11.9.13

Pictures and Stuff Like That

First off, a new blog theme has been fitted on tumblr:



This new theme features all pages contained in the spinning disk on the sidebar, cleaning up the interface and leaving more room for description and decoration. The colour scheme is black, purple, white, and blue and the background is an image of New York City, featuring a quote from Gottfried Leibniz on the right-hand side.

This new theme is expected to last well into 2014.

And now, a look at the academic calendar:



Stress is expected and participants in all academic activities are reminded to take frequent breaks for video games and social media. *shuffles papers* Oh. It seems that two classes have been added to the three seen here - Algebra and an Introduction to World Languages. In the interest of saving both trees and money, neither of these classes require textbooks.








In addition to their standard academic studies of mind control and medical care, students will also be learning about microbes this year. Each student will get to take home and look after cute, fuzzy giant microbes just like this guy:




Mortimer the Mad Cow Microbe. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy never looked so cute~

And now, traffic:

The world is quiet. Darkness floods the streets in slow motion, bleeding out from the evening's long shadows. The stars hang low in their black velvet ocean.

The car's tires squeal as it rounds the corner, losing traction and sliding.

"Stop the car!" the woman screams. "Stop the car!"

The man doesn't listen. He stands on the accelerator.

The car runs onto the grass and stops, scraping the retaining wall and resting, wedged onto the neighbourhood's water main. The man runs down a long hill. And the woman runs down a dark street. And the neighbours, having heard the crash, pull on their shoes and take the steps down to the night-flooded street at a jog.

The car's lights are flashing but there is no horn, no water hissing, no sound but the concerned murmurs and calls of the neighbours, fading in the still, slightly sticky air left over after a warm day.

The woman is found. She is bleeding but fixable. She is walking and speaking and the police arrive and she walks and speaks with them. I walk and speak with my neighbours, on the night-flooded street, while the stars hang low in their black velvet ocean.

This has been - traffic.*

And now, the weather.

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Wonderful news, Writerland.

I am, of course, very aware of the date today. While I refuse to completely ignore the significance of the eleventh of September in American history, I feel that I am not qualified (or possibly not eloquent enough) to speak on it at length. Or at all, to be perfectly honest.

On quite a different note, I feel I have to share that today is the one month anniversary of my friendship-marriage to my darling Ryo - a very wonderful friend of mine. I really couldn't ask for a better friend than her and I am so glad that she stumbled across an old post of mine and sent me a message. It's likely that we never would have started talking without that. And I really can't express how saddened I am at that thought.

We'll meet for the first time AFK* at DashCon in 2014 and it would be impossible to explain how much I'm looking forward to it.

Now, Writerland, as the sun rises and day begins for many of you, I leave you with this, one of my favourite quotations:

"...A little acid, sharpness or bitterness is often more pleasing than sugar; shadows enhance colours; and even a dissonance in the right place gives relief to harmony."

Do not fear the darkness; it resides within each of us. Do not fear the pain of living; it is pain that reminds us that we live. Embrace all that life has for you, be it good, bad, or simply the cold gnawing of utter apathy. Know that you feel because you live. And you live because your existence matters. This world - this lovely, broken mess of a world - would not be the same without you.

Goodnight, Writerland. Goodnight.
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* This actually happened. Some idiot wrecked at the end of the block and then bailed from the car - I just Night Vale'd the report up a little.
** Away From Keyboard