Ze Laboratory!

Title: Dain af Niohoggr
Author: GW Katrina
Beta: Skeren
Fandom: FFVII: Mercverse
Claim: mercverse for story_arc
Themeset/Prompt: Thirty Set 01: Balance
Wordcount: 1,717
Ratings: PG-13
Link to Archive Post: Here


( Dain af Niohoggr )

I am a little slammed with end of term papers and projects at the moment. I am reading you all and will get with the comments and things soon.

But...

I'm gonna have to really enforce a week off the journaling services. I have to use what I have of my "holiday break" for getting a foothold before some of this stuff eats me alive. All days will be study days, with the exception of Thursday in which I stuff myself with free turkey and other om nom noms  at mom's house.

I hope you all have a good week. Keep up the good journaling. I will need some non-textbook reading for when I come back! ^_^ v

charged with battery."

Yuk yuk yuk. ^_~

That was in our psychology textbook, in a chapter discussing intelligence.

I am only reading this because my brother is making me so shut up. I can't help it if I memorize thing good for the tests. :P

I'd been fearing the worst, but I went back to the oral surgeon on Thursday. He was pleased and even seemed surprised at how well the gum graft was doing. He snipped away a dangling thread from the stitches on the roof of my mouth; I think the remaining stitches dropped out later that afternoon.

I'll see him again in two weeks.

Lately, I could almost swear I can sometimes feel sensation within the transplant, although reason says that is impossible. There is no way there could be nerves there yet, although by now the blood vessels from the tissue around the graft must be growing into it. Sometimes I feel an itch around the edges for a few moments, but it goes away quickly. Other times, there's pain on one side or the other along a canine tooth. More often, though, it just feels like a piece of drying meat across the lower part of my incisors.

Afterward, I celebrated by having a mushroom burger and a chocolate shake at a restaurant called the Red Robin at a nearby mall. It's been a while since I went to a restaurant. Maybe not the smartest thing to do, but it made me happy.

It's strange how much this surgery seems to have knocked me out. Part of it may also be what has happened in World of Warcraft, but that's better left for another post. The surgery itself knocked me on my ass for two days, during which I mostly slept.

I still haven't actually dared to look at the graft.

I think there's a scar on the roof of my mouth -- a scar that's supersensitive. Hopefully it will go away in time.

- I just typoed 'Phantom of the Opera' as 'Phantom of the Opry.' Interesting AU, that.

- Am marathoning Ouran Host Club - just found out that Haruhi wants to be a lawyer. Guess what I'm crossing it over with now. Go ahead, guess.

- At work I spent half an hour blow-drying a bobcat. The bobcat was unappreciative.

Chilling out, a little TV, good pizza

Good times.

There is an old saying that there are two books that can change a 14-year-old's life: Atlas Shrugged and The Lord of the Rings. One is an unrealistic fantasy that leaves its followers unable to deal with the real world. The other involves orcs.

Eric Lund, over here

Here he is, just trying to give someone a ticket and out of the bushes comes....KITTEH!




Made me smile!

On my way home from the university,I have to drive down a busy freeway along with people zipping at speeds above the legal limit. Today, I took the slow lane, driving about 5 under the limit which is more relaxing to me...especially after nursing a headache for the majority of the day.

In front of me is a man on a red motorcycle with his longish hair flapping out of the back of his helmet. I think to myself that he must be really chilly, because it is autumn here and the temperatures are reflecting that.

I continue to follow him to my exit and he takes it too. At this time, I notice that he is wearing a red jacket. He turns left, I turn left.

He gets into the left lane, I get into the right so that I can make my turn on the next street at the stoplight. As we are both slowing down at the red light, I look over and see that he is wearing - a red fur Santa suit cuffed in white and complete with black boots and a real white beard.

Cue me looking at him out my window and smiling. I point when he notices me and say "SANTA!" through my window like some star-struck little kid filled with Christmas glee. He looks at me, smiles and waves. ^_^

We went our separate directions after that, but I am still smiling.

It's at those times when I just wish I had my camera with me!

I am so completely exhausted today. I have a low-level headache that refuses to go away. I am close to resorting to the excedrin that I have in my bag. I am also having issues with my eyes today. They are all watery and runny and gummy. It's gross. I just thank my lucky stars at this point that I am not wearing eye make-up for the amount of rubbing that I am doing on my eyes. Bleh.

Spoke to my history professor on my redirect for the term paper. Have narrowed the focus down to the Nanjing massacre and Unit 731. He feels that even that may be too much and suggests that I choose one or the other. If that is the case, I may have to go with Nanjing with a passing mention to Unit 731 as they go a bit hand in hand. I think I will make the final decision this weekend based on what I have found in my sources. I certainly have more information on Nanjing, I think. And I have just checked out two more sources from the university library - one of which I wanted a few weeks ago, but was already checked out. I win.

One more class today and then homeward I go. I'll make it.

Also, you'll remember that on Monday I had a test in history that I continued to stress over. Turns out that on the essay portion I received and "A" and the test portion, an "A-".

So, what is my problem?

See, I stress myself out unrealistically. Now if only I could figure out how to make myself stop that.

How many people here have heard of Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski? Has anyone actually read it?

I sat down yesterday and planned out some things for handling schoolwork. Just seeing things written down is helping me understand the reality of what I have to do versus the OMG FLAIL of what I think I have to do. I have decided that I am only going to study until 6pm every daay and them put it away. This way I can have some semblance of an evening to watch a movie with Writer or read a book.

In doing this, I have started to calm down a little. I realize that not only I am stressing myself out, but I am making myself sick. So, I have to learn to handle this better. 

Writer did some wonderful things: I have been graced with fresh fruit at mealtimes, the laundry is being done, and I have a person to bounce term paper ideas off of. The little things...they help so much. I am starting to feel a little more balanced.

Now, these end of term assignments - wow! I am going to have to take them a little bit at a time.

First, I have a group project on Kashmir. I have decided to do my portion on the Kashmiri Pandits (the refugees). The violence done to them is akin to genocide and the pictures I keep running across are graphic.

Second, I decided back in September that I was going to write my term paper on the Second Sino-Japanese War, but the topic is huge and I have to narrow it down to something more manageable for a thesis. Silly me, I decided to tackle the Japanese war crimes of Nanjing and Unit 731. So, yeah, more violence...more small doses.

As if in response to my overload of graphic photographs, I have a kitteh on my desk. Hermen is good for a cuddle or two. ^_^

Title: Crumbling Down
Author: jlsigman
Rating: G
Word count: 160
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII, Reeve: the fall of Sector 7 – It shouldn't be like this
A/N: Originally due Oct. 16

There was nothing he could do, and that hurt most of all.

Reeve had only heard about the plan to drop the plate a few moments ago, overhearing Reno's voice as they passed in the hallway. For a moment Reeve had frozen in shock, not wanting to believe that something this horrific was anything more than the Turk shooting his mouth off again. Several frantic phone calls soon had him throwing up in his office trash can.

After he washed out his mouth in the bathroom, he went to find a place in the Shinra building where he could watch it happen. That was his penance for not being able to save anyone. So he stood in silence, hands clenched at his sides, tears running into his beard, and watched the plate kill untold thousands of people as it crashed down.

It was then that he decided he hated, and that he had to do something to make it right.

I will get to comments soon, but until then, thank you all for your suggestions on stress relief. I am looking into a few of your ideas and I'll let you know.

But, I am determined to have some "me-time" this week. I want a free day without the worry of school work and such. So, I am planning an outing for Friday or Saturday.

Now, here is where you come in. I would like each of you to give me between 1-5 things for a treasure hunt! It's been years since I have done one of these and I think it would be a good fun thing that focuses my mind on having some fun. 

Here's how I am going to play the treasure hunt:

1. You comment to me with 1-5 things to hunt down and find.
2. I take a picture of the thing and post "trophies" here in my journal for all to see.
3. If I am unable to find the things on the list, I will find a substitution.
4. I am allowed to interpret the things on the list in any way I see fit.

So, hit me with some items...send me on the hunt!

Just ate a bunch of chocolate because I'm feeling sorry for myself, while doing a little more work on the next chapter of After The Ice. It looks like I may be leaving my roleplaying guild on World of Warcraft. That's if I don't find myself /gkicked when I log in tomorrow, which I give 50/50 odds of happening.

A bloody long time ago, during a discussion of signs that someone in fandom is a potentially dangerous wanker to avoid befriending, I offered this piece of advice: when the wank seems to "follow the person around," beware. It could be that she's actually generating it. Well, both in WoW and in real life, wank seems to follow our guild leader around to a certain extent. I know that thanks to a godawful upbringing, he's tremendously neurotic; he bitches more or less continuously; he's just never turned on anyone before that I've seen, let alone me. His mate's the one who's been the jerk. Well, tonight, he pushed me to the limit, then started whispering to me and pushed me beyond it.

I probably should have told him "Dude. BACK. THE FUCK. OFF. Otherwise you're gonna find out something you *really* don't want to know." I logged out instead.

Problem is, it hurts to cut off a whole circle of social contacts, no matter how short a time you've known them. And I made Itharn specifically for this guild. Without it, I honestly am not sure what I'm going to do with him.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this whole guild business and would be better off with random roleplaying.

Maybe I'll just let roleplaying go fallow for a while. Maybe I'll just let WoW go fallow for a while. (Yeah, and I've said that before . . .) I don't know. Right now, I'm bummed out again on the whole notion of relating to other people, no matter how superficially. Right now, it feels like it doesn't pay, like it's a net loss.

Cloud and me just watched Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Not as good as the first, but I am amused.

I am sure it won't surprise anyone the Buck has surpassed Diego and Cid as my favorite character. He's sorta piratey and stuff. ^__^

Cloud roflcoptered withe the Scrat/Scratess tango.

Good times.

When you get Angeal involved in a prompt, all other teams are shut out! SOLDIER wins this round with 50 points.

This week's prompt is #123 - Afterlife

So, what's it all about, really? Where do we go when we die?

Does Genesis believe that he will be reunited with the Goddess? Is Sephiroth choking the planet? Is the Lifestream all there is or is it just a pit-stop? Is Reno a non-believer? Does Tseng have his own view of the after-world? If people go back to the planet and ShinR is using the planets energy, what happens to the souls of loved ones? Does Rufus even care? Where do beings like Jenova spend their afterlife...in a box?

Whether the afterlife involves angels, a deep dark void, or shiny green fluid stuff, write about it in only 100 words.

I really want Neil Gaiman's book: M is for Magic

I want it so hard.

We are agonized by how people die and how untroubled we are by how people live. - P. Sainath

Generosity following a world disaster (like a tsunami) vs. reality day to day.

Bleh.