Love In The Asylum

Important conclusions about the Poetsverse colourofasying and I reached today on Skype:

1. Oscar Wilde's relationship with Bosie is more or less a trainwreck from the very beginning, since Bosie is an spoiled, insufferable little snot who steals from him, cheats on him, and talks him into a cocaine habit. But it hits rock bottom when he gets publicly outed by getting caught in a club, coked out of his mind with Bosie and a couple of rentboys, and Bosie promptly dumps him because a broke, disgraced, possibly-in-prison boyfriend is no use to him at all. Robert Ross pulls some strings to keep him out of jail and not fired from the magazine, gets him into rehab, and yells at him until he stops moping about the whole mess. Wilde returns to the London scene with a fabulously successful novel he wrote about one of the other patients he met in rehab. And then he teams up with The Band to write a rock opera that is not a thinly-veiled account of him and Bosie, no really it's not we swear. The album is called Pictures of Dorian Gray, naturally.

2. John Keats is in a polyamorous puppy-pile of a relationship with Cowdon Clarke, Charles Armitage Brown, Joseph Severn, and Charles Dilke. They share a converted loft/artist's studio that is one step away from being a commune. Leigh Hunt used to live with them, but when The Band started taking off and Keats got more successful things got weird and awkward and they started fighting, and eventually Hunt stormed off in the middle of a screaming match and never came back. Now they've mostly made up, but they've also realized they make better friends with occasional benefits than housemates. All six of them met when they were teenagers at a traditional and very-posh boys-only boarding school. Hunt was Keats' Greek tutor. The rest of The Band can't really tell any of them apart and just calls them all John's Groupies.

3. Every serious plot arc has a secondary plot arc about Lord Byron getting into sleezy hijinks. Pranking reporters who say mean things to Yeats. Sleeping with Shelley's sister. Showing up at Tennyson's door at 3 in the morning to ask about STD tests. Orgies in hotel lobbies. And of course his semi-annual drunken men's room hatefuck with Oscar Wilde.

Graduation is tomorrow! Hopefully I will not fall off the stage or drop my diploma or have to stop my family from getting into a brawl in the middle of the church. Got my fingers crossed, just in case. :)

Three Things (Ugh, Why Is It Wednesday Edition):

1. I hope all you hoopy froods had a happy Towel Day! And remembered to wear your lilac to commemorate the Glorious 25th of May. I celebrated by letting the English Department feed me. The senior dinner was mostly boring because none of the faculty/other English majors I really know were there and I was making awkward small talk with semi-strangers, but hey, live music and free food-onna-stick, what more can you ask for? I want to know who they found to do catering that would serve mini beef wellingtons wtfsogood.

2. Have been sucked into Hawaii Five-O. I honestly don't know how or why this happened, because it is a deeply silly, stupid show and I spend half the time bashing my head against the wall and going YOU ARE THE WORST COPS EVER STOP DOING THINGS. Of course, I spend the other half of the time going HOW ARE STEVE AND DANNY THIS MARRIED, so, you know, fair trade-off for the dumb. I have a working theory right now that the reason NCIS has been less slashy than usual this season is because CBS blew their gay budget for the year on this show. After Hawaii Five-O, there was just no gay left. It is really kind of amazing, like I'm watching a show that was demographically planned out to appeal specifically to the slash fen. Although honestly even without the gay I would happily watch the Chin and Kono Are Awesome All The Time Show. Daniel Dae Kim ♥ ♥♥

3. colourofsaying and I, because we are obsessed weirdo freaks with too much free time, are plotting out a Euro football AU where all of the players have superpowers. This is not, to be clear, a superhero AU, although that would still be neat. Everyone in this verse still plays soccer, it's just that the game now involves a lot more fireballs and mind control. Zlatan is an earthmover and immune to other people's powers; Alex Ferguson can control people with his voice; Yoann Gourcuff is an empath with terrible shields; Pep Guardiola can fly. Bojan Krkic has jailbait pheremones. And Cristiano Ronaldo, of course, has the power of Bitchface. The game is much more exciting in this universe! And being a referee involves a lot more hazard pay.

Somehow this ended up being a very baking-oriented week, I don't even know. So I figured a baking log would not be remiss, just for posterity's sake.

Saturday: orange-cranberry-honey scones. The orange-honey combination is my favorite variation on my standard scone recipe so far; it's very tender and just a little sweet, and the orange flavor isn't strong at all. This time I threw in some tangerine zest, because I was eating the tangerine anyway, which made the flavor a lot brighter, and also a couple handfuls of dried cranberries, because dried cranberries are one of the greatest things ever invented. This was technically a house-warming present for the friend we were supposed to help move, but made enough for me and my mom to have some for lunch with apricot preserves. I don't know what it is about scones that makes me actually like jam, but it's weird (if delicious).

Wednesday: honey-wheat batter bread. God I go through honey so fast lately. This was...pretty good. I don't know if it's the weather, or the recipes I'm using, or some bizarre personal failing, but the last couple weeks I've had a hard time getting my bread the shape I want it. I just want a proper loaf shape, is that so much to ask? But slightly squashed shape notwithstanding, this tasted fine. I love whole-wheat bread, especially since I make peanut butter toast for breakfast quite often, and nothing makes better toast. All nutty and chewy and whole-wheaty, mmmm.

Today: hamburger buns. Roommate Guy is starting treatment for a fairly serious, seriously un-fun medical condition, so we decided to have a bacon cheeseburger party for him + the girlfriend and her kid. Last time I made hot dog buns, I screwed something up and they didn't turn out that good, but this time everything went perfectly. I never cease to be pleased by how excited people get by the idea of homemade buns - it's not actually that difficult, especially since I use the bread machine, and they act like I just invented sliced bread.

Also Today: bagels! Man, this recipe is a pain in the ass. The sponge has to rise for ages, and then there's all kinds of weird stuff with shaping and testing the dough with water and retarding it in the fridge overnight. And bagels are really dense, so it uses up a ton of flour. But sometimes you just need bagels and cream cheese more than anything. At least this time I probably won't be bageling at 1 in the morning.

I'd say I'm ready to be DONE BAKING, but that would be a lie. I've already got plans for a buttermilk bread for next week (in my defense, when my dad buys bread he only buys wonderbread, which is revolting, so I offered to bake every week instead so we have bread to use for sandwiches, breakfasts, etc. IT WAS THIS OR WONDERBREAD). I hope I'll be able to keep this up - maybe not quite this much baking, but a decent amount - when I get back to school. I find it really relaxing, and it's a lot of fun. And I have delicious baked goods to eat!

At least I don't have to worry about affording groceries this quarter. I just got my tuition bill for autumn, and because I am not paying for a meal plan this year, for the first time my financial aid actually exceeds my tuition costs. Theoretically this is a stipend for buying food for myself, but there is no way I could spend $1200 on food in three months, even if I didn't have a job that will cover most/all of my grocery bill. I guess I know where the money for my graduation tattoo is coming from. :)

PS: is anyone else watching the Bundesliga? Please tell me I'm not the only one who was so bereft at the lack of hot Germans after the World Cup ended that she followed them back to the club leagues? Not to mention that football has somehow fallen into that extremely narrow category of sports that are actually entertaining to watch, even on television (hockey, on the other hand, is my favoritest sport ever live, but I cannot watch five minutes of it televised).

...go Bayern

 
So. Declaring. I, uh, did that.

I mean, I'm still waiting to get approved. But I have an advisor, he signed off on my form and I turned it into the department, I submitted my proposal online. Barring any unexpected complications, I'll officially be an English Major with a creative writing concentration.

Wow. 

Re: Sam Winchester's years at Stanford:

masterofmidgets : ARGH I HATE EVERYONE WHO SAYS SAM'S MAJOR WAS PRE-LAW
masterofmidgets : (although I guess more hate for the STUPID CANON than the people who don't know any better)
colourofsaying : Tell me why
masterofmidgets : because Stanford doesn't /have/ /any/ pre-professional majors
masterofmidgets : I can't decide in my head whether Sam is more likely to have been a Classics major (since he already had the Latin background), a History major (since he's into the research), or an English major.
colourofsaying : ...I kind of want him to be an English major.
colourofsaying : Dean would tease him horribly
colourofsaying : He'd say he was a history major to get Dean off his back, but it would ALL BE LIES
colourofsaying : Once he met Tolstoy, resistance was futile
colourofsaying : He fell into the black pit of lit studies like a cut flower
masterofmidgets : he was corrupted into wicked and unnatural things by a Stegner Fellow
colourofsaying : He walked into the library and promptly had an Experience. It was slightly embarrassing.
colourofsaying : He was known to frequent the mysterious cabals of the enlightened, which involved copious quantities of tea and other more intoxicating beverages, where people shouted fiercely over the virtues of their favourites.
masterofmidgets :  (also known as the CoHo)
colourofsaying : God, Dean would /never/ let him live it down
colourofsaying : He's told Dean he only had one class on modern poets, it was /required/ damn it, but then Dean found his transcript.
masterofmidgets : Damn it, Sammy, Dad didn't wake you up at 6am to go running every morning so that you could sit around reading John Donne like a pansy-ass hippie.
masterofmidgets : Dean felt so betrayed. If his brother was going to go to college, he could at least major in something with more shooting in it.
colourofsaying : Dean has a strange perception of college as some sort of advanced martial arts training. He's conflated it with boot camp
colourofsaying : From what Sam's told him of the homework load, it might as well be.
masterofmidgets : he's pretty sure the Marines get to sleep more
colourofsaying : He's betrayed to learn that the ass-kicking only happens in clubs (and that the professors don't have some sort of weird D/s thing going on, really, actually, /I can't believe you thought that DEAN/)

One good thing about today. I just checked my school email. My aid revision request got approved and they gave me another $10,000. Things will still be pretty tight, but this is the difference between having to dip into my savings more than I'd like, and not being able to go back this year. So yeah, that's good.

I think I mentioned in passing the Epic Financial Aid Failure of Fail a few weeks ago, didn't I? If I didn't, what happened, more or less, was that I was Axcess looking at my aid for next year, and my Expected Student Contribution seemed really high. So I called the financial aid office, and some jerk totally blew me off and told me I had nothing to worry about because the numbers weren't final. So I waited to get my aid letter and see if the problem would fix itself.

...Yeah, not so much. I got my aid letter last week, and my ESC is $13,000. That's the amount of money the school expects me to cough up this year. I have...about $3500 to my name, at the moment. And my dad's contribution to the cost of my education consists of occasionally buying me airline tickets and sending me groceries; my mom's contribution is funny newspaper articles and listening to me whine. So $13000? NOT HAPPENING. Which would be why I've spent most of this week having panic attacks and not being able to sleep. Ugh.

Today I finally got through my I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS MAKE IT GO AWAY barrier and sucked it up enough to call the financial aid office again. Guy I talked to this time was much more helpful, in the sense that he had an actual conversation with me and didn't just parrot a script back at me until I got sick of it and hung up. Consensus seems to be (shocking, I know) that this is the fault of the Colossal Tax Cock-Up from earlier in the year (I know I ranted about that at great length), which made the university think I had vastly more money than I do or ever have.

So now I need to find a fax machine so I can fax the financial aid office my W-2s and my 1040 and a cover letter explaining that the actual money I actually earned through my actual job and thus actually have only amounts to about $5000, and everything else they think I have and thus are basing my fucked-up aid amount on is money THEY GAVE TO ME BASED ON HOW MUCH MONEY I DON'T HAVE YOU ASSTARDS. God, this is mind-burningly stupid.

I really hope I can get this worked out. I have to - I can't afford to go to school if I can't. God, I hate my life right now.

Misson Accomplished: finally filed my financial aid application for next year, 6 weeks after the due date. Doing financial aid is always stressful for me for a number of reasons (not the least of which is a concrete affirmation of how dirt-poor we are), but this year's was a monumental cock-up. Between my mom flaking out on me, Stanford being a bitch about sending me the right paperwork (I'm still missing forms they said they mailed out months ago!), the Epic Tax Problems of Doom, and my ass-headed inability to get anything done in a timely fashion, it's just been a mess.

But my FAFSA is filed, my CSS profile is submitted, and the financial aid office has my dad's W-2 equivalent and will have my mom's as soon as I tell her the phone number again. Now it's just down to the nail-biting wait to find out if my Expected Student Contribution is going to bankrupt me next year, or if I'll be able to eke out another debt-free year. God, I really hate doing this.

At least I'll probably still have a job next year at the call center.

HELP HELP CAMPUS IS OVERRUN WITH TINY HIGH-SCHOOLERS

They are swarming everywhere, like a horde of insects with sleeping bags and really obnoxious parents. I do not like Admit Weekend. DDDDX And it's weird, because every time I get dragged into speaking to high school students, one of the things I always make sure to tell them very emphatically is to go to Admit Weekend at whatever colleges they are checking out, because it makes such a huge difference - I was very ambivalent about where I wanted to go, until about five minutes after I got here. So I do think it's a good thing! It's just that when they are actually here...I resent them so much! There's just way too many people on campus now. It's making me strangely claustrophobic. At least I didn't let myself get talked into hosting a student this year - I thought about it, but I really just need my private weekend time way too much. So I guess I'll just spend the next few days avoiding the profros like the plague.


God Says Yes To Me by Kaylin Haught


I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

So, I fiiiiiiinally got around to registering for classes for winter quarter. I know, I know, I fail epically, shut up. As of now, my class schedule looks like this:

1. MWF 3.15-4.05 - CS 106A: Programming Methodology. CS 105 was fun and I didn't suck at it, so I thought a little more computer classes could be useful. I know other people have taken this! Did it kill you?
2. TTh 11-12.30 - Masterpieces of Contemporary Literature. I am buckling down and getting started on that thing where I am probably going to end up an English major and thus should take some English classes. Some of the books sounded neat, some did not (JANE EYRE DO NOT WANT), but it sounded better than Poetry and Poetics. Especially because P&P is early in the morning.
3. TTh 1.15-3.05 - Japanese 18A. I am switching out of the 5-unit, hour every day B track of Japanese, because if I don't I think I am going to give up Japanese altogether or fail the class. I just cannot make it enough of a priority to benefit from the class, but I don't want to stop learning Japanese. Hopefully this will work out better.
4. SOMETHING ELSE. Right now I'm entered in the lottery for the creative writing classes. I'm really really really hoping to get into the Fiction Writing class, or at least the creative non-fiction class. What with that thing where I am a writer. If not, I will have to find something else to fill this slot so I have enough units.

I am pretty satisfied with this schedule, I think. Opinions?

If you need me, I'll be reading Teen Titans and slashing Dick with everyone. *grins*