You think a space race nerd like myself would miss out?
Okay so I didn't go to the Telus World of Science's party or have any nerd friends to geek out with and there were no awesome documentaries to watch. *sniff* But... I thought I should at least commemorate it with a picture...


OTL I SPELLED HIS NAME WRONG sob sob sob FIXED IT
The expression on his face is just like :D I wish I could have captured it properly... I'm improving though, I think. :D Just, all the pictures of him just make me think "That's why people want to be astronauts. That's why space travel is so amazing. That's what humanity is all about." I don't know, the thought of space travel has always fascinated me. It's always something associated with the best of humanity, the peak of our technology, innovation, bravery, curiosity, cooperation, determination, and we did the impossible. Sure it's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows but... I dunno, I've always been intrigued by it. It's inspired so many modern day myths and children the world over. If we can do things like that, maybe we can look at our own beautiful Earth and... well, do something. Here's to Yuri, and to all the people that made his incredible journey possible 50 years ago today. 

Anyway, I must go to sleep and dream of spaceships. <3

Hapo

Since finals are approaching once again, it's time for a theme change. Yayyyy.
It's olive and obnoxious like Athens. :p

Sooo I was feeling pretty good but like usual I started thinking about things and it's best to just not think about them. So I'm going to concentrate on the fact that 
IT'S FRIDAY FRIDAY GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY

Now let me tell you I do not care for that song personally, but I acknowledge its social potential as a brilliant meme and consider it an excellent social artifact for study.  :I Same for Justin Bieber but he sings better. I woke up to him this morning and the first line of his song is "You know you love me", which is hilarious. 

I did my oral exam today which was good, and now I have nothing to worry about until finals. I don't have either my classics text or my hip sociology book here today, so... yeah. But I can't wait until my dad gets home so we can clean the house. I haven't been at home much and when I'm there there's not much to do but watch it decay, so I want to start spring cleaning and getting rid of stuff so we can actually live in our house. -_- I've got bites all over my left leg so I'm wondering if there's something in my bed... Plus I'm allergic to all the hair and can't breathe in that house. We need to get rid of carpets. 

Today I learned it was probably a good thing that I didn't take Art and Design... it sounds hardcore. But Art History is sounding fun. :D I  hope I find my direction next year. Whatever happens I need to choose a new major and minor, there's no way I'm keeping East Asian Studies/Art and Design. ><

 The last journal got partially erased unfortunately, but the ideas are still here. Mostly.
I'm stuck here for another hour (but it's still light out which is nice)
I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since this morning.
Although it just occurred to me I have some carrot nut loaf in my backpack...
I'm tired and I don't want to look at my stupid essay anymore, I just want to print it out and be done with it.
Aughhhghihilijhggsgs
I have to wake up early tomorrow. 
I just want this semester to be over. Except Classics, I wish that was just a bit longer. -sigh-
Although the good news is I realized today that my Art History class was cancelled or something and managed to switch it with my English timeslot, so now I'm in the same Art History class as my buddy from Edmontontalia, hahaha. We're gonna talk about Roma-jii and vikings and stuff and it will be sweet. Now my schedule is colourful again, hooray. 
Hmmmmm. I guess I could watch some Class of the Titans. I could get through two episodes, maybe.
Yeah, maybe I'll do that.

I tracked down episodes of Class of the Titans the other day on a whim, When it was on Teletoon I never really watched it, which is weird because it seems like the kind of show I would like: It's got Greek Mythology, AND even better it's Canadian!! It must have been because I watched one episode that was horribly inaccurate or something silly.
In any case, it's motivated me to write my own Greek-Myths-and-High-school story for these reasons.

Pros:

• IT'S CANADIAN AND HAS GREEK MYTHS YES
• It's hilarious
• It's colourful
• The creator is awesome even though his original vision got screwed up

Cons:

• Atlanta is a descendant of Artemis omg I just saw someone wearing a 'Spartan Athletics' shirt what ANYWAY HOW IS NEIL A DESCENDANT OF NARCISSUS IF NARCISSUS WAS IN LOVE WITH HIMSELF or did I miss something?
• The storytelling is awful; way too fast and everyone is okay with stuff
• Why does Theresa have psychic powers?!
• Odie needs to be more wily and less technical. XD

THERE'S MORE THAT I WILL SURELY COME UP WITH like why does Hera look older than Cronus and why is she so agreeable with everyone but I'm motivated to do something about that.
#1. People will not be descendants of people who shouldn't have descendants
#2. People shouldn't already totally embody their ancestors
#3. It will be funny
#4. MORE MINOR CHARACTERS LIKE HESTIA AND BELLEROPHON HECK YES.
  

I am so uncreative with titles.

Upaya: because I have to explain expedient means in my essay and though it makes perfect sense in my head it won't come out on paper.

No Distraction: Because yesterday I had like ten hours to write my essay where I sat and did nothing.
The problem was I had nothing to break it up, so I spent the time listening to Hatsune Miku and wondering about whether I should eat food or not since I had to get rid of the vegetables in the fridge before today and I wondered if I had a snack whether I would be hungry enough to finish off the stir fry I was planning on making.
I wasn't, but thankfully there was just enough room in one of the containers to save the rest of it for later.
I timed my stir fry in anticipation for Big Bang Theory, which wasn't on, so I played a level of Lego Star Wars which I couldn't concentrate on because I was eating, and this morning I woke up feeling really sick.
It feels good to complain about minor things on the internet, I don't bother anyone if they don't bother to read it.
That's probably a main source of my problems, I have no one to talk about my problems with. I'm having one of those emo issues where 'I'm an upper middle class kid who gets everything I want and no one understands me' but it's because all my friends seem to have real hardships they need to get off their chests and any of my petty problems would just make them angry. Or they wouldn't have the capacity to understand; 'cause some of my friends I hang out with for fun and I can't talk about problems with them because it gets awkward, and I realize I'm like that with most of my friends too.

It's like wherever I sit I'm doomed to sit near a power outlet that DOESN'T WORK. There's a big conspiracy because people who get here early take up all the ones along the walls.

But to cleverly segue into my generic power levels joke, guess what I learned yesterday.
Athens: Hey, hey Sparta! What is your average population?
Sparta: ...
Athens: UNDER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Sparta: ...

One thing people have to understand about Sparta: I know it's easy to shove him into the role of 'big guy who punches annoying guy when annoyed', but you can't. Spartan warriors were trained not to react to verbal insults (Because really, if you're a Spartan, talking the talk does not measure up to walking the walk and they know it.) Instead, he either says something laconic (usually funny) or nothing at all, but he rarely smiles.

Anyway, I'm frustrated because I can't find any sources for my paper on 'Naming God' without getting someone's religious philosophy (usually Judeo-Christian) getting shoved down my throat. I'm going to have to go out on a limb here and hope my idea that 'naming' god is associated with other traditions, most notably in Western traditions...but I'm nervous about saying that part at the end because I also want to make the argument that it is another mechanism to distance itself from Hinduism, which if viewed as a monotheistic religion can be seen as having like 33 billion names of God. *sigh* I'll figure it out.

I also want to talk about how Buddhism is westernized and then reflected back onto 'ancient' Buddhism, which is awesome. Maybe I'll just focus on that. I guess I'm mostly talking about Buddhism as it is seen from a Western perspective, so I shouldn't worry about the first thing if I'm talking about it in the context of Western traditions (While acknowledging that it is not limited to Western Traditions, an academic henotheism if you will.)

I wish people would reeeeead this. Is it too much to ask that I can have a few people who don't suffer from frequent bouts of TL;DR?
*moan gripe sob* For all I know she-who-must-not-be-named is aware of my live journal and is reading this as I speak though has not brought it up in conversation yet, the sneaky jerk. XD

I'm worried about my Anthropology test suddenly. I wonder how I did. Not that I'll be finding out soon. I'll check eclass... Nope. Not yet. 

It's very nice outside. Well, relatively, it's still -4. That's good because it means hopefully I won't have to walk through a swamp later today. It's quite windy and still snowing. Everyone's complaining since Spring officially started the other day, but...

Well, okay I need to look really busy like I'm typing the essay or novel of my life because there are people seeking opinions over there hurr hurr.

Hmmmm. We talked about the Iliad again today, and how whiny Achilles was and stuff. That was fun.
-sigh- I'm really bored. I should be working but I can't until I'm home and have food, which I can't do until Anthropology is over, which won't be for another hour and a half and two minutes. I wish it were time to go to class already, argghh.

I've got a Religion paper due in about a week, so I'm writing about it here because I can. I like keeping a journal, even if know one reads it. Yes, I am going to gripe about that every post. You're not reading it, so who cares, amirite?
That actually segues into Buddhism quite well, since in Buddhism 'real life' is basically the Matrix, only there are not robots controlling everything. Well, actually, there are robots handing out candy and puppies in Pure Land Buddhism, but they're not real either. In short you aren't really reading this because you are just a collection of illusions interacting with other collections of illusions, only you aren't because nothing exists. Mind trip! This is so cool, because it fits into my ideas about personification so well (Well, Buddhism fits well into most things.) 
You see, any given personification is just an amalgamation of the creator's ideas and stereotypes about any given thing; it's really more of a reflection of oneself than anything it's supposed to represent. Buddhism says that we are all personifications, in a way, I suppose. We're not individuals, we're defined by what we are not, how we are defined against other people's illusions about things. And being a Canadian, my source of identity and pride comes from stereotypes that I constantly have to defend and define against Americans... even if I don't really watch hockey or like maple syrup or say 'eh?' all the time.

Really, there isn't really any such thing as 'discreet'. I'm getting a little bit communist-hippy-we-are-all-one here, but I believe that what adds interest to our lives is how we define things.

AUGGHHH THIS IS SO COOL.
I'm a bit weird, but this is the kind of stuff I like. It's awesome when I can connect them to other things I like. 

Now if only I could figure out how to connect the story I'm supposed to be doing an essay on and how Buddhism is portrayed in the west.
Given the topics, it shouldn't be that hard, but I'll keep looking. I think I'll take a break and practice my Japanese or something.

 A continuation of my last brain vomit on personifications. If you are a mysterious lurker and don't want spoilers for the comics I may do in the future, leave now. 

I am the only person I know who reads this journal and hates spoilers. *sigh*

Okay, back to Thebes.
I don't really know what I was thinking when I designed him. Well, sort of.
Thebes is a tall gangly guy with a full beard, a farmers tan, and hair covering his eyes. My logic was that Athens thought of him as a backwards rural hillbilly with pottery that could barely be considered 'quaint'. (Then again, Athens thinks that about a lot of people.) Athens also calls him a 'Beotian Pig' because he thinks Thebes gets fat on his local diet instead of slaving away importing it from overseas. I know, right? XD

I've spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out the domain nonsense on Windows 7: I have a local account (which took me hours to create because the majority of the options for modifying accounts have been hidden) but Microsoft Office is only authorized on my dad's account which is connected to his work domain. T_T I was trying to figure out how I could change his username or connect my account to the domain, but I can't do either of those. All that's left to do is to whine at the tech people. :/
...And this plug-in isn't working and I'm at less than half battery power. But since I have nothing to do I'm going to sit here typing for another twenty minutes or so. About anything. Ughh.

I need to start keeping journals again. I'd like to physically keep writing in mine, but this time I don't expect to share it with anyone. 
My memory isn't awful, really, but I have this awful habit of needing to look up things I've written (electronically or other-wise) in order to remember things. There are just too many things floating around that I have to do or whatever. 

Hmmm.

Welllll today in my Classics class we talked about Thebes and Oedipus and stuff. I'm thinking about doing a few series about the founding of the city-states and their mythological/legendary history. I've done a lame comic about the founding of Athens already, haha.

Since no one reads this I can post my innermost thoughts, haha. Okay, not really.
But I'm thinking about how personifications would fit and change in stories like these. It's an interesting concept, anthropomorphizing things that is. 
For example, the first founding of Thebes was by Cadmus: he named the city on the acropolis 'Cadmeia'. Later on, Oedipus' descendants renamed the entire city Thebes when it had extended around the acropolis; they built walls around the entire city. How does this translate to a personification? Did Cadmus only discover Thebes' head? Or did Thebes have a rapid growth spurt and needed a bigger house? The latter sounds more feasible. Are city-states the children of their leaders? Do they only emerge after they have been 'claimed', or were they always there waiting to be discovered? In my mind, the city-states can exist as long as there are or at the very least can be human settlements. Parents don't really factor into it unless you have a Parent-Vassal relationship with another city.

Well, gotta go. 

Hapo