For I have discovered a good (ie. fun) way to brush up on my Spanish!

Ready for it?

READING SPANISH FANFICTION!!

BRAWHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Title: Afición
Author: Ish
Characters/Pairings: Ernest Hemingway, France/America (mentions of), Spain/America
Rating: R
Warnings: Sex, bullfighting, Hemingway’s foul mouth, though not in that order. Blatant theft (and paraphrasing) of actual quotes by Hemingway.
Summary: Set in Spain in the mid-1920s.

Europe is recovering from the war. America flounders, though he makes it look more like one of his new dances. It’s a lindy hop of progress; a heady swirl of roaring capitalism and hollow consumerism, moonshine and mafia. Everything is modern; everything fresh. He is liberated these days.

He has never been so utterly, marvelously, despairingly lost.


( Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters. )

(Cross-posted to hetalia)

Was biking home today, in a hurry because I wanted to get out of the rain. Because of the hurry, and the rain, my breaks were slow, I skidded, hit a metal pole, and was sent flying.

I'm all right... more or less. My bike's basket is fucked up, but the handlebars and tires are all right, and I'm getting a new one in two weeks anyways.

Got a small cut on my ankle, scrapped up legs, and bruised elbows. My left elbow and palm aren't too bad... just bruised and scraped. However, my right elbow hurts to move, though I don't think anything's broken. Just bruised and bloody. My right palm is missing a good sized patch of skin, but it's from the meaty part. Just a flesh wound, as the Black Knight says.

Kinda put a kink in my weekend plans however. Dammit.

Okay, so I didn`t have time before school to watch all of Torchwood`s Children of the Earth Day 4, so instead I wikied the summary... and then watched just the last few minutes and next episode`s preview. Because I don`t mind spoilers.

But for those of you who do, don`t click on the cut, kay?

( Buhbuhbuhbut!! )

Considering creating a fic journal for myself. I anticipate a long, boring summer. There may be more writing.

On the writing front, I`m currently working on a new Hetalia fic. What can I say? I find the series, with the combination of characters and history, inspiring. *shrugs* At least I`m writing. (The writing journal, if it`s made, will contain other series I`ve written for as well.)

The current fic includes a New York-tan. Originally, my New York-tan was going to be a female: Rose Hudson-Jones, named in honor of the state flower. Upon re-consideration, we may be editing the fic for a male New York-tan instead. Thinking it over, New York state does seem a little more suited to be male. I`m not committed to this though, and have yet to decide on a first name for him if I do make the change.

Keeping the Hudson-Jones, in honor of the New Netherlands. In either case, expect a dark-skinned (though not black), dark-haired New York, with blue eyes and glasses (Manhattan). Very proud, very demanding of attention, rather hot-tempered, but also very hard-working and wanting to do the right thing. Aiming to encompass ALL of New York state here - the city, upstate, and western.

Background information for New York and New York-tan that isn`t getting worked into the fic: Demographically speaking, New York is predominately white BUT the largest single ancestory group is African-American (15.8%). He/she will speak Spanish, and possibly Canadian-French. He/she will most likely be Catholic (the predominant religion in New York). Also, he/she was raised at least in part by the Haudenosaunee. Finally, the Statue of Liberty = awesome bling!

Sometimes, the Hetalia fandom makes me feel quite old.

...fandom in general, really. I am getting up there I guess.

Then again, my 40-something aunt who is not involved in fandom at all, thinks Twilight is a great novel and is choosing to remain a housewife despite the fact they're in debt currently. (She was employed before but quit to raise her kids, who are both now in elementary school).

And I'm not passing judgment on that one way or the other. I'm just saying, weighing things, my life ain't too damn bad. Better I enjoy my life than deprive myself in order to fit someone else's definition of maturity.

I have savings (not a lot, but still), a job, a degree, an apartment, and health insurance. And sure, most of that is through the JET Programme, but it's not bad for a start.

Quarter of a century or not.

...and dammit! I'm CUTE. XDXD

(And yes, I do use the Oxford comma, as I was taught that was the proper form of punctuation. So I DO care about the Oxford comma song!)

A little late for America's birthday, but then again, so was France's most-famous present for him!

Sure, this FST isn't quite as great as the Statue of Liberty, but I hope the rest of you can enjoy it all the same. ♥


Cover artwork by shin_e and used with her permission.)

( This Side of Paris )

(Apologies to the people on my f-list getting spammed multiple times with this, as I posted it to hetalia and a_moveablefeast as well!)

FYI, links updated at a_moveablefeast as well. I particularly liked this one and this one.

I actually managed to sleep in today. I thought I might have forgotten how to do that, with as much as I've had going on lately.

Of course, for me, 'sleeping in' these days means waking up at about 9 or 9:30. It seems the days in which I effortlessly slept till noon are over! (My mother would sing praises about that I'm sure.) Now it seems I couldn't sleep until 10 if I wanted to, unless copious amounts of alcohol were involved.

The fact the sun rises so early here might have something to do with that.

Today has really been quite lovely however. We went to the beach yesterday for July 4th, and had dinner together. Took it easy this morning: did a bit of grocery shopping and took my bike to the shop to get the front tire fixed (it has a puncture hole in it somewhere). The rest of the day has been spent playing on the computer, lounging about, and doing a wee bit of tidying up here and there. I look forward to spending the evening in the same way! ♥

Wish I knew people who lived around me who I could fangirl Hetalia with. Or, even more people with whom I could chat about it over the internet (via IM). Livejournal is all well and good, but a little slow for chatting. And I have such ideas!

Currently?

Vermont wins “Most likely to have been conceived during an alliance”.


Ah well. Off to eikaiwa, where I'm doing a Fourth of July lesson!!

Wrote up this big, long thing in word, complete with tables listing all the 50 states, the dates they joined the union, and what European nation settled there first.

But lj is telling me it's too large for me to post it! Admittedly, I tried to do it in rich text mode, because html won't maintain the table borders. I really don't want to re-type the whole damn chart. It took a helluva long time to make the first time!

Anyone out there know how I can defeat this issue?

It’s funny the things that conspire to collide together due to boredom, alcohol, and a bunch of foreigners shoved together in the tiniest prefecture in Japan.*

A good Canadian friend of mine here is quite an ardent proclaimer of Canadian independence. He has this whole spiel on how the queen of England is not the queen of Canada. And I don’t mean to sound as if I’m demeaning it, because it’s pretty interesting actually to hear him explain the distinction.

He explains it this way: Canada has chosen to remain a commonwealth of Great Britain, under the queen. However, rather than being governed by Parliament, they have their own elected governing body. As with England, the queen is the figurehead. Canada, he says, approved of Queen Elizabeth when she came to the throne and recognized her as its queen in addition to being the queen of Great Britain (not because she was the queen of Great Britain). So, ostensibly, if Canada didn’t like the next in line to the throne, they could choose not to recognize them for whatever reason, he says.

He does recognize that this is all symbolic and NOT likely to happen. But he’s pretty passionate about it being a possibility. (He’s, uh, not so fond of the idea of Quebec’s independence though.)

Anyways, I find this all even more fascinating when looking back at American colonial and Revolutionary War history. Because, the situation above? Is pretty much exactly what America wanted at first! Most colonists were perfectly happy being loyal to king and crown – it was Parliament they had a bone to pick with. It really wasn’t until King George III proclaimed them in open rebellion (and after Paine – an Englishman himself – published Common Sense). The original demand was for the local colonial governing bodies, elected by the colonists (who’d run their respective constituencies for decades before Britain began attempting to centralize control over the colonies) to be recognized under the king.

*The second time we had this conversation (over copious amounts of alcohol), it ended with both of us giving the Brit across the table from us a dirty look and shaking our finger at him. ^_^

I'm going to hell.

Sorry America.

But god knows I can't resist a challenge. Especially not one involving - *cue sparkly eyes* - research.

The, uh, good news? Bad news? No plans for ficcage here. Yet. We just can't resist attempting to puzzle out the mechanics of it all. Which is a wee bit ridiculous when you consider the fact it's all anthropomorphic personifications in what began as a web comic but... DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AT ME THAT WAY FANDOM!! I'VE SEEN SOME OF THE THINGS YOU'VE BEEN UP TO!!!

So, when I first came to Japan two years ago for the JET programme, all of the Americans were given a series of books on the United States by the US State Department. Most of us promptly proceeded to toss them and stare enviously at the shiny flag pins the Canadians got from their state department.

I kept mine, but tossed them directly into my closet. Why not? I took AP American history in high school, and then majored in history in college. Mass produced ‘tourist information guides’ hardly appealed to me. Also, those four years of college (plus the AP) left me rather skeptical of any governmentally produced literature about itself. During the Bush administration, more nationalistic propaganda was not my preferred reading material.

I stumbled over them the other day while doing a bit of cleaning and, for the hell of it, decided to flip through them. And… They’re actually pretty good! One is an outline of the economy, one of geography, one of the government, and one of history. They seem to be pretty well written - understandable without treating the reader like an idiot. There is a good deal of images, photos, and maps used as well. I’ve only flipped through them, but so far they don’t seem to be heavily biased. Well, not obnoxiously so… The bit on economics admits that there are fallacies in the American economic system for example. (Though, it seems to have been compiled in either 1999 or 2000, so it would be interesting to see an updated example!)

They do have their faults of course. But, you know, summer vacation is coming up. That’s a lot of long hours to waste at my desk. And they seem to be a pretty decent way of brushing up on my history/US political knowledge. (And without stealing the school’s internet at that.)

God, I love research!!

Edit: Just finished reading through the section about the Revolutionary War (and the events leading up to it). Again, for being an ‘outline’, I’m pretty impressed. The State Department seems to have done a rather nice job putting these together, all things considered.

Flag pins still would have been nice though.

Most recently developed Hetalia dirty/guilty pleasure?

America as the 'baby-mama'. *sighs* Yes, I know. I lose at life.

I know the whole… mechanics of it are sketchy. Not so much for the usual mpreg reasons, as he’s an anthropomorphic personification, but mainly for the time-line factors. All the same, it amuses me. (50 states = a WHOLE lot of kids, and that’s if you don’t count commonwealths, DC, or Liberia.)

In other geek news, my friend has recently become addicted to Nabari no Ou. In order to not be addicted to it alone, I’m being dragged along into the addiction with her. Fortunately, it’s quite good. Rather like the anti-Naruto (in a good way). The main character is one of the most apathetic characters in creation; he gives Gintoki some serious rivalry in the field of apathy. So far, his teacher (a half-Irish, half-Japanese English teacher and ninja) is my favorite. ^__^ He uses the same textbook I do! AND, based on the nearest shinkansen station in the manga being in Okayama, we think the series takes place on Shikoku! ♥

Just finished volume 2, and she’s on volume 4.

Have to go to a mandatory JET meeting in Tak tomorrow afternoon, but my school gave me the morning off to make up for that. And there's a Beer Garden party after the meeting, so that'll give me something to look forward to! (She says as she sits at her computer drinking chuhai.)

Finally, my five-year-old, self-proclaimed fiance kissed my hand today at school. Not creepily, but like the gentlemen do in the old movies. And yes, the cute was enough to kill.

WAH! I’m all stinky from biking to my elementary school this morning, and then to the junior high school this afternoon. And now I have to sit here in my stinkiness until 5-ish, when I finally get to go home and shower. ;_; I hate biking when it’s hot and humid out!

Edit: Home. Shower. *runs*

List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

1. Star Trek (movie verse): Captain Christopher Pike
2. Hetalia: America
3. Saiunkoku Monogatari: Ensei Rou
4. Naruto: Nara Shikamaru
5. Gundam Wing: Duo Maxwell
6. Gundam 00: Graham Acker
7. Lamento: Bardo
8. Pet Shop of Horrors: Leon Orcot
9. Revolutionary Girl Utena: Utena Tenjou
10. Torchwood: Ianto Jones

Well, I know there’s a general pattern! Not all my favorite characters quite fit it, but I have noticed that most do.


( Also, very very late meme answers. Sorry. )

I'm a photic sneezer!

Have you ever emerged from a matinee movie, squinted into the sudden burst of sunlight and sneezed uncontrollably? Up to a third of the population will answer this question with an emphatic "Yes!" (whereas nearly everyone else scratches their head in confusion). Sneezing as the result of being exposed to a bright light—known as the photic sneeze reflex—is a genetic quirk that is still unexplained by science, even though it has intrigued some of history's greatest minds. (from Scientific America's Looking at the Sun Can Trigger a Sneeze)

This is cool, because I thought everyone sneezed at bright lights until just a couple weeks ago when I walked outside, sneezed a couple of times, and my friends looked at me as if I were nuts and asked if I was okay. So today I decided to google it on a whim, and it turns out that I am indeed an anomaly (in more ways than one)!

Apparently, one of the possible causes of this could be related to one of the causes of migranes, which I find interesting as I've suffered from them since puberty. And while I love sunlight, I have found that my eyes are unusually sensitive to bright, direct sunlight... possibly one of the reasons I grow sleepy at a certain time of day?

Edit: Helloooo thunder and lightning! Maybe this will help some with that whole water issue the prefecture's been having.

So, uh, apparently the UK is the Great Satan now...

Does that make the US Azazel? Or maybe Asmodeus I suppose.

...I have too much cake.

O_o

Remember that Spain/America fic I finished a week or so back?

Well, it's in the editing process now, and the other day I had an idea for changing up the beginning that seemed really great in my head. But when it comes to getting it typed out? It is Not Cooperating. >_< *stabs*

Rasafrasafrasing... Looks like it's back to ye olde plotting board...

Also? It's really hot today! There was thunder earlier, but no rain, though we could see clouds up over the mountains. The effect was pretty damn creepy.