked briefly.

“The death of the great L, an anonymous piece in the puzzle?”

“More like another link in the chain.

“Life doesn’t make up a picture of kittens, Yagami-kun, or a Thanksgiving Dinner–or whatever the puzzle you saw your life as actually shows. A chain of certainties, following a single strand–” dry clicking came from the handcuff chain between their wrists, as L raised it to eye level, “–to Kira.”

“Life is a chain, L?” Light gazed back “Such a restrictive point of view. That’s why this austere, unbranching chain of yours will never lead to Kira–it only leads to me.”

L’s opaque eyes held the fierce tawny. He tasted Light’s voice, with the bitter trace that drew his arms around the cold of his ribcage.

In almost a year he had sifted Light’s life down to the sub-atomic. The child with the perfect father someplace else and a hundred rules, neat and ignored. The perfect highschooler rising to the top with the mildest effort and not a single choice. His howls that he shouldn’t be punished, that he was a good boy. His hunger for justice, and to judge. His considerate manner that made everybody but L so much happier around him. His cute habit of accepting nothing from any other human into his soul.

It pointed to one end, now unseen, always inevitable. Pacing out again every fact and chance, L could only believe that Light was Kira, and that the bitter mess of pity, regret and frustration his voice bore was true enough to hurt. It was feeling, straining to Kira’s wide eyed bugbear, and perhaps no correct response existed.

“Just concentrate on finding some clue, Light-kun. I know you want to defeat me and get on with your life.” Light turned back to the computers, with a dismissive gesture.

“Rather than pick over the most intricate mystery ever recorded with the paranoid sugar-monster? It beats underage drinks and bad karaoke with the normal freaks.”

L realised his tea would cool beyond consumption in two seconds. He would have to drain the cup and savour the taste of one mouthful.

Misa had told L once that his tower was like a prison, bare of everything but camera and images. L had replied that he didn’t live in the tower–and tapped his brow. He predicted a 16% chance she would consider what he meant, but he hoped.

It didn’t matter where he died–who was beside him, which sweets he had liked or which sweets he had eaten. He died quietly, drowning in the answer to the case, and the only smile of truth Kira ever gave him.

A thousand lives would preserve his voice and his works–L had never doubted they could take care of themselves, or welcomed any ill-advised feeling they might owe him. He had lost, but 100% probability can only ever be accepted.

All that mattered was the answer in Light’s face. Nothing of the God escaping the earth; just the boy exalting in victory over the enemy he would keep in his soul while he lived (Misa would accept it, one day. Please).

And L was glad of it, the feeling fresh and bright as death itself. He didn’t know how beings could care for each other as they struggled for truth in the darkness, but like the Death Note itself, it could only be fact. Maybe when the last piece of his puzzle had been placed, he would see why.

If not, he would squat outside the prison that he was leaving, and search the world from death, without sleep.

Reading and watching...

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:31:59 GMT

A week before the next exam, and no Uni activities yet, so I've had a little free time.

Finally finished Perditio Street Station, and read through The Great Gatsby; the latter book really got through to me. It lost a bit of focus in places, but had all the famous sense of place, and the most satisfying tragedy. I guess tragedy appeals because bad things happen for a reason in it. I read this classic Sci-Fi novel called Mockingbird just today that I'd never even heard of, pretty much Brave New World after the machines start breaking down. And where looking anybody in the eye is an obcesene invasion of privacy.

On the Anime front, I've finally bought Wolf's Rain, because not owning my favourite series was getting stupid. And I managed to watch Gunslinger Girl as well; not as good or bad as the best or worse reports, but certainly a solid, appealling, outrageously short series. Next I want to watch a Samurai anime...and I'd like to invite some people to the Alpha course at Church, despite nearly everyone I know seeming to be Christian or Atheist, with no fence sitters to be seen.

Organisation? None around here, mate...and hello to Almie again, missing you Exeter guys!

Quiz and news

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:16:36 GMT

From Ceres and SwanofKennet

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader

Quite a few preconceptions in there, but more thought than most quizes.

In general news, still plodding through January exams; with all the group study I'm finally meeting all the students on the course (Almost entirely foreign students, and variously relaxed or overstressed, but all very hard working). Apparently we have a 'refreshers week' following, with more amateur sport, modified football chants and activities, and another Taekwondo grading three weeks after the start of term, just so the whole club can make Blackbelt inside three years.

Two Taekwon-do guys also seem to be going on the 'tough guy' challenge for charity, an obstacle course involving flamethrowers and swimming pools. Just jingling a bucket would be enough fun for me; being the least fit person in the club and enjoying it just shows what charming people they all are.

Will restart that perenial Wrath fic soon, as well as any short stuff I get time for.

Fanfic: What they believed

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:20:34 GMT

Title: What they believed.
Genre: angst, character
Words: 800ish
Rating: PG
Characters: young L, young B, OCs
Warnings: Further appalling lack of yaoi
Spoilers: L's name, little else
Summary: Whammy House story. I finally wrote a B fic, even if it's character speculation rather than squick.

A room with windows full of light. It lit up the eyes of stuffed toys, soaked into the dark, conservative sofas, warmed the air like a bath. The children lay around the pile of documents that was their current preoccupation.

“Woman kills husband and two children. Ghanaian boy killed in ritual exorcism. Even for such common murder-types, why can’t we work out the reasons such things happen?” (Amir. Indian, round glasses. Career, police inspector, death by suicide age 27)

“You mean the reasons people commit them. People are tricky.” (Dorkas. Will discover the vaccine for Flu, between divorces three and four.)

“Prediction of weather is tricky. Humans are entirely simple.” The thin, hunched boy chewing idly on his finger, “Sex, duty, self-preservation, social contact–individual factors can be easily predicted–”

No one’s listening to him. A nondescript boy by the playroom door is wiping his face.

“Parents?” He nodded quickly, “Crying won’t help them or you, you know.” Murmurs of support followed what most of the children supposed to be comforting words.

“You survived, then.” Puzzled looks; the hunched boy picked up a page between finger and thumb, “Woman kills husband, two out of three children. You reacted to a glimpse of this report.”

“Lawliett, is this really the time for that Edgar Allan Poe shit–?”

“It’s nothing.” The boy sniffed furiously, sitting with the other orphans, “I…chose a good day to run away from home.”

“Your name isn’t there–”

“I’m nobody.”

“Fair enough.”

Amir sucked his teeth despairingly. “You just haven’t got a clue about people, Lawliett. That’s why I’m going to be the great detective.”

“While I remind everyone you’re a great big idiot.” Dorkas murmured.

“And I become the greatest detective in the world. It’s good that you have something to do yourselves.”

Amir shoved Lawliett over onto the case reports. He and Dorkas laughed happily; the other two boys laughed well enough in reaction.

The light vanished, as the orphans studied in silence. Presently, Lawliett rose halfway and made for the door.

“It’s after hours.” Amir called, scribbling notes in a pocketbook.

“I thought he’d be afraid to sit out alone.” The thin, unmemorable boy started, and muttered something, “But you want to watch the sunset, don’t you?”

* * *

“Oww…” Lawliett scratched his wrist on an uneven brick as he leant against the wall outside. Strips of cloud seemed like blood on a cold sky; but Lawliett saw the other boy relax and grin.

“I’m glad I remember them, you know. And I want to see Mum again. That’s got to be weird, right?”

A stillborn smile passed Lawliett’s mouth, before he spoke. Something odd entered the other boy’s eyes as he listened, and rocked forward into a crouch.

“I can only say that feeling is not unique. People do and feel illogical things for many reasons. No one can say if those reasons are ‘normal’ for humans or ‘wrong’. Not me; when I know every reason, but never why.”

“One thing you don’t know.” Heavy sarcasm, “And me, I must be stupider than anybody.”

Lawliett shook his head. Somewhere past the clouds and the trees, they could see hard lights.

“I don’t know why. I might never know. But I believe in it. The woman quitting her job to marry someone she loves. The father, and the daughter in a wheelchair. The highschooler helping his sister with her homework. The parents labouring to comfort the child they know is a murderer. Even murderers–they know something. I remember nothing of my parents. But I believe in parents and children and people. Their imperfect normality and rules, their force and light.”

The boy carefully put his hand over Lawliett’s squirming toes as he spoke.

“It’s better to believe in than the darkness, right?”

Lawliett nodded and looked straight up. They silently watched the sky together.

“You never cared about anyone, Lawliett?”

“I’d work my whole life and die for other people. Because I’ve nothing better to do–I just don’t know.”

“Goodness.” Lawliett’s eyes found the boy’s face, as the hand on his toes faintly tightened. The face had changed, but the voice remained curious and quiet.

“Won’t you tell me? How can someone live like that? Never caring for a single shitty–?”

“Caring and connecting aren’t the same. It’s not unimaginable I could have a friend someday. But never someone the same as me.” Lawliett stood up, and walked away.

“Right. You make your own rules. No, come back, let’s keep talking. Isn’t it all one to you, what I do? Don’t you want to hear about it? Ow.”

The boy calmly watched a bright red spot swell like fungus, where he’d cut himself on the edge of a brick. Lawliett clutched his wrist and kept walking; stumbled, and broke into a run.

Gratuitous Baccano fanfic

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:03:17 GMT

1st Baccano! fanfiction. Just one bushwhacking idea, and I have to go to all this trouble...but I felt like completing something for once.

Title: Boy meets Girl
Words: 2000+
Rating: PG
Genre: Humour (be afraid)
Summary: The secret superhero origins of Isaac and Maria, as narrated by Firo.

Mr Isaac and Miss Maria do have many mysterious qualities. Are they idiots, incredibly wise, or both? Are they even actually lovers? You can bet I never asked–having to give Ennis the babies talk was quite painful enough.

How they first met seemed an easier question. Mine and Ennis’ last holiday took us Upstate, around the lower Catskills and Shawangunk ridge. To us city kids, a blur of crossroads, shacks, rocky inclines and silence. It was a clearing in a mid-sized forest, close and dark as fog all round, where we found the cabin. There was a vegetable patch full of weeds, a stick to tie up an animal and a heap of almanacs and paperbacks rotting away inside.

Apparently Mrs Dian had homeschooled young Isaac after an argument with the local teacher over her new hairpins. They still remembered in the nearest village how she’d bought, borrowed or stolen every book she could, until she passed away, G. R. H.S., from a cough or a chill, no one remembered which. Mr Dian fell down a gully a few months later, and any other brothers in the family died of some other complaint about then.

Young Isaac stayed in the cabin in the woods, with a few sickly animals and his mountain of books, occasionally trekking to the village to barter for food. He spoke to no one beyond that, save for occasional mumbling about the Romance of Three Kingdoms, the detective who vanished down the waterfall, or Death the shatterer of worlds. There were traces of civilisation he could’ve latched onto, but he stayed in the woods as if he simply never thought of it. Or never felt inclined to.

So matters stood, until a certain well-bred but debt-ridden New York family attempted to secretly and hastily remove themselves to Canada. We found the remains of a car near a river a couple of miles from the Dian’s cabin. Beyond this point, a chronicler must happily resort to imagination. Shall we say…

* * *

The girl’s eyes flicked open, flinging what little they saw at her brain without division. She screamed loud enough to drown out the torrential rain besiging the shelter of a branch and a blanket; and the boy with the prominent chin and stiff brown hair screamed back.

“…Time out! Time out!….The bears!”

“BEARS!?” The girl was shocked enough to fall silent. She blinked expressively at the boy, who blinked back, and swallowed softly, as if contemplating the most important task of his life.

“…You mustn’t ever take them by surprise. So at least if a bear comes along, he’ll hear where we are, and won’t eat us.”

Silence. Then continued screams.

“Ohh, it’s cold! And my bottom’s wet! Ohh…”

“You can keep your elbows dry by eating carrots! Didn’t anyone come from Oz down the lightning with you?”

“Only Father and Sister.” The girl shivered and feebly rubbed her hands. The boy copied the action, as a child might who had spoken with people for years, but in all that time never met a single one.

“So, where are they?”

“Umm…somewhere. Where’s Oz?”

“In a book. You can read it as well; it’s just back in the house!”

“Is it far?” Listening over the explosions of thunder, the boy could barely hear the voice.

“No not at all! But don’t get too wet, it could be dangerous!” The boy set off at a sprint, then ran back and set off again with the girl on his back.

“Ooo. That’s a cow, isn’t it?”

A week after the storm, the girl was out of bed (There was one bed; the boy had let the girl share it, despite getting sneezed on in the night), in no further danger of expiry, and once more confronting life with spirit and vigour.

“Yeah.” Expressive blinking, “They have ten stomachs, you know? I think for the different kinds of grass.”

“You know such a lot! From all those books?”

“I don’t read them so much…” Something in her dizziness was inexhaustible. The boy couldn’t look at those eyes that flashed with life without needing to speak. “You must know about loads of other things. Like the Imperial Statement Building, or the Iffy tower, or Manchu Picchu…or wherever it was you lived.”

“Umm, I lived in New York. I did all the dusting and sweeping in our house, so I never got to see the Iffy tower.”

“Wicked steparents? Like Cinderella, King Arthur, Pip-from-Great-Expectations, like that?”

“Um, yes?”

“Couldn’t…you maybe talk a bit more?”

“Father always shouted at me when I talked out loud. It was just the same at school when I talked out loud in lessons.”

“Even a wicked school…hey, you went to school? With blackboards, rugby, apple-pie-beds and motherhood, all that?”

“Mmm! We did lots of counting, and threw lots of chalk. And we always played a game where everyone rolled pennies down a slope and I had to keep catching them.”

The boy shot up, and starting pacing with his hands in his pockets. The girl watched him, as he fell to chopping wood with no great excess of technique.

“Um, children have got to have parents right? The government says so? Do you know how we could find Father and Sister?”

“Well…actually I don’t. And actually, we’re not going to. I mean are you sorry that they’re not here?”

“Well, a bit…”

“Ooo! They treat you so badly, lose you in a storm, and make you feel sorry as well! You should get your revenge by not bothering to find them, without a doubt! Anyway, they’ve all gone off rather than camping out in the forest or doing anything to find you again–”

“But, they might just have stayed in the village and asked around?”

A brief pause was followed by the boy shooting off through the trees, returning about two hours later with news that no strangers or strange news had reached the village in the last fortnight.

“–Anyway, it can’t possibly be wrong to have no parents. I’ve lived here on my own since years ago!” The girl looked about as if the absence of a thriving multitude had only just registered as a meaningful fact, and began to wail loudly. “Hey, stop that. Please.”

“That’s so sad!”

The world was not sad, it was happy. It hurt the boy inside that he couldn’t remember why.

“No, no…after all, no one can remember if ma died from a cough or a chill, so you couldn’t possibly say for certain she’s dead! It’s not as if I’m alone either! This is America, there are people everywhere!” The girl choked out a laugh. “Ooo, what is it, what is it?”

“That’s right. People.” The girl from the city had met the boy from an isolated cabin, and realised it that moment.

The girl didn’t cry again for months. Both children ate, slept in the only bed, wore the same messes of undistinguished cast-offs. The girl listened with the same eyes, and it would’ve killed the boy to take away his voice. He felt the unnamed something that he was, different from birds or trees or rocks because the girl’s bright thoughtless voice touched him and not them. He told the girl everything, or some interpretation of it, and she treasured and pondered all, after a fashion.

Eventually, the cow died, not having given milk for weeks. The girl cried her eyes out, and the boy found that it hurt him less if he cried as well. By sunset, both of them sat outside the cabin, watching the weaving flies.

“Hey, what should we do?” The boy scratched his head, as she did, so synchronously it could no longer be seen who was copying who, “Shouldn’t we bury her?”

“No, no. You can’t believe everything you read in books.”

“Hey. Are we going to die sometime?”

“Possibly, possibly…if we have kids. Yes, if we didn’t have kids they’d be no one to see that we were dead! And if there were two children living here and eating and sleeping, it’d like we weren’t dead anyway…well, I suppose.”

“Mmm. And they’d be children who run around and goo-goo and wet their beds….and we…hey, what do we do?”

“Yes, yes…well the first thing is who we are. You have to do these things properly after all.” After a few seconds, they both looked down at the shapeless rags they wore, and detected no clue, “Let’s see, we’ve never managed to trap anything, a library would have to be bigger…”

“We fish, don’t we?”

“But lots of people fish. This probably isn’t even a farm now…” The girl sniffed, having momentarily forgotten about the cow. The boy screwed his face up with effort. He had to be somebody, because he had to do something, but everything needed things that were somewhere else…suddenly he leapt to his feet.

“Who do you want to be?”

“Somebody pretty! Who has fun! And never has to clean out cowpoo.”

Two hours later, the boy had returned to the cabin. With a flourish from some unseen well of natural theatre, he held out a fairly wretched print dress the girl could’ve used as a sleeping bag. She blinked slowly, and asked what was it for?

“This is yours. Whoever you meet and wherever you go, it will prevent you being mistaken for anyone else at all! By wearing different clothes you can be somebody else–in this case, you! It’s…a print dress!” A few birds were woken up by the force of the conclusion.

The girl removed her ragged pants and shirt without preamble, and dived into the dress. She rose, twirled, hopped up and down in speechless joy, and suddenly began doing something to the boys face with her lips.

“Hey…” Stop music. Pause birds in flight. “What are you doing?”

“Um…I don’t know.” Further pause.

“Well…there’s so many things for us to find out!”

“So much we don’t know!” The boy and girl hopped around in each other’s arms, cheering as if the Civil War had just ended.

“Where did you get it? Where, where?”

“Just lying on a fence someplace around the village–”

The girl shot off, and returned one hour and forty five minutes later, clutching a waistcoat and pinstriped trousers, almost fainting from lack of breath, and one step ahead of a fuming man with a shotgun.

“They. Were just. Lying there.” The boy was pacing savagely, trying to talk out the opposite side of his mouth to the bruise. “How can this be allowed? Isn’t there any law–”

“Hey, but we stole them from him.” The girl, returned to her former cast-offs, wiped her eyes.

“How can he say that–?”

“Because he owned them? The clothes were in front of his house, and he bought them with money?”

“How can somebody own a thing–?”

“Like we own a cabin, a vegetable patch and a dead cow?” The boy dropped onto his haunches, and gave every outwards sign of deep reflection. Thinking had never troubled him in the past; in fact he had scarcely given it a thought. But there was an energy inside him, and something that needed to do and say things somewhere far away…it was coming.

“THAT’S IT!”

“That’s what?”

“I know what we going to and who we’re going to be. If the principle of ownership works that, anyone who breaks it can be none other than THIEVES! That’s what we’ll be!” He stood in front of the cabin in the forest, grinning at the world.

“But aren’t thieves bad people who steal things?”

“…not in the least. Anger, envy, unnecessary spending on luxuries, making helpless children unhappy, all of it comes from owning things. But that is a poor second reason.” The boy nipped into the cabin, and hopped out with a stack of books. “Arsene Lupin. Raffles, the Artful Dodger, Robin Hood! All loved by everybody. All spectacular people. All heroes. All thieves. And that is what we are!”

“Horray! We’re spectacular, we’re people! I’m Maria, I’m a spectacular thief–”

“And I’m the spectacular thief Isaac–”

Another world-stop minute. Isaac and Maria spend it considering each other’s names for the first time. Neither of them have heard anything before so wonderful.

“Now we’ve decided that, let’s go somewhere to steal something! There’s a funny smell round here anyway….Isn’t a theatre coming to the village next week, Maria?”

“Yes, Isaac! We can steal all the costumes, we can be–”

“–Kings, or queens, or clowns–”

“We can steal anything we want to be!” Isaac still didn’t know what making out was, but in common with any actions he commits, it could only be comprehensively described as possessing a hell of a lot of oomph.

* * *

Ennis sat on the cabin steps, and looked from the ancient bones of the cow, to the lattice of endless blue sky between the silhouetted trees.

“This country is beautiful. But too harsh…how could people as lively as Isaac and Maria have grown up here? Somewhere people take a long walk and die of exposure in a gully–somewhere so empty and changeless.”

“Well, the only thing that changes about Mr Isaac and Miss Maria are their clothes. And the conditions you were born in don’t really do much to make you who you are.” From across the clearing, I felt her heart quicken. I reached up to take a fruit from an untouched tree (okay, I made that bit up, sue me for criminal symbolism.) and smiled.

“It’s something inside you. With all people, every single time.”

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:24:01 GMT

Christmas! Or just about. It mainly consists of visiting Granparents daily, though some other people are around. For the moment its nice to see my brothers again, though Harvey seems to belly-ache and snipe at every oppertunity since he went to university. When an older brother suddenly decides to support and advise his siblings, where does he start?

I seem to have recieved six (6) CDs by Clannad and Celtic Woman, which I put on my list as a an alternative option to manga and anime. No duplicate songs though...

Resolution for the year; to want no more than half-a-dozen things and do everything to achieve them. God be close to everyone who needs Him; have a merry post Christmas.

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:10:28 GMT

Christmas is comin'...

A time for preparation. Mainly of the revisatory kind, but there's some other things.

Baccano! is an astonishingly good anime series, by the way. But I can't write anything about it until someone translates the novels...

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:09:55 GMT

Stolen from Swanofkennet

You're Cat's Cradle!

by Kurt Vonnegut

You believe quite firmly that free will deserted you long ago and far
away. As a result, it's hard to take responsibility for anything. Even though you show
great potential as a leader of a small 3rd world country, the choices are all made ahead
of time. You're rather fond of games involving string. Your fear of nuclear weaponry is
trumped only by your fear of ice.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Wasn't expecting that...it is rather chilly over here.

I guess I'm back, a bit calmer, a bit more prepared.

University

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:03:44 GMT

So, the Masters' course starts. After a holiday with too little time for writing, a term with less. I haven't written anything I'm happy with for a year, and I'm still not clocking in way under the needed work level in spite of that. What kind of person does nothing but work, write and mess about on the internet anyway (writing posts is a lot higher than messing around)? I can do any number of things, but I've hardly got an interest in any of them; in the sense of a background, a investment, a progression. Five years ago, I was a more interesting person.

I've got some idea what I need to do, but not so much confidence...I've got to hope things find a pattern, and pray about it. If anyone from Exeter reads this, yes, I am missing you guys a lot.

Ghana 2: The Homecoming

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:01:02 GMT

Where to begin? I've learned that Africa is a very bad place to agree with everybody you talk to. I feel like I drifted through the whole thing, but that could be just because it was only 8 weeks. I'm glad I've been; I'd have to hate life not to be. Skip as much of what follows as you like....

I was actually staying on a heavily forested plateau, dotted with villages, over which a rotating group of a dozen volunteers were spread. Activities, on a find-yourself-a-project basis, included 3 weeks Junior school teaching, 5 days fun summer school teaching, playing with orphans, painting and cleaning a henhouse, and a 3 week survey of HIV awareness organisations (The old guy below is also a volunteer, which means no excuses).

The surveyshould make up a website on the HIV situation in the Eastern Reigion. There are plenty of organisations raising awareness, but not often very well; villagers living a dozen miles apart can know the whole story or nothing. A support meeting for PLWHAs (guess the politically correct acronym) was spent discussing how to prevent any members misusing money they'd been given, and organising classes in making soap and skin cream for trading. I might have been foolish to expect something a bit more emotional.

The family I lived with, along with Rhiannon (18, really no excuse). They were a pleasant bunch, hip-hop fans and pretty well off. A TV, a fridge, an absent father working in the Accra Forestry Commission, and two small girls who washed and cleaned (I tried to wash my own clothes by hand, but did so badly they wouldn't let me continue). The boy, Jeff, said that he'll miss recording songs on my minidisk player. I recorded 'Talking Turkeys' and 'Albert and the Lion', and he would reel off lines with an enormous grin every five minutes.

2nd life lesson; schoolchildren given the choice between painting and fiddling with a digital camera will normally chose quickly. But, of course, football beats both, especially if the teacher does badly. Cricket was practically unheard of, but I tried that, along with rounders; no photos could be risked. When they'd stopped whacking each other and asking you to buy them football boots and jerseys, they were quite lovely. 'Yedin' is Twi (Eastern reigion Ghanaian) for 'BE QUIET!'

The orphanage, misleadingly inhabited mainly by children with poor or incapable families was spartan and dirty, but well-run, like a tiny commune. The manager, in the photo of volunteers at the bottom, was a 100-ideas-a-day man (hence the henhouse, to earn money from eggs), who attributed the orphanage's problems to both witchcraft and a lack of funding.

Our house. Ghana has got mud hut hamlets (much nicer than the cities), a tribal chief (in the red shorts) for every village with his own court, and a church on what felt like every corner, but not a single horse, though more taxis and minibuses than visible mosquitoes. Until the second Akosombo dam gets finished, the power goes off, 6pm-6am, on days listed in weekly newspapers.

I got to travel a bit, to Cape Coast, Lake Volta, the general area, and the old Ashanti empire's capital, Kumasi. The door was in Cape Coast castle, at the end of the tunnel between the slave dungeons and the beach.

I honestly got on better with the volunteers than anyone else I've known for less than three years. A number, but not all, seemed to be in a troubling relationship, or out of a troubling job, and all of them enjoyed themselves. At the time I left, a lot of them were raising money to build a school.

From Ghana

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:39:02 GMT

It's been interesting so far; I'm trying to renovate a chicken house, teach at a junior school (anyone who approves of corporal punishment, go to Ghana), paint an orphanage, and see the country with half-a-dozen people here for half the time I am. Eight weeks may have been too much...

Kids really are hailing us in the street all the time, and rubbing our hair; some volunteers were surprised to be living in baulsteraded concrete apartments rather than mud huts. I'm living in a little town in the hills called Obo, near Nkawkaw, which is on the map. At the moment, I'm in Cape Coast for an African unity festival, and to see the beaches.

Best wishes, everyone...

Quiz from almie

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:44:37 GMT

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits.
Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle.
Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it.
You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

Leaving for two months as of tomorrow morning. Still need to pack and read the guidebook...thanks to everyone who helped, whatever you do have a great summer.

Post-Grad

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:09:16 GMT

Woosh, that was university, mate...I can't help but suspect that I won't able to spend so much of the Masters bumming around (I ended up applying for the PhD, and the interview board shared my original opinion).

Mainly, I hope I can keep touch with guys, and learn how to fill out a taxform and get through an interview sometime. And I actually need to write some stuff before I head off to Ghana for six weeks.

I'm 'helping out', somewhere 'two hours from the capital, wherever we've got a place', for half the usual volunteer organisation fee. Maybe not such a good time to watch the 'Hostel 2' trailer...but, hey, when anything can be faked, what's the point in paranoia?

Seriously, my job seems to be combined teacher/playgroup attendent, with optional HIV education I will certainly do. And whatever other functions I can think of, implying I should sit up and think of them now. I'd probably be more nervous if I was getting training, but it should be easier than American Summer Camp.

Love to everyone from uni, will try to put up something fun next time.

new icons

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:28:17 GMT

Managed to get hold of some icons for different moods, which I might use. All of them seem to be anime...I'll have to look for anything meaningful from the HDM stage play. Credit should be on the comments if i've got it right

Ceres, thanks for the encouragement last week.

Moan

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:35:08 GMT

Well, the last week has honestly been worse than any point in finals. My parents suddenly got the idea I should apply straight off for a PhD, and won't accept that there's any chance I could fail or gain nothing from it. The worst thing is I told them at some points I would do as much as apply because I was sick of discussing it, and now they've just taken it as a given.

I just can't bring myself apply with the intention of being rejected. Really understanding about a rock and a hard place.

Starting Livejournal

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:19:05 GMT

Here I am. Hello, sky. Hello, keyboard. Hello, LJ posting world.

Finals ended on Saturday; ending a time when the only thing I had energy to do after work was, uh, mess about on the internet. So now I'm going to do things on the internet. Start writing stuff. And a kind person suggested years ago I get a Livejournal, hopeful not suspecting what I might end up chuntering on about in it.

Even sooner than Saturday I finished watching the anime Noir. An eternal debt of gratitude and biscuits to anyone who wants to tell me what they think about the two final gunshots.

I'm a pretty brief person. What do people think about their exams? How old were you when you started livejournal? Happiness to everybody.