This past weekend was amazing. I didn't have high hopes going in. I'm not gonna lie. It was sort of spontanious that we even went. Weeks ago I was browsing online and came back across the official website for TrekFest. I'd been vaguely aware it existed for years but it wasn't until my boss at bagel job told me two years ago that it was going on that I realized how seriously close it was to my college town. Of course, I was at work at the time and couldn't exactly book it over to Riverside in the middle of a shift. The following year I was in Japan during the fest so no go. But, this year... No job. How would I find the money? Also, no longer a UoI student. Also, subleased my Iowa City apartment. But, when I mentioned the fest again off hand to my father a week before it was to take place, he was all for it! He went on, ironically enough, Priceline and booked a hotel the next day.

Friday morning came and I was able to wake up at a leisurly late time and hop in the car stress free. Usually incredibly unpleasant on road trips, my father and I were able to make pleasant comversation the entire trip. He even let me pick the radio stations for all 4 hours on the road! The only snag in the ride up was the intense 20 minute detour along I-35. That's going to be hell for travelers during the holiday weekend coming up. What made the detour even more awkward was that there was apparently a local bicycle marathon going on and all these rerouted cars were taking the same route as the bikers. Unfortunate. Still, comical. And, all together a pleasant ride.

As is tradition anytime I go anywhere with my father, we got lost for a bit. Most of the hotels in Iowa City are clustered either at that second exit by the con hotel or back over by Walmart in Coralville. So, we just naturally assumed the hotel we were staying at was in one of those clusters. Nope. It was on the strip and our idiot selves just drove along all the major streets in Iowa City/Coralville looking for it. Sad but, true. I can still get lost in my own college town! The hotel itself was pretty shotty, but, again, in a comical way. We were laughing about the mold colony growing on the ceiling in the bathroom. To be fair I think it's one of the hotels that was flooded out in last year's 500 year flood. It seems like very few flooded out businesses are really back 100%. We drove around debating what to get for dinner. Ended up at HuHot which I loved and my father didn't know what to do with. He was also in a state of shock and awe at the sorority girls/pre-club Friday night cliques and their outfit choices. It was hella weird being in a place, again, where most people are my age and infinitly thinner, prettier, and better dressed than I. I was a little nostalgic for Iowa City until the third pack of bimbos walked by and I remembered what annoyed me about the place. Everything evens out!

We skipped the Friday activities and crashed early in order to make it to the 10AM parade the next day. Steve Miller was the grand marshal. It was like most small towns or county parades. Most of the emergency vehicles in the county came. The firefighter's families rode on the fire trucks and waved to their friends. All the children's sports teams- teams supported by the funds raised during TrekFest- had floats. It was fun seeing the little kids wave at and heckle their families and classmates. The shriners and a bunch of local businesses as well as Operation Homefront also had floats or cars. And, there was no shortage of tractors! Most floats or cars handed out candy and all the kids along the parade route had bags to hoard it in. Operation Homefront, a group that supports families of the troops, handed out teddy bears. They also had a handful of local beauty queens!

Below the cut are the highlights from the parade. I got multiple shots of every float and at least one picture of almost every car and group that was in the parade. You can view the nicer ones in my Facebook gallery or download my complete set of parade photos. I got shots of every section of the parade route, too, so if you were in attendance I might have taken your photo!

( Photo and video highlights of the parade! A general sample and some descriptions. )

It lasted longer than I thought it would and was quite charming. I got into a long conversation with the grandmother of three who was sitting next to me. She was nothing but sweet and wonderful and polite. She loved that we'd come from a whole state away just to see the festival. She works at VA in Iowa City, where I went to college, and we talked on and on about Iowa City and the history of the festival. She agreed that this year's turn out was much higher than last year's and attributed it to the movie.

The rest of the fair grounds were spread out between one park area (with a softball field, stage, playground and volleyball court) and another park area (with a playground and open sided shelter).

( The Fairgrounds and Costume Contest )

The Q&A started with Steve Miller going on about how TrekFest started. When Gene Roddenberry wrote the guide to Star Trek, he originally listed Kirk's hometown as "A small town in Iowa." In 1985, Steve Miller who was on the city council for a small Iowa town named "Riverside" noticed this and proposed to his city council that they nominated themselves. They voted. Gene agreed. It became official. This year was the 25th anniversary of thier TrekFest in honor of "Riverside's favorite (unborn) son" and the honored guests were Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koening, and George Takei. The money generated goes straight back into the town in the form of financing for scholarships, little league teams, the fire department/ambulance service and other such things. It's a sweet town full of the nicest people you could meet.

After giving his intro, they called out the stars who each had a chance to speak before questions were taken. George went first followed by Nichelle and Walter. Most of these intros are below the cut. So far I haven't been able to find video of the first few minutes. Nichelle started to tease George about how he was Gullible with a capitol "G". He took offense and said he was just trusting and people violated his trust! Nichelle then turned to Walter and said that he could pull one over on George at any time...which he did a few minutes later. The three intros under the cut.

( A bunch of videos and transcripts from the Q&A Sesion )

( After the Q&A things were just as wonderful! )

So, tomorrow I'm headed back to Iowa for TrekFest in Riverside. I've been meaning to go for two years now. It finally took chronic unemployment for me to give it a go. It's going to be me, my father, a shit ton of Trekkies, and some tractors. I think. This weekend's gonna be bizarre, but I'm determined to get some good pictures out of it. I doubt I'll be able to make it to the autograph signing or any of the events at the casino, but I'm not sure. I think I'd be too afraid to meet the stars. If I met Nichelle Nichols, I'd just go on about how Uhura has my dream job. And, if I met George Takei, I'd be tempted to ask him about Masi Oka instead of ST. Not that one really gets to interact with stars at autograph signings, but you know. Fangirl heart attacks. I am prone to them.

The cleaning of the basement is slow going, but still progressing. There have been a few snags. Unsurprisingly, my father is still being a stick in the mud about it. We had to drag him downstairs to sort through his books. And, for most of it he just pouted in the corner with the dog and gave angry "yay" or "nay"s as we went along. The other big snag was my mother's surprise fury that I'd blogged about this. She was furious and humiliated that I hadn't kept the basement her deep, dark secret. As she does with everything, she shed tears over it. I think she's now reconciled with the fact that others in the world are aware our house is a mess. But, I was rather blindsided by it.

At least charity is benefiting from all this pain. We've taken at least 3 car loads of children's toys, games, exercise equipment, bedding, and clothing to the local DAV. (And 4 trips to the recycle center!) Oh, man. DAV Thrift. Love that place, but I have no idea what the hell the dock workers are smoking. The first time we went, the guy there asked me why my husband wasn't helping me drop this stuff off. I guess I just looked very suburban housewife to him. Then again today, one of the guys unloading the truck was making eyes at me and smiling excessively. What the fuck? So, the all of the male population of the country ignores me but for any male that works at DAV Thrift? I don't know.

Been working on the flower girl dress for Hotaru's sister's wedding and it's rather fug. I feel bad about it. I have the flexibility to fix it, and will, but I feel like a Grade A dick right now. I let my apprehension about my serger delay me for, what, two weeks? Not cool. Hotaru isn't expressly angry, but she and her sister have the right to be. Gawd. This thing is just cursed. I finally got into the groove of working on it a day or two ago and the power went out. What is that?

Also, today my sibling received word that she passed her NCLEX/Nursing Boards. Finally! I've been an unwilling participant in the prep for these for the past two weeks. I've been baby sitting the dog, listening to the gripes, and even went with the sibling to the testing center a week in advance just so she could time how long it would take her to get there on the day of! There was celebratory Sonic slushie time, at least. We left just in time to miss the crazy on the news about Michael Jackson. I threw caution to the wind and bought some flats for my upcoming vacation from unemployment: a trip to DC!

Oh! Yes! That's another thing. My family members stopped bickering and decided upon their collective preferred vacation: Washington DC. When? Oh, pretty much next week on through the 4th of July. It will be crazy, no doubt, but it should also prove pretty interesting as well. I'm looking forward to adding several pins to my bag.

Is it just me or has Live Journal been having trouble lately? Things are loading wrong all over the place and I keep timing out.

I've been trying to Photoshop celebrity photos into fan art and I got fed up with it enough that I decided to, well, Photoshop myself for a while. This lead to busting out the camera, playing dress up, and MySpacing it up for an hour and making these. Gawd. Is this ghetto cosplay or Photoshop whoring? I don't even know. But, damn this is fun. Too bad I don't have the cash to make the uniform or the body to be an Orion.



I'm a spunky goober! Going for what Janice Rand would look like if she was in the updated Trek. Sari posted videos about hairstyles which lead to me spending an hour surfing hair how to videos on YouTube. I decided to try the fake bouffant. You can't see the volume in the photo, but it's there.



I've seriously spent about 5 hours figuring out the best and simplest ways to turn girls green in Photoshop and make it look a cross between the decent body paint in TOS and the faker than fake body paint in Trek XI. Harder than it sounds. I'm getting better. I think. Still haven't finished the Gaila fanart I was working on. Buh.



And, icon crazy. I might actually use some of these. Really. I prefer to use icons of myself because I want the icon to represent me, but damn do I have a funny looking face. It's hard to work with, yo.

In real life business, I've got all the cute little pieces cut out for the flower girl dress, but as I was gearing up to assemble them, my sibling crashed in and asked for help clearing out the hallway while my father wasn't looking. I've spoken of this before, but the skinny is that my father has an unhealthy tendency to hoard things and we've never noticed how bad he really was about it until recently when we started plans to renovate and clean out the house. So, while he was doing things outside and my sibling had the weird motivation/urge to clean, we attacked the guest room - which had become the overflow for the attic.

Nothing in my parents' house has gotten thrown away in years, it seems. Or recycled. Or given away. There are five bags of bedding ready for the next round of donations. We found 3 printers. Three. Also, discovered photos from back in the day. Really back in the day. As in my grandparents as newlyweds circa WWII, my mother's baby pictures from 1950, and my parents' wedding album among others. So, some of the room was great flashback-to-childhood material. Other things were just bizarre.

( More photos becaue I'm a WHORE. )

Anyway, I escaped long enough to watch a movie and shop the above images around dinner time. In the middle of the movie my sibling busted in the room again to inform me she was well into her second hour of a Clean House marathon and she was pumped. Apparently tomorrow we are going to be all ninja like and start cleaning out the basement underneath my father's nose. We'll see how this works. I also need to finish that dress. Hm. My sibling keeps going off on rants about upping the resale value of the house. Very suspicious. Well, if my parents and I are offed and there's a For Sale sign in the front lawn sometime in the next few months, you know who did it.

I need to make a music post. I've gotten my grubby little hands on some great music lately. But, I think my drive is becoming unstable again.

The past 24 hours have had good news, which is weird. It feels like very few things in my life have actually had good news attached in a while. The Iowa apartment? Subleased. Effective as soon as I can get my lease transferal check to Iowa and fax up my papers. Should be tomorrow. This means that the plans to meet up with Lee the Aussie on her Great American Tour trip are a hella lot more plausible (see also: affordable). Baby sister Lee! After seeing Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian, my mother also wants to take a trip to DC sometime in mid July. Her treat! In between my TEFL classes!

Also, I just figured out yesterday stumbling around Facebook that Megan is engaged. I am an idiot. Apparently it happened months ago. But, she commented on a photo of mine, and I commented on a photo of hers, and that lead to the most fantastic nostalgic Skype conversation. Unsurprisingly, she's headed to Tokyo soon on a job hunting trip. She dropped an aside that if she's able to get a job and an apartment there, I'm welcome to crash with her for a bit potentially while I job hunt. I miss her like crazy now. I was really surprised she still thought of me at all. The only people I've really kept up with are Lee and Alyssa. I touch base with others every now and again, but I'd figured before this month that it was really fading for most people. Somewhere in there talking to Megan I realized that most of us are probably still hung up on our NUFS time- good bad or indifferent. Japan is like a drug to which one can become addicted in a single dose. And, we were seriously addicted.

But it was so good talking to Megan. My convictions are renewed. Temporary as it might be, I'm excited again.

I've spent more time than I should admit to reading Star Trek fic these past few days. Ok, these past two weeks. Some of it has been very good. I'm only marginally impressed with the 'classics', though. I'm trying to talk myself out of buying a pin from the official collection for my notable bag of pins. I don't like the IDIC ones they have or I'd have been completely unable to resist picking up one of those and one or two communicator pins. Still not sure who I'd cosplay if I were to cosplay someone from Trek. Love the TOS and new movie costumes, but if I went that route I'd want to be Orion or Andorian and that's a whole lot of effort for something I don't have the cash to wear to an event or con. I suppose at some point in my life I'll end up with an entire set. Possibly. The TOS girl outfits of random side characters are more fun than I remembered. I've come full circle from my childhood balk at the colorful crazy that is the TOS to deep artistic appreciation of each frame and outfit. The colors! The colors! The costume breakdown instinct kicked in for, of all characters, T'pring. I sat there trying to work out how the dress was made, how to do the hair, and what the budget breakdown would be like. In the end, though, I don't have the body for any of it. The women of TOS were just too hot and loved the miniskirt too much. I don't think I have the courage.

Geez. When did 1AM happen?

Well, it happened. My little sister graduated from college with a degree in nursing. On time. And, with less than half the amount of debt that I have. But, as a karmic reward, she has yet to find a job. What this means now is... We're all living together again. My mother, father, my troll of a little sister, and hermit myself. We're stuck in this slightly rundown two story midwestern suburban time loop. That's what it fees like, anyway.

My little sibling and I have never gotten along. And, you can rest assured, time has not changed this at all. She's still as selfish and demanding and prone to temper tantrums as when she was 10. Case in point: Two nights ago she walked right up to me and started laying into me for being "lazy" and getting a stupid degree and on and on and on. You know the drill. I look just as bad on paper these days as I do in person, yeah? The crazy turned up when she finished her tirade and immediately demanded that I drop what I was doing and go fetch my computer and cables and whatnot to hook up to the TV so she could watch How I Met Your Mother reruns from season 3. It did not occur to this 22 year old college graduate at all that perhaps you shouldn't blatantly insult someone and then demand they do you a favor in that order over the course of a few minutes. This has been a continuing theme.

I want to get out of here. I really do. But, it isn't as painful to watch as it used to be. I've become a zen monk when it comes to my family's bickering. While we were unloading the contents of my sibling's college apartment from the borrowed transport truck, my sibling took the opportunity to start laying into my father about what a loser he is and how she didn't really want half of this furniture anyway. This was the furniture we had disassembled, loaded into the truck, transported across the state, and were now helping her unload at our parents' house where she would be staying and keeping her things for free, mind you. Really, how stupid can you be? If you're going to insult someone, at least wait until after they've done you that favor! But, it didn't even phase me as it went down. I saw the fight brewing a mile away. Just as they were getting ready to blow, I stepped in and suggested that they were never going to agree and we should unload the truck in silence. It... actually worked.

She's gone this weekend, thankfully. On a "float trip" filled with alcohol. It's been two weeks since she moved in again and the down-her-nose tirade rate has averaged two per day. I haven't studied in days because of the crazy. The house is also filled with her junk. I won't complain about the junk yet, though. I was just as disorganized and space-consuming with my junk when I moved back. I've made a pointed effort to keep all of my thinks neatly stored in their proper places in my room at all times since the organizations and renovations were completed. Well, whatever.

I need a to do list. I'm all out of sorts. Spring is here. Hotaru's in town. My sibling's here. I'm heavier than usual. The list is long. I really really need a to do list.

Oh, right. I haven't mentioned anything about my career plans here in ages. I should do that.

It took a while after my terrible interview and series if ignored applications/resume postings to regroup. But, I've formed a tentative plan. I've continued to attempt to learn to drive, but it's still slow going. I've now failed the test once. My problem? Didn't signal enough. I'm going to give it another go in June. In theory if I can properly get my driver's licence, I can easily hop into the AAA and get an international driver's licence -something listed as a requirement on a weird number of Japanese job postings. I also enrolled in a TEFL certification course in July. With any luck not only will the certification pad my resume, but the in-class feedback and lesson plan making lessons will give me a leg up in the interview process. It's looking more and more like my only real option will be to scrounge up enough cash to take a job seeking trip to Japan sometime in the fall. I still haven't figured out the visa situation, though. I have questions no one seems to have answers to.

But, I'm still working towards returning to Japan. More than anything else these past few weeks I've been falling into myself and working hard to, well, lower my expectations about my future. I watched the movie "Waiting..." and had an epiphany moment when I realized I would now practically kill to have a full time job at a local restaurant. Unemployment has affected me that much at this point.

My leisure time has been pretty satisfying though. I've lost a few nights sleep to the wonder that is the reblooming Star Trek fandom. Between my LiveJournal "startrek" friends list filter and K/S Archive I'm not sure how I haven't become entirely nocturnal! I started a community for Kirk/Spock/Uhura because it seemed appropriate and threesomes have become incredibly appealing to me. Surprisingly, the comm is moderately successful and has regular posts with over 250 members.

I also caved and signed up for DreamWidth under the name Kazari. For the maybe two people who might read this and be curious, "Kazari" was how the foster care center kids would always mishear my name in Japan. They'd see or hear "Caitlin" which would end up in Japanese as "Keitorin" and in their minds this would not compute as a single foreign name. They'd think I said "Kei and Rin". So, they'd over correct and assume I meant "Kathrine". Well, the Japanese pronunciation of "Kathrine" is a letter off of the word for decoration, Kazari. This exact misunderstanding occurred at least three times. So, the kids just gave up and called me Kazari/decoration. So, new weeaboo username with a bit of history.

Socially things are pretty low key. I still see Akane about once a week... Most of the time. Hotaru is stressed enough to seem pretty pissed at me all three or four times I've spoken to her in the past week. I hope SaJo is still alive. I don't know where she disappeared to, but I miss her oodles. Miss Sari, too. I was a total cunt to them at Naka-kon. I'm really just pleased Sajo and Sari are still theoretically civil with me, you know? I'm trying to figure out a way to meet up with a bunch of people I know from NUFS in July in Ohio on a budget. I've got some ideas. No idea how it will pan out.

Alright. This is already too long. Gotta move along.

Went to see Star Trek a few hours ago. Oh my god. Oh. My. God. I'm stunned. It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in ages. I loved it. Loved. Passionate love. And I'm in love with all the characters. I want to marry Kirk, Spock, and Uhura. Especially Uhura. Wow. Reactions now.

( SPOILER FULL AND SQUEETASTIC! )

That was my biggest impression. This movie has done to the look and feel of Star Trek, for me, what Dark Knight/Batman Begins did for Batman. I want more. I'm going to go see it at least two more times in the theatre. Maybe more. When the film ended I turned to Akane and asked her if she wanted to see the 10PM showing. She looked temtped. Can I preorder the DVD yet? Is there a soundtrack? Oh shit. I want the phasers and other merchandise so badly I can taste it. And, I want a fandom to start. Now. Please. Trekkies, I need you. Come back!

Oh man. Me and spaceships. Joygasm.

Here is your education, friendslist.

World War II. Do you all know it? Americans, remember the president who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan? Truman. Do you remember what your college history book said about him? They said he was a great man. They painted a picture of a president who made a difficult decision to drop two bombs to end a war. This, they argue, saved lives! If the war had continued, millions more would have died.

This is complete and total bullshit.

Your history lied to you. Truman's decision making process was supplemented by intelligence on the state of the war. This intelligence indicated that Japan was going to surrender. Had the war continued as it was, a broken and weary Japan was planning to surrender to the US. Truman knew this. Truman did not drop the bomb to end the war with Japan. The bombs were dropped to:

1) Prove the military might of the US to Russia.
2) Justify the cost of building the atomic bomb.
3) To field test the carnage an atomic bomb could cause on a city.

Truman did NOT drop the bombs to end the war. He didn't NEED to. He KNEW this. He had other things in mind and the continued slaughter of Japanese civilians served his goals. This is documented. The concentration on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also gloss over the destruction and carnage of the US firebombing of Japanese cities. This firebombing killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed dozens of cities.

Why do I bring this up?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

This is the extended version of a recent Daily Show interview about torture and war crimes that has since popped up on several blogs and whatnot. The commentary has been almost exclusively to put down Jon and cite the old, "dropping the bombs ended the war and saved many lives," followed by, "they didn't surrender immediately after the first bomb was dropped, so the second one had to be dropped." This is just plain not true.

War crimes? Yes.

As Americans, we like to think the best of our history and leaders. This doesn't mean they were saints. I agree that Truman was a war criminal. So was Hirohito, who commanded his military to conquer, rape, and pillage China and Korea. WWII was not a "clean" war. It wasn't the good 'ol days. It was just as messy and horrible and convoluted as any conflict today.

Know this. Remember this. Share this.

My fan fiction favorites tend to get lost every couple of years. (Or weeks. Where are all my Labyrinth bookmarks? I know they're around here somewhere...) And, my current folder of fic in my Google Bookmarks account was getting way too full. So, I've sorted them by fandom here with the title, author, and general description. As much for my own reference as for rec'ing to others.

I think I'll just use this list as my primary from now on.

( Big Bang Theory, Escaflowne, Inuyasha, Kings, Kyou Kara Maou, Nana, Naruto, NCIS, Prince of Tennis, Supernatural, Twelve Kingdoms )

So, the gray cat of evil has gone senile and has both become magically nice and discovered human food. Suddenly around meals, especially those containing poultry or dairy products, she becomes super social and starts creeping in to sniff at our plates. This would be fine except she has a weak stomach and anxiety issues. Also, she weighs 5lbs. I made a grilled cheese sandwich and ate it with some of my father's "Olive Garden soup". The kitty started growling at me so I gave her a little bit of the cheese from inside the sandwich. She happily gobbled it up...and then puked three hours later. But, this keeps happening around meal times. I feel like Cartman trying to protect my food from a little gray cat. My father didn't understand what was so funny or why, despite eating sandwiches for lunch most days, I shoo away the cat with, "No, kitty, that's mah pot pie!"

My mother hates her job this week and there's nothing I can do for her and it's driving me nuts as much as it is her. She had her evaluation at work on Monday and her supervisor yelled at her for taking her little schedule of who visited the nurse's office, and the charts she has to put that nurse's office visit information into, home instead of finishing it immediately and staying at the school for hours. But, she didn't just say, "You shouldn't do that" or anything so sensible. She told my mother, "What if you died!" and gave a speech about even though they only get paid for 35 hours a week at a public school, she shouldn't think of it as a job, but as a mission and should spend all the early mornings and late nights at school that it takes to get the lengthy list of tasks she's required to do done. So now not only is my mother having a crisis over being reminded of her own fragile mortality, she's feeling intense guilt over her "mission" to help the kids at her school as the on staff health professional. Don't get me wrong. My mother does the work, she just writes up the details of each kid's visit on their public school medical chart after she gets home and eats dinner instead of at an empty school building after a long day of work. My father and I have been trying to discredit this woman's off hand, unfair comment all week to no avail.

Also, she got a visit from a former student at her school that made her even more depressed. This kid had a few medical conditions that warped her body in such a way that she needed to be cathed each day at school. So, my mother got to know her. One day she noticed blood in the girl's urine and suggested to her parents that they take her to the hospital to be tested for an infection as that happens when you have to cath regularly. Turns out the girl was raped by a family member. But, the girl was meek so she was too afraid to do anything more than tell who had done something to her. She wouldn't go into to detail what. So, they never were able to take the guy to court. It tore her family apart, this incident, and the girl was devastated by the abuse. As one would expect. She's not doing very well now, either. And, my mother is just killing herself with the guilt like she could have done something. She knows that her speaking up probably saved the girl from future abuse, but still. She's stared off into the distance and just stared repeating these stories several times this week.

She keeps talking about how, if my sibling can find a job as a hospital nurse, she'll be making more than my mother as a starting salary. What do you say to that? Maybe if the economy wasn't so bad there'd be options, but my sibling, despite her atrocious personality in social situations, is a pretty good student nurse. They say the medical profession is recession proof but that's a lie. Two of the hospitals she's interviewed at have drastically cut back their new hires and people are afraid to retire out of the system. But, pay isn't the only issue.

So... I don't know what to do for my mom, really. Most things I can think of, most things most people would think of doing for someone down like this, would actually cause her MORE stress and not less.

More than one person has rec'd TEFL Course Certifications/Degrees to me in the past month and I've been taking those comments very seriously. But, I'm having trouble finding one that's a good fit. There's a weekend course in April that's local and in person, but I have to go to my sibling's graduation and would miss a third of it. There's another in July, but that seems super far off. There are online courses that are reputable, but they lack the feedback and in-person practice I could get in a live course. I dunno. It feels good to have an alternate path now, though.

In KKM game news, I've spent a few hours translating/playing each day for the past few and have continued to enjoy it more than I should have for something so goofy. I'm thinking this will keep me entertained for months to come.

Oh, insomnia. How I hate you. I haven't gotten anything done in a week. Taking my driving test? Nope. Getting hard facts about TEFL certification courses? Nope. I've seen the sunrise without getting a wink of sleep several times this week.

But, I've found something that distracts me sufficiently from my angsty predicament: The second Kyo Kara Maou PS2 game, Shin Makoku Vacation! Holy hell. It's like playing a fanfic. On crack. Or maybe like watching the anime. They're pretty shameless in cannon, too. I stumbled across the iso of the $140 game on a comm and after a few hours got it downloaded and got an emulator to work with Vista and my horrible little system. I've been playing ever since. It's hilarious but difficult. Me and my denshijisho are toughing it out. I'm trying to get Yuuri and Wolfram married. I know you can. I've seen the caps! But it's harder than it should be. I accidentally won Gunter's favor and Conrad is just too easy to please. Also, how they seem to treat Greta like a possible pairing option, even though she's not in the relationship health gauge chart thing, and it's a little awkward.

I've translated the prologue. And, I've been taking notes. And screen caps. I've figured out how to get to the scene where Yuuri accidentally show's a husband's intimacy to Wolfram and proposes a shotgun wedding over the scandal, but beyond that I'm currently SOL. It's still an awesome scene, though. I love when Dorskaskos busts into the room and starts gloating that he won the castle betting pool on who Yuuri would finally hook up with. And Celi busting out the wedding dresses isn't bad, either.

I'm such a freak. I'll get back to job stuff and sewing soon. Really. I promise.