I came up with these very quickly, so I'm willing (in fact, eager) to hear what other people think about these, and about characters who aren't on the list yet.

( There are most likely some spoilers here... )

Dear Future Corri,

When students begin to hand in essays in the coming semesters, and you start feeling overwhelmed, like you can't possibly spread out the work and fit in six or seven essays each day on top of all of the other preparation you have to do and hours you have to spend in the classroom, remember this:  You just graded upwards of sixty final essay drafts in a forty-eight hour period. While still teaching and prepping for two classes. With a deadly sore throat for half the time.  If you can pull that off, you can darn well get off your rear end and grade six or seven essays in a day. Get out of bed. Don't go on tumblr, and frickin grade. It will make your life easier, and it will keep you from having to do this again.  Because while it is possible, it is not fun. And the stress of having to grade two classes of final essays in two days is probably part of the reason that your tonsils feel like they're the size of grapefruit right about now.

Love,

Your "End of Spring Semester 2012" Self

I am coming to the realization that while my best hours for creative work are in the afternoon and evening, my best hours for academic work are in the mornings.

And I hate mornings. If I could start my day at 11 or noon each day, I would be just fine. I'm a night owl from a family of night owls.

But I also seem to have somehow developed the ability to get up and get stuff done early in the morning.  These past couple of weeks, I've had to do a ton of grading, and I'm still making my way through the pile, and I'm finding that my most productive days are the ones where I get up early, have some breakfast, and sit down and work for a couple of solid hours. Take this morning.  I got up at 6:30 and had breakfast with Rae before she had to leave to go babysit, and it's not even ten yet, and I've got ten of the seventeen essays that must get done for tonight finished, and I walked the dog, and I'm about to get some work for other classes done.

I need to remember this for next semester.  Because as much as I hate mornings, getting up a little earlier every day for the whole semester would be a heck of a lot easier than cramming a bunch of work into the end for myself.

It's like I tell my students... "Your grade work load at the end of the semester is a reflection of all of the choice you've made over the course of the class."

Now, I'm just hoping to have some energy left tonight when I'm on creatively.  Because... I'm writing something positively awful.  I got the idea from a tumblr friend last night and ended up writing a bunch of snippets of it when I should have been grading, and it's possibly the most depressing thing I've ever done. It's terrible of me to say so, but I'm having an odd kind of fun messing around with it.  I think I'm starting to see why GRRM knocks his characters around so much.  They're interesting when they're making painful decisions and having horrid things happen to them. (Yes, it's an ASoIaF fic. No, I won't tell you what it's about. I want to build up suspense and unrealistic expectations, you know.)

Feeling much better today than I did yesterday.

Jess and Mel ended up coming over last night, and Jess was able to drive me to the eye appointment this morning.  She is fantastic.

The optometrist was very nice and professional and explained to me exactly what he was doing as he did it, and he said that my eyes look healthy, and when I asked about the tension headaches and the blurry vision, he said it was probably because my right eye (which is my dominant eye, as determined by the "make a triangle directly in front of you and center something in it, then close one eye" test) is the one that has changed and needs more correction. My left eye hasn't budged when it comes to the amount of correction it needs. So, my dominant eye is compensating all the time for not quite having the right correction, which makes driving and going back and forth between reading papers and looking at a tv screen across the room very taxing on my eye muscles.  Hence the headaches.  He also took a photo of the inside of my eye that I got to see immediately on his computer screen... it was kind of cool to know that the big orange balls with all those veins were actually mine.  I think they do it to make sure there aren't any signs of glaucoma, and I was happy to have something in my medical records for comparison later if need be.

I picked out some new frames, and I should be getting my new glasses in about a week.

In the meantime, I'm going to make sure I'm sleeping enough (I notice that the worst headaches occur when I'm already a bit sleep deprived), drink lots of water so my eyes don't dry out, and pay close attention to how much time I'm spending staring at computer or iPhone screens. Also, I need to make sure that when I grade, I take breaks and let my eyes rest a bit. I have a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks and not a lot of time to do it in, but my eyesight isn't something I want to mess around with.

In other news...

Rae and I discovered a fantastic little mom and pop Chinese place tonight. We came home with enough leftovers to feed us for a week.

Our neighbors bought a new grill. This means that they no longer make our entire condo smell like lighter fluid every time they barbecue outside on their porch below our balcony. It's a small improvement, but so nice.

I got my car back. It runs. It cost exactly as much as the estimate said it would. This is a huge relief.

I just finished Mockingjay. Everything hurts.

So, I've recently had to do two very grown up things.

First of all, since I finally got vision benefits from School #2, I made myself an eye appointment.  I've known for a while that I need new glasses. I've felt my vision shifting for a while now, and it's been getting harder for my eyes to focus on long drives or when I grade for a long time.  This second one is really scary, because I need to be able to grade and read in order to do my job, and I'm nearsighted. My eyes should have any trouble focusing on things that are near me, but I think that because my vision has changed, the lenses that help me to see far away are starting to interfere with my up close vision. (I hope this doesn't mean it's time for bifocals...) Anyway, I'd noticed the problem for a while, but the on Tuesday, I got an awful stress headache, accompanied by a weird blurry patch in my vision that moved as my head moved and was rimmed by bright, sharp shards of light. It was NOT COOL. It was a good thing I had already canceled class for other reasons, because if I had been at school, I would have been scared to drive home.  So... eye doctor tomorrow. I looked up a good one here in town, and he takes my insurance, and hopefully he'll be able to get the process of new glasses for me rolling. Hurrah for school sponsored vision benefits... 

Second, my alternator on my car died on Thursday.  The battery light came on while I was driving to School #2, but since I was on the freeway, I didn't think it was a good idea to pull over and check it out while cars whizzed by at 90 miles an hour.  My car wasn't making any weird noises, and it seemed to be running smoothly.  So, I continued on to my destination, parked, taught class, and came back to my car.  When I tried to start it, all I got were clicks.  I called AAA, and they sent a very nice guy out, who told me what he was doing as he did it and explained to me that the machine that was supposed to charge the battery wasn't doing anything because the alternator wasn't working.  This meant I had to find a repair place in Simi that would still be open so late in the afternoon and choose to take it there.  Luckily, my brand of AAA membership has a decent tow radius, because School #2 is about 30 miles from my house.  The tow truck driver was a super nice guy too... we chatted about his brilliant physicist son and his old cars and motorcycles.

I got to Pep Boys, and they told me that in order to tell if the alternator was the problem (which was only a suspicion, but a fairly likely one at this point) they had to replace the battery. I talked to my dad today, and he seems to think that I might have gotten taken for a bit of a ride there, but who knows.  I need to find a mechanic I trust who isn't a big chain and who won't try to sell me a company line.  (And who might be a little more reasonable price-wise than Pep Boys. Honestly, this is my first time paying for my car repairs myself, and I picked them because I knew where they were and I knew they'd be open.)  I was supposed to get the car back tonight, but apparently, the part that Pep Boys ordered that was supposed to be shipped overnight didn't arrive today, and so they didn't have it back for me.  This SUCKS, as my eye appointment is tomorrow, the doctor is an HOUR AND FORTY MINUTE WALK AWAY (yes, I looked up walking directions on google), and it's right in the middle of Rae's class.

Luckily, a friend was able to come over tonight, and she's going to take me to my appointment while Rae is in class. Crisis averted.

There are things going on in my life that have nothing to do with this incredibly epic TV show, but... I'd rather spend my time compiling links so I can find them ever again than writing about the neighbors (still obnoxious) or my grading (still piled on the table).

Cast Interviews

This is a series of interviews that Sky (the British TV network) did with the actors about season 2. Can I just say that I really like the interviewer does these? She's quick and witty and asks good questions and has good rapport with the actors.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: Jaime Lannister You know why this one's first. I love Jaime.  I love Nikolaj. I love Nikolaj talking about Jaime, and he says some really interesting and insightful things here when he's not making me laugh so hard I have to pause the video so I don't miss things.

Charles Dance: Tywin Lannister This one has a BIG spoiler in it, because he talks about how a fan came up to him and told him something he didn't already know about Tywin. I was already spoiled for it, but... it's big. Be careful. (And that poor fan... I wouldn't want to be the person who spoiled Tywin about himself. Sounds like he was pretty gracious about it, though... asked the fan for details and all...)

Alfie Allen: Theon Greyjoy In which Alfie defends Theon (he's going to need defenders...), talks about how many of the books he's read, and is generally adorable.

Michelle Fairley: Catelyn Stark Some really interesting stuff about Catelyn as a mother and her relationship with Robb here.

Emilia Clarke: Daenerys Targaryen She. Got. Maternal. Over. The. Dragon props. I love her.

Kit Harrington: Jon Snow I watched this one first, and so I remember it least.... but there's talk about CGI Ghost and being cold all the time. It's Kit... he's cute.

( I'm going to talk about some fairly spoilery things from What is Dead May Never Die here. )

Title: It Won't Be Easy
Spoilers: AU ending for "A Dangerous Deal," so I suppose there might be some spoilers for that episode.
Pairing: Guy/Meg
Summary: Against all odds, Meg lived. Now Guy has to figure out what he feels for the girl who helped remind him who he is.
Genre: Fluff. Pure, unadulterated fluff.
Rating: PG
Word Count:1646
Disclaimer: Robin Hood is copyright to Tiger Aspect and the BBC. All Rights Reserved. No copyright infringement is intended, and no money is being made.
Author's Notes: I wrote this for the lordgisborne community's Woobiefest 2012 that's going on right now. (If Guy isn't the textbook definition of a woobie, I don't know who it.) Also, I wrote this because I needed something sweet in my life with all the pain my other fandoms are putting me through.

( In some ways, it had been easier when he thought she was dying. )

So I'm collecting a massive bookmarks folder full of fun Game of Thrones links... and I thought I'd share.

A friend pointed me to the April Fool's Foxtrot Strip, which you should really click on if you're a fan of My Little Pony, Game of Thrones, or both. 

Next, we've got a really insightful episode review of 2x01 from Rolling Stone.  Well-written, and doesn't focus too much on the more titillating aspects of the show. (I think I've used the word "titillating" in serious conversations more times since I got into this fandom than I have in my WHOLE LIFE.)

And finally, I went looking for a date when A Dance With Dragons would be out in paperback, and I found an answer in this New York Times article.

Next time... my picks of the cast interviews I've collected. Because this cast is AMAZING and insightful and every time I watch them I just sit back in awe of how wonderful they are and how much they love and get their characters.

Because the second season begins on April Fool's day, I think the showrunners should take advantage of the fortuitous timing and do a little something like this for the beginning of 2x01:

( Fade in: Winterfell )