nayela: (Default)
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

[livejournal.com profile] bardling gave me: [livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel , yurt, likes-it-warm, games, travel. She also wanted to know about the name 'Nayela', so she gets that too because curiosity is a good thing. :)


Lordofthewheel, aka Pete )


Likes-it-warm )

Games )

Travel )


A Katie by any other name... )
nayela: (Default)
I liked Pete's reaction to my last entry. "You updated LJ? My god, is the world about to end??" Such boggled astonishment should be encouraged, I feel, so here's another one.

At the end of last year, my father retired from his job. Since the beginning of this year, both of my parents have been on a diet. Both of these seem to be working out better than anyone expected. Cookery and languages )

This Sunday, though, I went and met up with Christiane, the one friend who has stuck with me since Kindergarden. Bunnies, weddings, filk )

And lastly, thanks to [livejournal.com profile] bardling , I've joined the ranks of those who play with pixel dragons. What can I say, I'm easily amused. :)


Adopt one today!Adopt one today!Adopt one today!Adopt one today!

It's Alive!

Mar. 6th, 2009 07:13 pm
nayela: (Default)
Well, yeah. Hi again. Some of you might remember me. :)

I stopped updating this journal almost three years ago because it had begun to feel like a chore. Something that's meant to be fun shouldn't be an obligation, so I left it to itself. Lately, though, I've been thinking it might be fun to write again, so here we go.

Some of you, gentle readers, have met me in real life or talked/IM'd with me recently; some of you haven't. (Here's a belated 'Hello!' to those I've met at the filk con a few weeks ago. 'twas good to see you.) I've been reading along, so I'm marginally familiar with how your lives have been going. Here's an update on the state of the Katie.

For the curious or interested )
nayela: (Default)
Life is good when you can walk around your hometown and find places out of books. Today I wandered around the city center and found it had turned into Rain Wild Street: Wares from all over the world on display, goods of sundry sorts and kinds, both exotic and everyday, artful and useful, all shop doors thrown wide and the shops brimming with wondrous things. It's not every day the consumer society I live in makes me wax lyrical, but today was one of these. I must have spent ten minutes in that incense shop just drinking in the scents and admiring the pretty decorations. My favourite shop ever is still the one full of hammocks and windchimes and candles and paper laterns. The moment I move into a place with actual room to spare (as opposed to my current state of living in a box) I want to get a hammock. Ideally a two-person one, woven and striped in shades of green and blue, like the one I saw today.

Later I was sitting by the river and basking in the sun, and a swan awkwardly heaved itself ashore less than two meters down the bank from me. It flapped its wings a few times, which looked impressive, and began grooming itself, which looked far less majestic, but adorable. I watched it until it waddled back to the water and took off downstream.

I love these first few weeks of summer term when school still feels good and life is so much easier simply for a lack of cold weather. I had the hell disturbed out of me yesterday by a play I had to read for my 'In-yer-face-Theater' seminar. Here I thought Hellsing was gruesome, but it has nothing on 'Blasted' by Sarah Kane, I can tell you. And I don't mean that in a good way... But life, overall, is going too well to remain disturbed for any amount of time, so I'm almost over it.

The only cloud in the metaphorical sky (there are none in the real one as of now) is that I still don't know what I'm going to write for the next issue of HOWL. We do pride ourselves on printing anything, be it ever so hackneyed. Still, none of the ideas I'm harbouring these days are suitable for a college paper consisting mainly of puns, quotes, and in-jokes. They are all too undeveloped and asking for a more epic scale than the short story format has to offer. (What the hell am I getting myself into??) So, if anyone has any spare inspiration lying around, donations are gratefully accepted.

Also, a meme from [livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel, because I was tagged. The tagging is built into this one. *nods sagely* Cunning...

Leave your name and:
1. I'll respond with something random about you
2. I'll challenge you to try something
3. I'll pick a color that I associate with you
4. I'll tell you something I like about you
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of
7. I'll ask you something I've always wanted to ask you
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal
nayela: (Default)
Did you know that trolls--craggy, lumbering, living-rock Pratchettian trolls--have rollercoasters? No? I didn't, either. Until a few nights ago, that is, when I dreamed one.

I have no idea why it was there... )

Riiiiight.

Apr. 22nd, 2006 09:12 pm
nayela: (Default)
Mindboggling moment of the week, brought to you by the chick I talked to at yesterday's party:

"See, I work at a publisher's, and a whole lot of my colleagues have studied funny stuff like you do, linguistics and things. Me, I've just studied economics--you know, normal-like."

Um. So, translated, do you mean to say everybody not like you is a freak of nature?

Yay. XD

Happiness!

Apr. 13th, 2006 02:06 am
nayela: (Default)
I'm in a frighteningly good mood today. There's no particular reason for this, but I tend to go through mood swings like the proverbial teenager all the time. Walking on sunshine out of the blue? Not complainin'. And, come to think of it, there are quite a few things that might explain why I'm smiling to myself and at random strangers and the world in general. Let's see:

-I got some work on my research paper done today. This is rare. See, while I sit down to tinker with this paper on quite a regular basis, the days on which I actually do something constructive with it are few and far between. I wander off into plotting a story, or writing a letter, or just staring at the page until I think 'screw this' and go off to do something completely unrelated. That's why I've been working on this bugger, off and on, for months. Argh. But today, I looked up some more secondary literature, and I have a working outline on the last chapter. Progress is made! It's pathetic, but it's progress.

-It's finally spring! I was getting the feeling this winter would only end if someone hammered a stake through its heart. (Can you spot the American Gods reference? Well can ya?) But now, the forsythia bushes are in bloom, there's new grass coming up and tiny leaves on the trees, and I can actually go out without my bulky hideous winter jacket and not freeze my ass off. There was snowfall in the mountains this week, I've heard. No trace of that where I live, thank god. If we just hang in there, we'll get actual T-shirt weather one day. I can feel it.

-Only three sessions left before I can quit my crappy job for good. Conditions at my workplace are getting steadily more chaotic, as in, the boss hasn't been around in weeks and nobody knows where he is. As an added bonus, the guy filling in for him knows hardly any German and not a scrap of English, so communication between me and the management is somewhat lacking. I've got a fairly good handle on my tutoring groups, except for That One Kid, of course. Can't say I'm going to miss them, either. Note to self: find job that doesn't require explaining the gory details of language to people who can read a text 87 times and still not grasp what it says. Yay for being out of there soon.

-I'm going dancin' this Friday! Whee!

-Time passes. Which means a) my trip to England and my visit to Pete are getting steadily closer and b) for once in my life, time is working in my favour. I think that's a first.

-Pete. I mean, we mutually tolerated each other for a week, without him getting freaked out by me, or me getting one of my antisocial moments? I didn't think this was even possible. Must be love. Or masochism. Or both. (Yes, 'mutually tolerated' isn't quite an accurate description, but I'm trying my damndest not to be sappy here. You should be grateful.)

So, in conclusion: life is good. It makes a nice change to plodding along and feeling blah, that's for sure.

*yoink*

Apr. 7th, 2006 02:28 am
nayela: (Default)
Meme stolen from [livejournal.com profile] azriaz:

1. You can only say YES or NO.
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages you / comments and asks!

* * *

1. Taken a picture naked? no
2. Painted your room? no
3. Made out with a member of the same sex? yes
4. Drove a car? yes
5. Danced in front of your mirror? yes
6. Have a crush? yes
7. Been dumped? yes
8. Stole money from friend? no
9. Gotten in a car with people you just met? yes
10. Been in a fist fight? yes

89 more questions under the cut. )

Zoned Out

Apr. 5th, 2006 11:11 pm
nayela: (bunnies)
[livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel, this is all your fault.

I could happily go on floating. In theory, I have work to do. Papers to write, people to see, a life to keep organized. But for now I’m drifting along a little sideways from the rest of the world, not quite in dreamspace, but closer to it than is usual even for me. There is a vortex of memories and stories, dreams and music, and I can slip into it without any effort and let it carry me through the day. There’s the memories we’ve made, there’s the stories we’ve shared, there’s the dreams of things we will yet do, there’s the music you gave me. Songs old and new are coming to find me and I set my work aside, take that one half-step sideways from the world, and listen.

Flowery prose aside: I fear I've been infected with Filk. (Would that be the Fandom equivalent of an STD, I wonder?) There are songs niggling at the back of my brain in addition to the usual plot bunnies. WTF? Thank you, Pete. Hate you dearly. :p
nayela: (language)
Originally, it was [profile] lordofthewheel who gave me this idea. I told him I’d compile a small German phrasebook for him so he won’t be totally clueless when he arrives here next week. Since I’m a horrible showoff, and some of you guys on my flist have mentioned you’d like to learn some German ([profile] insomniac_od, [profile] yannarra, I’m lookin’ at you), I shall embarrass myself by posting it here.

Everybody reading this is warmly invited to join the language geekery, as I plan on adding to and updating this post as we go along. It’s is a slapdash collection of words and phrases that might come in handy, and some notes on usage and pronunciation. If there is anything specific you want to know, by all means ask.

To quote the charming Mad Professor whose translation class I survived last semester: “Think you know English? Think again. If you know the rules of English, you know fuckall, because English is all exceptions and things that make no sense.” German, once you take a closer look, is very similar to English, but there are fewer exceptions and a great deal more rules.

Let's start with some basics. Work in progress under the cut.


Still here.

Mar. 8th, 2006 05:01 pm
nayela: (Default)
Let's face it, this journal is pretty much just a dumping ground for memes right now. I do live and read along, I just don't feel like writing much.

That said, here's a meme from [livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel. He seems to have a knack for coming up with interesting ones. ^_^

Ask me a question about EACH or ANY of the following:

- Friends
- Sex
- Music
- Religion
- Love
- Livejournal

No matter how naughty, sexual, or confidential. Then post this in your journal and see what questions you get asked!

All comments screened.
nayela: (Default)
This is so hilariously true I simply had to post it:

<td align="center"> Nayela --
[adjective]:

Pretentiously academian

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>


Scaaareh. XD
nayela: (Default)
I think I should not end my journal entries with 'stay tuned'. Not only is it rather tacky, it also is ineviteably followed by a long, long period of no entries at all. I won't do it again. How's that for a New Year's resolution?

Well, life goes on. I would like to wish all you people on my friendslist a splendid start of 2006, and let you know I've been reading faithfully along even though I haven't posted much. I guess there's another resolution lurking behind that sentence.

There's nothing much to say otherwise, so if you're interested, here's the (in)famous 2006 meme. This is the third time I'm doing this, and I'm using a slightly different version to the one that's been going around. Read more... )

See you next year! I hope you have a good one. ^_^
nayela: (Default)
Meme snagged from [livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel:

If you had me alone... locked up in your room and I had to do whatever you wanted me to, what would you do with me? (Seriously, ANYTHING goes, and you won't get in trouble.)

All comments will be screened, and nothing you write will be held against you.

Reply and then repost this in your journal. You might be surprised with the responses you get. They could make you laugh, smile, or something altogether different. Or perhaps not...
nayela: (Default)
Swiped this one from [livejournal.com profile] policegirl11. Results? Depressing, but accurate.


ColorQuiz.com Nayela took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Needs to feel identified with someone or something..."


Click here to read the rest of the results.


nayela: (Default)
This is too cute and silly to pass up on.

This egg hatches on September 25, 2005! Adopt one today!
nayela: (Default)
I just got visited by Mormons.

What the Hell??
nayela: (Default)
Meme from [livejournal.com profile] lordofthewheel

YOU CAN ASK ME SIX QUESTIONS.

No matter how random, revealing, rude, naughty or pointless. I promise to answer them 100% truthfully. Repost this in your own journal and see what people ask you.
nayela: (Default)
Bank Holiday is over, and I did not spend it in Brighton. It feels weird. Strange how that place has such a grip on me, after only two visits. But I've had my trip to good old UK for this year, to a different place altogehter. And, as far as I can recall, I still owe you folks a Worldcon report.

Getting there )

Setting up )

Thursday )

Friday )

Saturday )

Sunday )

Monday )

The rest of the trip will get an extra post, so stay tuned (just in case anyone is still reading this). ^_^ I'll write it when I've not been up all night, though...