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Oct. 21st, 2014 10:22 pmHoly crap, ya'll. It's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide again! My mostly dead fandom-journal gets its yearly kick in the pants!
Is anyone who's left my f-list participating this year? I'm always astounded by the sheer number of fandoms, and how many of them cross my own fannish lists.
Oh, sign-ups close at about 2pm EST on this Sunday, Oct 26 (or 6pm UTC).
yuletide again! My mostly dead fandom-journal gets its yearly kick in the pants!Is anyone who's left my f-list participating this year? I'm always astounded by the sheer number of fandoms, and how many of them cross my own fannish lists.
Oh, sign-ups close at about 2pm EST on this Sunday, Oct 26 (or 6pm UTC).
Last night I went looking for Almost Human fandom...and my first thought was not livejournal. Like at all. Is it time to look for more fannish pasture? Tumblr seems to be all abt the gifs, which I largely find annoying. Am I being a drama queen or am I reading the writing on the wall? Where are ppl finding the most fandom traction & interaction? Maybe I have to rethink fandom interaction. Maybe I have to out my other non-fannish pseuds for a more complete experience. Thoughts, y'all?
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
It's that time of year again!
Oct. 8th, 2013 07:44 pmWhen I lose my mind trying to do both yuletide (or yuletide if you want more info) and NaNoWriMo. Ostensibly, this is doable. There's about 2 weeks between the end of Nano and the due date for your yuletide story. In practice...crazypants. Just crazypants. To be honest, I'd only planned on doing yuletide this year if only b/c the wordcount is a lot less grueling, and I'm working on something that I don't want to put down in order to do a proper nano. But ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lieueitak has pretty much convinced me to throw my hat in the nano-ring. Lord help.
So, there may be many posts of glee! Of squee! Of worry! Anyone else participating? :D
Or all those posts will end up on the journal for my alter-ego, since she's the one who does all the fanfic writing. Who knows. Anywho...
Happy Crazy Writing Season!
yuletide (or yuletide if you want more info) and NaNoWriMo. Ostensibly, this is doable. There's about 2 weeks between the end of Nano and the due date for your yuletide story. In practice...crazypants. Just crazypants. To be honest, I'd only planned on doing yuletide this year if only b/c the wordcount is a lot less grueling, and I'm working on something that I don't want to put down in order to do a proper nano. But lieueitak has pretty much convinced me to throw my hat in the nano-ring. Lord help.So, there may be many posts of glee! Of squee! Of worry! Anyone else participating? :D
Or all those posts will end up on the journal for my alter-ego, since she's the one who does all the fanfic writing. Who knows. Anywho...
Happy Crazy Writing Season!
By EILEEN POLLACK
Published: October 3, 2013
Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the man’s. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.
The new study goes a long way toward providing hard evidence of a continuing bias against women in the sciences. Only one-fifth of physics Ph.D.’s in this country are awarded to women, and only about half of those women are American; of all the physics professors in the United States, only 14 percent are women. The numbers of black and Hispanic scientists are even lower; in a typical year, 13 African-Americans and 20 Latinos of either sex receive Ph.D.’s in physics. The reasons for those shortages are hardly mysterious — many minority students attend secondary schools that leave them too far behind to catch up in science, and the effects of prejudice at every stage of their education are well documented. But what could still be keeping women out of the STEM fields (“STEM” being the current shorthand for “science, technology, engineering and mathematics”), which offer so much in the way of job prospects, prestige, intellectual stimulation and income?
As one of the first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics from Yale — I graduated in 1978 — this question concerns me deeply. I attended a rural public school whose few accelerated courses in physics and calculus I wasn’t allowed to take because, as my principal put it, “girls never go on in science and math.” Angry and bored, I began reading about space and time and teaching myself calculus from a book. When I arrived at Yale, I was woefully unprepared. The boys in my introductory physics class, who had taken far more rigorous math and science classes in high school, yawned as our professor sped through the material, while I grew panicked at how little I understood. The only woman in the room, I debated whether to raise my hand and expose myself to ridicule, thereby losing track of the lecture and falling further behind.
In the end, I graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors in the major, having excelled in the department’s three-term sequence in quantum mechanics and a graduate course in gravitational physics, all while teaching myself to program Yale’s mainframe computer. But I didn’t go into physics as a career. At the end of four years, I was exhausted by all the lonely hours I spent catching up to my classmates, hiding my insecurities, struggling to do my problem sets while the boys worked in teams to finish theirs. I was tired of dressing one way to be taken seriously as a scientist while dressing another to feel feminine. And while some of the men I wanted to date weren’t put off by my major, many of them were.
Mostly, though, I didn’t go on in physics because not a single professor — not even the adviser who supervised my senior thesis — encouraged me to go to graduate school. Certain this meant I wasn’t talented enough to succeed in physics, I left the rough draft of my senior thesis outside my adviser’s door and slunk away in shame. Pained by the dream I had failed to achieve, I locked my textbooks, lab reports and problem sets in my father’s army footlocker and turned my back on physics and math forever.
( Read the rest at nytimes.com )
This is an excellent, excellent longread (10 pages, per NYT). Thoroughly engrossing and highly transferrable. The reasons cited by the author an others apply in many areas, as she gets to, and not just to women. After reading this, I quite nostalgically, and feeling-sorry-for-myself-ly, wondered if I should have stuck with Geology. After getting over my pity party I remembered that no one put me down, per se, and my primary Geo professor (the head of the department!) pushed me toward taking a BS over a BA if I really wanted to pursue a career in geology. What got me was the math side of geology. The rocks I loved. The math I hated. I am very much a creative person and thinker, but I'm analytical and logical too. Is it possible that if someone had bolstered me on my math side until I got it that I might be a successfully struggling geology PhD candidate today? Who knows. But let's not have our daughters, little sisters, and neighborellas asking these questions 10-20 years down the road.
Published: October 3, 2013
Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the man’s. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.
The new study goes a long way toward providing hard evidence of a continuing bias against women in the sciences. Only one-fifth of physics Ph.D.’s in this country are awarded to women, and only about half of those women are American; of all the physics professors in the United States, only 14 percent are women. The numbers of black and Hispanic scientists are even lower; in a typical year, 13 African-Americans and 20 Latinos of either sex receive Ph.D.’s in physics. The reasons for those shortages are hardly mysterious — many minority students attend secondary schools that leave them too far behind to catch up in science, and the effects of prejudice at every stage of their education are well documented. But what could still be keeping women out of the STEM fields (“STEM” being the current shorthand for “science, technology, engineering and mathematics”), which offer so much in the way of job prospects, prestige, intellectual stimulation and income?
As one of the first two women to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics from Yale — I graduated in 1978 — this question concerns me deeply. I attended a rural public school whose few accelerated courses in physics and calculus I wasn’t allowed to take because, as my principal put it, “girls never go on in science and math.” Angry and bored, I began reading about space and time and teaching myself calculus from a book. When I arrived at Yale, I was woefully unprepared. The boys in my introductory physics class, who had taken far more rigorous math and science classes in high school, yawned as our professor sped through the material, while I grew panicked at how little I understood. The only woman in the room, I debated whether to raise my hand and expose myself to ridicule, thereby losing track of the lecture and falling further behind.
In the end, I graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors in the major, having excelled in the department’s three-term sequence in quantum mechanics and a graduate course in gravitational physics, all while teaching myself to program Yale’s mainframe computer. But I didn’t go into physics as a career. At the end of four years, I was exhausted by all the lonely hours I spent catching up to my classmates, hiding my insecurities, struggling to do my problem sets while the boys worked in teams to finish theirs. I was tired of dressing one way to be taken seriously as a scientist while dressing another to feel feminine. And while some of the men I wanted to date weren’t put off by my major, many of them were.
Mostly, though, I didn’t go on in physics because not a single professor — not even the adviser who supervised my senior thesis — encouraged me to go to graduate school. Certain this meant I wasn’t talented enough to succeed in physics, I left the rough draft of my senior thesis outside my adviser’s door and slunk away in shame. Pained by the dream I had failed to achieve, I locked my textbooks, lab reports and problem sets in my father’s army footlocker and turned my back on physics and math forever.
( Read the rest at nytimes.com )
This is an excellent, excellent longread (10 pages, per NYT). Thoroughly engrossing and highly transferrable. The reasons cited by the author an others apply in many areas, as she gets to, and not just to women. After reading this, I quite nostalgically, and feeling-sorry-for-myself-ly, wondered if I should have stuck with Geology. After getting over my pity party I remembered that no one put me down, per se, and my primary Geo professor (the head of the department!) pushed me toward taking a BS over a BA if I really wanted to pursue a career in geology. What got me was the math side of geology. The rocks I loved. The math I hated. I am very much a creative person and thinker, but I'm analytical and logical too. Is it possible that if someone had bolstered me on my math side until I got it that I might be a successfully struggling geology PhD candidate today? Who knows. But let's not have our daughters, little sisters, and neighborellas asking these questions 10-20 years down the road.
Originally posted by marthawells at post
marthawells at postLinks:
* Kelly McCullough: The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts
The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.
Kelly says it very well here. This is a personal issue, because I personally know people who will die without health care they can afford.
* Ten Degrees Hotter: WiC (Women infants Children) Nutrition Programs To Be Affected By Shutdown: Food Apparently "Non-Essential"
I'm lucky. I've never known real hunger. I've never had to choose between feeding myself or my child. Or worse, not having any food to make that choice with at all. But I might have, if it weren't for the WiC program, short for Women Infants Children, a food and nutrition program which provides supplemental food vouchers to low-income families so they can eat. When I needed WiC, it was there. But due to the government shutdown currently keeping nearly 800,000 government workers home without pay, there will be new and expectant mothers who will be faced with hunger for themselves or their families as the program falls in with the countless other government-funded initiatives that are closing their doors. Some states have reserves that will last at most two weeks. Other states have already instructed WiC workers to stay home.
* The Atlantic: The Saddest Paragraph You'll Read About the Government Shutdown Today
With NIH furloughs, children with cancer are being turned away from clinical trials.
* Houston Press:
Despite Glitches, Houstonians Are Flocking to the Obamacare Exchanges
"Who benefits from Obamacare?" asked Martha Vasquez-Delgado on Facebook. "Me, I have a pre existence condition called Multiple Sclerosis, my medications are $4000 a month. Yes, a fucking month .And we just switched insurance. Thank you, President Obama. And forget you opposers."
* The Atlantic: The Two Basic Facts That Should Be in Every Shutdown Story
1)If the House of Representatives voted on a "clean" budget bill -- one that opened up the closed federal offices but did not attempt to defund the Obama health care program -- that bill would pass, and the shutdown would be over. Nearly all Democrats would vote for it, as would enough Republicans to end the shutdown and its related damage. (And of course it would pass has already passed the Senate, repeatedly, unless the minority dared filibuster it, and would be signed by the president.) For illustrations of the wanton damage, see here and here.
2) So far House Speaker John Boehner has refused to let this vote occur. His Tea Party contingent knows how the vote would go and therefore does not want it to happen; and such is Boehner's fear of them, and fear for his job as Speaker, that he will not let it take place.
* Kelly McCullough: The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts
The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.
Kelly says it very well here. This is a personal issue, because I personally know people who will die without health care they can afford.
* Ten Degrees Hotter: WiC (Women infants Children) Nutrition Programs To Be Affected By Shutdown: Food Apparently "Non-Essential"
I'm lucky. I've never known real hunger. I've never had to choose between feeding myself or my child. Or worse, not having any food to make that choice with at all. But I might have, if it weren't for the WiC program, short for Women Infants Children, a food and nutrition program which provides supplemental food vouchers to low-income families so they can eat. When I needed WiC, it was there. But due to the government shutdown currently keeping nearly 800,000 government workers home without pay, there will be new and expectant mothers who will be faced with hunger for themselves or their families as the program falls in with the countless other government-funded initiatives that are closing their doors. Some states have reserves that will last at most two weeks. Other states have already instructed WiC workers to stay home.
* The Atlantic: The Saddest Paragraph You'll Read About the Government Shutdown Today
With NIH furloughs, children with cancer are being turned away from clinical trials.
* Houston Press:
Despite Glitches, Houstonians Are Flocking to the Obamacare Exchanges
"Who benefits from Obamacare?" asked Martha Vasquez-Delgado on Facebook. "Me, I have a pre existence condition called Multiple Sclerosis, my medications are $4000 a month. Yes, a fucking month .And we just switched insurance. Thank you, President Obama. And forget you opposers."
* The Atlantic: The Two Basic Facts That Should Be in Every Shutdown Story
1)If the House of Representatives voted on a "clean" budget bill -- one that opened up the closed federal offices but did not attempt to defund the Obama health care program -- that bill would pass, and the shutdown would be over. Nearly all Democrats would vote for it, as would enough Republicans to end the shutdown and its related damage. (And of course it would pass has already passed the Senate, repeatedly, unless the minority dared filibuster it, and would be signed by the president.) For illustrations of the wanton damage, see here and here.
2) So far House Speaker John Boehner has refused to let this vote occur. His Tea Party contingent knows how the vote would go and therefore does not want it to happen; and such is Boehner's fear of them, and fear for his job as Speaker, that he will not let it take place.
my fellow Americans...
Jul. 4th, 2013 10:38 amnow if only I could manage to get my other holiday well-wishes in this early. sigh.
rissy_james!!!I'm so sorry I missed it the day of, but trust me it wasn't for lack of love :) I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful day!
so I kinda started writing IM fanfiction
Jun. 11th, 2013 10:17 pmBut it appears to be going nowhere. Now I kinda don't know what to do with it. It was supposed to be funny; it ended up heavy. It was supposed to be short; it's 7 parts and counting. I made a vow to myself that I would stop posting things that were half done so that situations like this wouldn't keep happening (sorry ya'll who are were reading the Tin Man stuff. I'm workin' on it), but I feel a need to share. *sigh*
Maybe I just feel a need to whinge.
I need to work on my novel. Or my steampunk-y short. Sigh.
Maybe I just feel a need to whinge.
I need to work on my novel. Or my steampunk-y short. Sigh.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif){kind=small}
You know you want to...
Originally posted bytiny_white_hats at Sunnydale High School 10 Year Reunion Anniversary Comment!Ficathon
Happy 10th Anniversary, Buffy fandom!
Originally posted by
tiny_white_hats at Sunnydale High School 10 Year Reunion Anniversary Comment!Ficathon
Happy 10th Anniversary, Buffy fandom!
As of today, it's been 10 years exactly since "Chosen," the BtVS series finale aired, and fandom is still going strong! So, to celebrate 10 years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended, let's have a celebratory comment!ficathon! Absolutely everyone is welcome to play, whether they've only seen three or four episodes of BtVS or if they've seen every episode of BtVS three or four times each.
The general gist of this is the same as any other comment!ficathon, in that people leave prompts in the form of comments, which are open for anybody else to fill with a ficlet posted in a comment. Everything should be realated to the Buffyverse (including characters from Angel), but other than that, any prompts or fills are more than welcome!
This ficathon starts May 20, 2013, the tenth anniversary of BtVS's finale, but it will continue on indefinitely, as long as there is continued interest. So, don't be afraid to keep leaving and filling prompts come May 21st.
Rules
1. One comment per post. We already know what fandom you're prompting for, but please format your prompts with a character/pairings, prompt format. You can leave as many prompts as you want (the more the better), and fill as many as you want.
2. Crossovers and AUs are allowed and welcome, so long as BtVS is one of the crossover fandoms and that at least one BtVS character remains central to the prompt. If you're prompting a crossover, please format your prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/other fandom, characters/pairings, prompt.
3. Bonus points to people who pimp the comment!ficathon, so we can get as many Buffy fans to come and play. There are banners in this comment thread, but if you feel moved to make your own, please do and post them to that thread, because the current banners were made by me and are mediocre at best.
4. Please post a link to all filled prompts here, in this comment thread. Make sure to give your fills a header, including title (if you have one), fandoms if you write a crossover fill, characters, pairings, rating, and warnings. For warnings, warn as you feel appropriate, but please be sure to warn for character death, explicit sexual content, extreme violence, underage sex, and rape/noncon/dubcon.
5. Have fun! This is a comment!ficathon to celebrate 10 years of fandom post-Buffy. Leave and fill as many prompts as you like, but make sure you do it respectfully. Feedback is actively encouraged, but no flaming! So have fun, Buffy fandom, and celebrate how long we've survived!
Masterlist
First and Last (Faith, R)- snowpuppies (Dreamwidth link)
Five by Five (Buffy, Faith, Tequila)-aisalynn
Forget-me-not (Buffy, Xander, Giles, Willow)- mierke
I'll Be Seeing You (Angel/Buffy)- kikimay
Keeping Each Other (Faith/Willow, PG)- local_max
One and the Same (Angel/Buffy/Dru, R)- snowpuppies (Dreamwidth link)
Summers Blood (Joyce, Giles, Dawn, PG)- tiny_white_hats
Ten Years On (Buffy, Willow, Faith)- brutti_ma_buoni
Thou Hast Committed Fornication (Giles/Spike, Pg13)- brutti_ma_buoni
The 10th Annual Slayers Convention (Scooby Gang, G)- deird1
(UPDATE: Sorry for the late updates and creation of a masterlist, but my laptop has refused to recognize the existence of the internet. I'll try and keep this as current as I can, but be prepared for some late updates. Sorry!)
Maybe you don't need this, but I do
May. 20th, 2013 12:34 pmFront and Center in the Mind of God
by Charles R. Swindoll
Psalm 8:1-9
It's humbling to think that the Creator of the universe, whose power, knowledge, and goodness know no limits, actually cares about us and loves us individually and personally. Think about how difficult it would be to reach the CEO of a major corporation to discuss your problems with a product. Or imagine trying to get a few moments alone with the President of the United States to talk about your foreign policy concerns. We all know how poorly that would turn out. It's not their fault; with limited time and energy, they have to prioritize. Furthermore, we who have large families sometimes find it difficult to stay current with all our little ones. Keeping up with the daily lives of our ten grandchildren could turn into a full-time job; almost impossible for mere man. So, the fact that the Ruler of the universe takes personal care of me is more than I can fathom. He takes a personal interest in each one who trusts in Him. He adds oil to our grind of feeling overlooked by reminding us of His personal interest.
Perhaps as you read this you feel alone, deserted. What a distressing, barren valley is loneliness! But listen! If you have the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you have a constant Companion and Friend. He never leaves you in the lurch. This psalm is proof positive that He does not consider you unimportant or overlook you. He isn't irritated by your coming to Him with your needs. He never looks upon your prayers or requests as interruptions. Even as James reminds us: He gives "generously and without reproach" (James 1:5). He provides good gifts without "variation or shifting shadow" (1:17).( Read more... )
I'm in the midst of a major life change that has anxious and depressed at turns. I at time go from wanting to tell everyone who will stop and listen for two minutes (and doing so), to not being able to talk about it b/c I'm in such emotional anguish. Needless to say, it hasn't been pretty.
The one steadying constant has been my faith in Jesus. Not going to church and/or doing church-things, although that's helped just because doing something & being out of the house gets my mind off my situation, so much as knowing I have someone I can whine and complain to, and bawl my eyes out or be completely silent with, and He's cool with that. In the middle of my feeling abandoned, despite knowing that isn't so, the surety that Jesus is still my God and my Savior and my Friend and my Big Brother is probably the only thing that's keeping me together in those moments when I'm a real mess. Focusing on Him instead of me -- and right now focusing on anything when I have free time is really hard -- gives me more assurance and peace than pretty much everything.
I can't go back to how things were before. It's a life change, even if I could roll it back I still wouldn't be the same. However, while I'm out here floundering in the middle of this transition, and probably looking for a fool while doing so, I've still got an anchor that's holding me steady and keeping me from drifting away...even when I want to go drifting. I'm reminded of a song by Kirk Franklin, where talking to God about needing to pray & keep praying (but not really wanting to), he exclaims "You've got me...You've got me!"
He's got me.
by Charles R. Swindoll
Psalm 8:1-9
It's humbling to think that the Creator of the universe, whose power, knowledge, and goodness know no limits, actually cares about us and loves us individually and personally. Think about how difficult it would be to reach the CEO of a major corporation to discuss your problems with a product. Or imagine trying to get a few moments alone with the President of the United States to talk about your foreign policy concerns. We all know how poorly that would turn out. It's not their fault; with limited time and energy, they have to prioritize. Furthermore, we who have large families sometimes find it difficult to stay current with all our little ones. Keeping up with the daily lives of our ten grandchildren could turn into a full-time job; almost impossible for mere man. So, the fact that the Ruler of the universe takes personal care of me is more than I can fathom. He takes a personal interest in each one who trusts in Him. He adds oil to our grind of feeling overlooked by reminding us of His personal interest.
Perhaps as you read this you feel alone, deserted. What a distressing, barren valley is loneliness! But listen! If you have the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you have a constant Companion and Friend. He never leaves you in the lurch. This psalm is proof positive that He does not consider you unimportant or overlook you. He isn't irritated by your coming to Him with your needs. He never looks upon your prayers or requests as interruptions. Even as James reminds us: He gives "generously and without reproach" (James 1:5). He provides good gifts without "variation or shifting shadow" (1:17).( Read more... )
I'm in the midst of a major life change that has anxious and depressed at turns. I at time go from wanting to tell everyone who will stop and listen for two minutes (and doing so), to not being able to talk about it b/c I'm in such emotional anguish. Needless to say, it hasn't been pretty.
The one steadying constant has been my faith in Jesus. Not going to church and/or doing church-things, although that's helped just because doing something & being out of the house gets my mind off my situation, so much as knowing I have someone I can whine and complain to, and bawl my eyes out or be completely silent with, and He's cool with that. In the middle of my feeling abandoned, despite knowing that isn't so, the surety that Jesus is still my God and my Savior and my Friend and my Big Brother is probably the only thing that's keeping me together in those moments when I'm a real mess. Focusing on Him instead of me -- and right now focusing on anything when I have free time is really hard -- gives me more assurance and peace than pretty much everything.
I can't go back to how things were before. It's a life change, even if I could roll it back I still wouldn't be the same. However, while I'm out here floundering in the middle of this transition, and probably looking for a fool while doing so, I've still got an anchor that's holding me steady and keeping me from drifting away...even when I want to go drifting. I'm reminded of a song by Kirk Franklin, where talking to God about needing to pray & keep praying (but not really wanting to), he exclaims "You've got me...You've got me!"
He's got me.
(no subject)
May. 14th, 2013 09:37 pmfaithburke!!I hope you guys have had an amazing day :D
