the NPC who tells you the bridges are open

Eurovision!

Sun, 15 May 2011 23:01:32 GMT

It's the end of three_weeks_for_dw, aww. As you can tell, I didn't write much for it this year. I didn't have the motivation to follow through on the meme after starting it, and my last couple of posts were personal enough that I wanted to crosspost them in a normal manner. I'm thinking I want to shake things up for myself and have my own personal journal challenge - more frequent posting, more personal posting. Something of that sort. I think I'd like to post daily between now and the start of Unravelling, May 30th. That's two weeks - perfect.

I'm not sure where this week went. I've been WoWing a bit, sleeping a lot, generally tired and not being powered up by any part of my life. Ah, but then there was Eurovisioning! I missed the first semi-final through sleeping, but watched the Thursday semi - Jedward got through, the terrific 'I Love Belarus' did not. I spammed Twitter and ignored the begrudgers who can't handle a night or two of Twitter being about things they dislike. A break on Friday, then more Eurovision on Saturday - and the annual IRC party! That's one of the best parts. I'd never watch Eurovision alone in my room with no one to talk to and squeal at. I'm physically alone when there's an IRC party, but not mentally/emotionally. Squee, sarcasm, innuendo, new injokes.

(I've mentioned before that sound of mental reading and sound of thinking in words use the same parts of my head as listening with my ears. I had to go back later and relisten to some songs because I'd been so busy talking/listening in type that I didn't take in some of the songs.)

The voting is usually the best part, but I was primed for a rather different result! I was sure it'd be between Moldova and Ireland. I couldn't believe it when BLUE initially did so well - was satisfied that they finally settled into 11th place, beyond my poor twins.

( The best songs of this year's Eurovision )

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DW meme: What do you do online when you're not on DW?

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:53:13 GMT

I spend a lot of time on my ipad, and I use Twitter and Google Reader (through Reeder) very heavily. Tumblr and Wordpress blogs make up a major proportion of my feeds, though I'm only a lurker on either platform. On the PC, I might be playing World of Warcraft or browsing blogs and IRCing. I've also got a concerning addiction to a clicky game called Unicreatures. And of course there's still LJ. Few enough posts on my friends page that I don't spend as much time as I did once upon a time, but it still matters to me.

***

I'm enjoying the fruits of the fonsfaq project! Frequently (Or Not So Frequently) Asked Questions answered. If you haven't yet heard about it:

FONSFAQ stands for "Frequently (Or Not So Frequently) Asked Questions" (about a particular topic). Someone hosts a topic, preferably one per entry, and then in comments people can ask - i.e. leave prompts - or claim some issue relating to the topic that they have always wanted to explain/write about. The host then collects the links to all essays that people have written in reply to the prompts and everybody has a lot to read and learn! dingsi maintains the master list of FONSFAQs to date.

I'd rather like to participate and host my own FONSFAQ, but I can't think of any subject I know enough about. I could do Ireland - but I only live here, I don't know anything about it! If any of you have questions that I could help answer, I'd be happy to host one. Just, uh, not terribly wise or even slightly authoritative. I'm a citizen of books and the internet, not Ireland and the EU.

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DW meme day 2 and 3

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:17:41 GMT

Why did you choose your journal name?

I've used the name 'phoenix' on IRC for years, a short form of my unwieldy LJ name 'phoenixdreaming'. It's a vibrant fierce little name, one I have affection for, but it doesn't say much about me and it's not distinctive. Names are hard. Someone's discussion of journal names the other day had me intrigued and surprised by the amount of symbolism and importance some give to journal names, and I'm sorry that I don't put as much effort into naming.

I'm very conservative about names because they're such a permanent label and I resist permanent mistakes. They say too much; they provide great opportunities to misstep. If I have to explain a name I'd rather not use it and instead have one meaningless, pleasant and safe. I may be reconsidering this. I'm also intimidated by the upheaval I perceive in changing a name - loss of reputation (good and bad), new image, new associations.

Put like that, I'd rather like to change my name :)

Do you crosspost? Why or why not?

I do! While my activity on LJ has dwindled and my friends page grown quiet, I still have important ties with people there. There have been times when I've considered turning off comments there, just to have them all together, but I prefer my friends to have the option of where to talk if they're honouring me with responses. Besides, my habit of locking entries in the past year has made it too inconvenient to insist comments go on just one site.

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3 Weeks for Dreamwidth: initiation and index

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:14:02 GMT

I'm participating in three_weeks_for_dw over the next few weeks. My plan is to post the full entries only on DW, probably with exceptions for locked entries, and link and summarise them on LJ. Anon and openid comments are enabled on DW. If you don't have a DW account and want one, please let me know! Same goes for if you're added on LJ but not on DW or want to know what I mean by "openid" or anything - I'd like to know. I want my participation in 3Weeks for DW to be a happy experiment and not leave anyone feeling isolated from the fun going on.

I'm also doing a daily meme with DW-specific questions. The questions are behind the cut and I'll be updating this post to index the meme entries.

( Read more... )

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DW meme: Why did you sign up for Dreamwidth?

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:00:59 GMT

I signed up to DW during closed beta. I'd been peripherally involved in DW during its earliest days. DW first appeared as a possibility in denise's entries on LJ, something she referred to very teasingly, promising nothing. "Somehow" everyone still knew what was up. I became very excited.

I'd loved LJ, but it'd changed a great deal. The encroaching ads, corporate overlords whose ethos didn't match the site as I knew it, its waning activity... I had become resentful of it for sucking yet still being my only desired home. I wanted somewhere new but still like LJ: the same site, but improved, going in a direction that appealed to me and my friends, and young and vigorous. And now Denise appeared with this Idea and mark on board complementing her skills promising just these things. I'd respected her for as long as I knew her, and she has an unmatched skill at leading people and a thorough understanding of LJ. Mark knew the LJ code base exceedingly well, having worked there.

So I joined #dreamwidth IRC channel, I joined the mailing list, got myself a dreamhack test server, and counted down to the site's launch. I wanted to be involved in this cool new thing from the very beginning and looked for some purpose. That bit... didn't go so well. Work and college took a lot of my time and energy. Insecurity and shyness held me the rest of the way back from doing the little things within my abilities. When DW entered closed beta, it did so without me, and I watched tearily as other people, useful people, sprung onto the site and did useful things.

Believe tis obvious I consider this a collection of failures on /my/ part, but at the time it squashed my enthusiasm for DW. My userid is 371 - it didn't exactly take long to get my own account; it just wasn't what I'd anticipated so hungrily. I've certainly settled in since and I'm not going anywhere. But I'm more reserved in my liking for the site than I'd like to be.

Actually, my biggest mark on DW is from something I did years ago. I created the Negatives s2 style in 2005 for a contest. fu asked if she and aveleh could use it as a system layout, and after significant modification it became DW's first style! (OMG! :D) So if ever you're curious about/grimacing at the black and white oddly aligned style many old journals sport, hi! Blame me :D

(Questions/meme index)

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THE BOOKS ARE TAKING OVER

Sun, 09 May 2010 17:43:39 GMT

yeah, um, I read a lot. Just so you know.

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Thirty days into 365

Sun, 09 May 2010 01:46:06 GMT

(Ferrari F430. This car sounds like alien heaven.)

Tomorrow (or technically today, since it's just passed midnight), I'll have hit thirty days of my 365 photography project! That marks not yet ten percent of it done, but so far I have taken photographs every day and look set to continue. This is big! I'm proud of myself. I use a Canon 1000D, which I hadn't previously been in the habit of lugging around, but now I bring it with me everywhere and every day. Going out without my camera bag is now like leaving the house in a nightdress: it'd feel bizarre. (I don't usually wear a nightdress, but going out entirely unclad would feel an order of magnitude more odd than simple cameralessness.)

I set a ban on posting photos before the thirty days was up, but now I'll be able to share them! When I want to. Am thinking of maybe posting a roundup every week of particular favourites, but I won't commit to any schedule: my main aim in this whole project is to coax my creative spirit out of hiding and since it's /working/ I don't want to stress it with things like "must be original enough to share publicly" and such.

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Is it a meme? It is!

Sat, 01 May 2010 14:30:02 GMT

1. Copy and paste your reading list list.
2. If you've subscribed to multiple journals by the same person, delete all but the main one.
3. Bold the name of everyone you know or have met in "real life."
4. Italicize people you've known, online or off-, for five years or more.
5. *Star* people you've gone to school with (primary/secondary/college/beyond).
6. [Bracket] people whose houses you've stayed at / who've stayed at your house / who've lived with you.

( warning: huge list )

(Do let me know if I don't have you marked properly. Especially around the five-year boundary: some of you I feel I've known forever, even though it's been just a few years, so I may have got confused some places. Also, Emma, I know I haven't stayed in your house but with the various things - hostel, rho's house, visiting - I decided to count you anyway. SUFFER.)

I honestly marvel at the number of people I've met because of LJ and DW. Primarily from LJ Support, where I made most of my long-standing friends. Guild Wars and Tokio Hotel fandom lay claim to another few (though those are indirectly from LJ Support too, but TH prompted me and midwintersong to go to Finland and meet anotherdream and malvien.) This once-friendless, silent, socially-anxious girl thanks you from the bottom of her heart for getting to know her, giving her a chance, helping her to grow up and become the pretty decent human and friend she now is. Fuck yes. Nothing has improved more drastically since I got the internet than my ability to believe that I can cope with and sustain human connections on an approaching-equal level.

I will say, though, that I want to figure out how to deepen the existing friendships and make more on that kind of level. Because while the thought of many people out there who have a generally positive view of me is /such/ a reassuring one, which gives me so much more trust in humanity, I'm specifically looking for more than that. The danger zone, where you get to know people well enough that they can hurt you and you can hurt them. Or, for me, where I consciously or unconsciously try to change to suit their images of me.

(I've such a grand army of defensive thoughts in here with me, not all of which I'm comfortable talking about because some of them are, basically, insults to anyone who is a friend or tries to become friends with me; dismissive thoughts which try to convince me it's not worth spending the time becoming friends with someone or approaching them - as my self-esteem increased and the "I suck too much" voices quietened, it changed to "they aren't that interesting, don't bother". I thought the first were bad enough, but at least they could be discussed without being /mortal insults/ to any friend I try to discuss them with. I *have*, however, found a gradual treatment for this nasty defence, and that's mindfulness meditation. Specifically metta, lovingkindness, meditation.)

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Three Weeks for Dreamwidth starts tomorrow

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:58:49 GMT

So, Three Weeks for Dreamwidth is starting tomorrow! Because of that, any posts I make in the next three weeks will only be posted in full on DW, though I'll link from LJ for those of you who don't read DW. (If any of you would like a DW code for easier access there, especially for locked entries, let me know. I'm always happy to provide them.)

The only thing I definitely have lined up to post is a post on photoblogs for photofriends. Evidently I need something else that looks content-y! If anyone has any ideas for things they'd like to see me post about, especially anything I've said in the past "I must post about _____", or which they think I could rant about entertainingly, let me know! Comments are open, PM is open. Help me out here and you will be rewarded with words.

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