(no subject)

[ceresi]

I forgot to update yesterday! Two days for the price of one!

1. Intro and a recent picture
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favorite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now
6. Your 5 senses right now
7. Your pet hates
8. What's in your handbag?
9. What are your worst habits?
10. What's your best physical feature?
11. List 15 of your favorite things
12. What's inside your fridge?
13. What is your earliest memory?
14. If you won the lottery...
15. Timeline of your day
16. What's at the top of your bucket list?
17. What is your most proud moment?
18. The meaning behind your blog name
19. What do you collect?
20. A difficult time in your life
21. Your 10 favorite foods
22. The best thing to happen this year
23. Your dream job
24. Your favorite childhood book
25. Your 5 favorite blogs
26. An old photo of you
27. Post your favorite recipe
28. What are you looking forward to?
29. Where have you travelled?
30. What's in your makeup bag?
31. Why do you blog?


2. 20 facts about you

Wow, this is going to be hard. Starting from the top...

1. I just turned twenty-seven and finished my second degree, trying to get my Ph.D. now.
2. I have a lot of cats! We had to put my cat Blue to sleep about a year ago, she was about twenty-one. I adopted a new kitten, named Willow, but she had a birth defect that caused her liver to be undersized. As she started to grow, her liver failed, so we had to have her put to sleep, too. :( I then adopted two cats, named Han and Leia. When I moved in with my roommate, I couldn't take them (she already has a cat, who's older and diabetic), so they stayed with my mom, and I adopted another cat! Named Sophie. But she was too much of a handful, so I traded Sophie for Leia. So now I have Leia. Except about two weeks ago I saw this poor little cat huddled and crying in the rain, and when I picked her up she was nothing but skin and bones . . . it was horrifying, really. Even Blue, when she died, had more meat on her bones than this poor little thing. So I convinced my mom to take her and have been helping to pay her vet bills and stuff. Her name is Mochi.
tl;dr I'm a cat nerd.

3. When I was in the first grade, I impressed my teacher by reading easily from a third-grade level book. I switched to the advanced-level classes that day . . . and I hated it. Going from a classroom where I knew almost everyone, because they all lived in the same trailer park as me (and oh, there was definitely something going on that we all ended up in the same class together) to a class where I knew no one, but they all knew each other, and oh yeah, were solidly middle- and upper-middle class . . . it sucked. To put it mildly. I would be a completely different person if that hadn't happened, probably happier, but ultimately probably worse off.
4. When I was in the second grade, my step-dad was arrested for breaking into people's houses and stealing women's underwear. That was a fun year. He went to jail for about a year.
5. When I was in the sixth grade, my mom and my step-dad divorced. We bounced around for the better part of a year, sometimes staying with her friends, sometimes living out of the car, until we found the apartment we lived in until I was almost twenty. It was a one-bedroom apartment, and she slept on the couch. We were both completely, utterly miserable. It's taken me a long time to realize just how unhappy and unhealthy we both were, and to understand all of the ways that it wasn't normal.
6. When I was in the third or fourth grade, I discovered fan fiction! Mainly for the Animorphs books -- that was back when Animorphs beat out Harry Potter on FF.Net.
7. I posted a slash story once and got flamed. :D I still wonder if that was a mark of where I posted it (FF.Net, populated mainly by my fellow pre-teens), or a reflection of the atmosphere in fandom.
8. Wow, I'm running out of facts. Um . . . I was in therapy for a few years, probably right around when I dropped out of fandom. Progress was slow until I finally got a prescription for Celexa, which made a huge difference. I always felt like the reason I was so unhappy was that I wasn't trying hard enough, and if I just fixed things, I would be better. It felt like anti-depressants were something I didn't deserve. Once I convinced myself to start taking them and to up the dosage enough, it was like a switch was flipped in my brain.
9. I strongly suspect that a lot of my mom's depression and alcoholism stemmed from my depression. Sounds like the usual self-blame, and I know it, but trying to be as objective as possible . . . I really do think my presence made things worse. She was trying to pull herself and myself along, and I was pretty much dead weight. I try not to feel too guilty about it, b/c I was just a kid and hey, I ended up pulling her along in return for a while, but you know. Once, when we were fighting, she said she wished I'd never been born and I can't really blame her for that. These facts have ended up being all about my turning points, and I think I was one of hers, and for a long time I only made things harder, not easier, for her.
10. I'm really shy and have trouble with relationships. I've known my roommate for about two years, which is probably the longest friendship I've had since . . . middle school? Fandom was different, I always kept it very separate from my real life. Until things started crossing over, and then I had to leave. I have no real idea how to be a real friend.
11. I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do the grad school thing. The applications are hard to fill out, especially b/c they're so boring, but they're not the worst part. When it comes to interviews -- assuming I get any -- I . . . don't even know where to start.
12. For the past four generations, no one in my extended family has had a father? My father's been around, but not really present; my grandfather ditched my grandmother when she was pregnant with their eighth child, and ran off to start a new family in Florida; my great-grandfather stayed married to my great-grandmother, but refused to live in the same house with her; and finally, my great-great grandfather wanted to remarry after my great-great grandmother died, so he put my great-grandmother up for adoption when she was fourteen.
13. On the bright side, all of my grandmothers and my mother have lots of sisters, who have always pitched in. My oldest aunt bought my mom car, a washer and dryer, and helped us pay the rent. My great-aunt took in my grandmother and all eight of her kids, putting her own life aside, and helped raise them. She never married, and she and my grandma lived together until they both died, with my mom taking care of them. My grandma died exactly two months after my great-aunt.
14. I had a step-sister and a cousin who was like a sister. They were both younger than me, both have gotten pregnant and had kids. I haven't talked to either of them since I was twelve. Unless something drastic happens, I think a lot of our families traditions will end with me.
15. If I do get my Ph.D., I'll be the first kid in the family to go to grad school, let alone get a doctorate. My mom is super excited about that.
16. My current fandom is the Avengers. I still read fic constantly, I keep thinking I'm going to go off the Avengers soon, but nope.
17. I have a massive Naruto fic that I started a year or so ago, with the intent of getting back into fandom. It's definitely AU by this point, but I still think about it and want to finish it.
18. I have a plot idea for an original story. I know pretty much who the main characters will be, what the conflict will be, blah blah blah. Someday, I'm going to sit down and write it.
19. This is so hard, I just need two more! Um . . . Star Wars is my longest fandom, even though I've never really written anything for it? I'm tentatively excited for the new movie that's in production, even if it's going to Joss the EU straight to hell.
20. Last one! I've still checked my DW and LJ nearly everyday, even when I wasn't posting. I never felt right not posting, and I couldn't bear to just delete the bookmarks from my toolbar and stop reading. I've had my LJ for over ten years now. Even if it changes completely, even if I end up with a completely new friendslist, I want to continue that. Aside from my mom, nothing else in my life has been around that long.

3. Your favorite quote

"It's not as daunting the second time. I wished later I could have started with the second time. But the only way to get to the second time is to do the first time. Seems paradoxical, that the fastest way to get to easy is through hard." -LMB

And hey! Since I spent a bunch of time talking about cats! Here's a picture of Han. Isn't he gorgeous? I'll try to find a picture of Willow for next time, she was the cutest little butterball.

Comments

[pulchritude]

haha, would you be willing to beta my modern!AU Naruto fic in which girl!Itachi is a genius in a Japanese society with very conservative ideas about gender, Sasuke doesn't know how to not be in love with his big sister, Kisame will take whatever Itachi is willing to give him, even though he knows Sasuke will always come first, and they learn how to balance duty, want, and love wrt each other? XD Ugh, I have so many things thought out for this but I don't want to write until I read some of the chapters I skipped, and I really don't want to read them....XD

[ceresi]

That would be awesome! I say skip the chapters you skipped, I think 90% of all Naruto fic ends up doing that because there are SO MANY CHAPTERS. It's impossible to read them all!

Your fic sounds really interesting! I think mine is more plotty than shippy, as usual. I think I snuck one kiss scene in there, and then Sakura nearly punched him through the window, so uh. It's set in the future, Naruto is Hokage, Tsunade is dead, Sasuke is dead, Kakashi is missing . . . it's plotty. And there are several OCs, my eternal downfall. :D

[pulchritude]

Well, I want to read the chapters in which Karin, Suigetsu, and Juugo were first introduced in order to see how I should characterize them in my fic. XD And maybe ones with Sai and Tenzo (I stopped reading around the time Gaara got captured because I fell behind for a while, and by the time I was ready to read again, I knew that Sasori would die...and since Akatsuki had become my favourites by then, yeahhh...didn't want to read anymore XDDD) And it's not impossible to read them all! I'm completely caught up on One Piece, which is even longer! ;) But I always look forward to reading OP, whilst Naruto...yeah....XD

Nothing wrong with plotty fic! I'm in fandom for the shipping, though, so obviously that's what I write, too. XD Sometimes the ideas just end up long/detailed enough to appear like there's plot ;)

Hopefully you've encouraged me to actually go read those chapters now XD

[ceresi]

Some of the chapters you missed were pretty interesting! Things are kind of dragging atm, but it's a massive battle so that's not surprising. Tenzo is interesting if you like Kakashi, and I totally ship them. Seriously, one's a cat, the other's a dog! Is this love or what?

Just . . . skip all of the punchy scenes. Maybe it's just me, but punchy is never very interesting in manga form. I'm American, I need fast-paced and gratuitous violence with realistic explosions!

[pulchritude]

Yeah, I started reading again when Itachi reappeared ;) And caught all the chapters with him. XDDD It was the truth about Itachi that made me into a hardcore Uchihacest shipper, whereas before my OTP was Kisame/Itachi! XD But I'm actually kinda blegh about how Obito was defeated (so tired of the power of friendship trope), and whilst I'd love to see Madara kick everyone's ass...that won't happen. :( (Why do I always root for the villains? :\)

I...like Kakashi as still hung up on Yondy. XD With lots of angsty unrequited love, etc. XD

I don't understand what punchy means...? XD