usullusa | DG when you died so did our special meadow

I've been complaining a lot lately. Let me tell you about how fantastic my classes are to change things up.

Comics Independent Study: We read a graphic novel a week, then blog our reaction. We keep a Delicious with pertinent comic-related links. We get together at the apartment of the other student doing the independent study once a week and watch film versions of the comic we read and chat about pop culture and our favorite shows and books and are generally nerdy. It's so much fun I can't even tell you. I almost feel guilty because it doesn't feel like real school.

Children's Lit Course: We read children's books. Every week. And then we have discussions and I get to ramble about the value of storytelling as a mode of relating to and understanding each other and ourselves. And get to use the phrase "we're all stories in the end". I just read Charlotte's Web and next week we're reading a whole bunch of fairytales. Alice in Wonderland, Neil Gaiman, Madeline L'Engle, and Ursula K. LeGuin are all on my reading list.

Queer Studies: We haven't gotten to the hardcore theory part yet, but so far we read fantastic articles about activism and being a minority and they sound like the sort of thing I would find in meta!fandom. Also my professor is trans, which doesn't really matter so much, but it means that our reading list isn't gay/lesbian-centric. It actually covers trans issues and gender non-conforming issues. Plus queer sexualities that aren't strictly gay or bi or lesbian. So that's all kinds of exciting. Oh and I have to keep a blog for this class too.

The Works of Dante: My professor is one of those fantastic eccentric old men who goes off on tangents about language and sound in the original Italian and knows so much interesting history and trivia about the Western canon. When we read Canto I of the Inferno in class, he showed us all kinds of linguistics tricks that Dante pulls. We listened to an opera version of one of the cantos and he went off about coded messages embedded in famous monuments and works of art.
Live Action Pokemon Movie Trailer. I have no idea if this is a hoax or not but I would watch the shit out of that.
Lady Gaga campaigning to repeal DADT and encouraging others to call their senators. I love this woman.
Okay New York, what do you do when you need to receive a package but don't have a doorman/mail room? I know some people in my building ask the dry cleaner's next door to hold their packages for them, but I'm not really a customer there so it would be douchey to ask. Another reason to use their wash and fold service?
That storm in NYC you probably heard about? It was a tornado. Oh wait, was that singular? Sorry I meant two tornados.
Watched Tin Man the other night and loved it. I'm sad it was only 3 episodes long (albeit they were 90 minutes each) but that's how long it took them to tell the whole story so I can't complain.
I'm not the only person who saw the CONSTANT sexual tension between DG and Azkadellia, right? Right?. Also, it is now my personal canon that Azkadellia spent most of the series in the throes of orgasm. Seriously. Every time she released her flying monkeys. Every time she ate somebody's soul. Every time she did anything, really.

I was a huge fan of the fact that DG didn't get together with anybody at the end. Thank god. Thank you for not deciding that her existence can only be validated through a man. Obviously it's not a happy ending until the main character falls in love. Right. So I was really happy to see a different story arc for once.

And I so called that the O.Z. was the distant future of L. Frank Baum's Oz .