Ninjas STILL can't catch you if you're on fire

I have returned since Monday and have already managed to feel like my sense of time is out of whack. And have gone to bed at midnight or half past midnight the last two days. I wonder if these feelings of being tired are the depressing truth that jetlag is now finally affecting me? Ugh. Have so many things to do in the limited time I am here, and am already feeling the danger of falling into a lump of Not Caring and Not Doing Enough.

Productive Things Done So Far, Though:
__ AN "OFFICIAL" GRADUATE IS ME (AKA I now have the complete papers in my hand). Three and a half years of university that ended up crystallized on a few pieces of unspectacular paper, handed to me even WITHOUT the cheap-ass carton folder (Uni Wien ran out. SO CLASSY). Ended up with a slightly better GPA than I expected, which is nice. I will probably still not really have internalized the fact that this part of my life is now well and over with, though I am already feeling very chill when I hear about everyone's uni assignments and go "I AM FREEE". Bring on a whole new set of other problems though lol. I do like the fact that my semester sticker only runs out on my birthday, which means that for Getting Shit Cheaper purposes, I am still a student next month. Because damn the transit tickets are hellaciously expensive once you can't use a semester ticket anymore.
__ Met with Wido yesterday to hang out and give him his belated birthday present (assorted Thai curry pastes and dried fruit), he made such an adorable :DD face when he saw it, ahhh. Have also been hanging at Miss Olga's domicile in the evenings and we watched Charlie Bartlett yesterday. ANTON YELCHIN IS SO ADORABLE and I basically spent the entire movie being ridiculously charmed and making eeeee noises whenever RDJ appeared as well. I still stand by the fact that Charlie's love interest had an ENORMOUS HEAD though. And the punkass dude looked like a poor-man's version of Puck from Glee. Or is it the other way around, since the movie came out first? Hmm. Speaking of movies, I also saw Precious on the flight to Vienna. While I guess a bit of the sheer impact of the film was diminished by seeing it on such a tiny screen, it was still a very intense experience and Gabby Sidibe and Mo'nique's performances were truly amazing. I spent a lot of time just making horrified faces at Mo'nique's character's actions especially, JFC.
__ Made an email inquiry to a travel agent re: my ticket back to BKK, made some prelim checks of when I should go to see my grandparents.

Things that should be done tomorrow, goddammit self:
__ Buy the train ticket, go to MC and see about canceling my phone contract, get the dorm cancellation contract filled out, pay for April net
__ Throw some stuff out, sort through paperwork, see what to do with my bank accounts and insurance, MAKE LIST OF SHIT TO DO

Things that I will be doing right now:
__ Get ready to see Olga and go to some talk that our Bundespräsident Heinz Fischer is actually holding in the dorm campus here. Though I have never really involved myself with Austro-politics much, I still think that seeing him in the flesh would be kind of cool. And Olga has the best anecdotes about him (the last time he did this talk, he actually laid some tracks-- old school jazz!-- at the post-talk party thing lolol what)

The past few days have been very informative re: WHEN CAN WE FINALLY GRADUATE fuckery. So, as far as we know, there is no problem with the electives as we have written them in the fancy Yellow Paper of Potential Graduation, no problem with the random electives still floating around being unsorted in the UNIVIS online account and I heard back from my UE WERB prof that the grades from our blockseminar last Nov will be handed in by January. And at this week's UE HIST I actually found out from the teach that by volunteering for inputting some questionnaire data in pre-made MS Excel tables (referring to a pre-made code book!), I will a) get a grade by the end of January and b) apparently not have to write the 4-5 page reflection that everyone who isn't coding will have to do?? I mean, shit, this is freaking fantastic news for me, but lol if it doesn't reek of intense unfairness. I keep expecting there to be some kind of catch, but ah well, if that is so then I will find out next week. Now I just have to hope that the SPL will actually upload the grades by early Feb, ahh that typical UNIVIS grade appearance lag better not fuck me up! At least Carmen got to hand her stuff in already, and I can just observe her example :Db

In other happier fun times news, I got mail from taurenova, apple_scruffer and mcollinknight! LADIES YOU ARE ALL BRILLIANT. I loved the cute little cards and C, I am sorry to say that I have already nommed the lollipop and maple syrup candy. YOUR DELICIOUSNESS, I EATED IT :D. The heron card is really gorgeous, and I am kind of cracking up about that fact that all three of the mail have turned out to have bird related content/motifs... GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE, I PRESUME <33

TWO FUNNY LINKS:
Tiny Art Director ...basically some illustrator dude getting art critiques from his young daughter. It kind of cracks me up because I can just imagine my own tiny cousin dissing her Dad when he tried and failed to meet her expectations in that classic game of "draw shit in futile attempt to entertain bratlings".
LOOK AT THIS MAN'S FACE ...oh Chris Pine, you adorable perv ♥

ONE AWESOME LINK:
Everybody has probably already heard about this, or is actually bidding or offering something up for bids themselves, but signal boosting never hurts, right? There is a humongous fandom charity auction going on over at help_haiti, and just clicking through some of the stuff and seeing the variety and scope of what is on auction for a good cause is pretty damn awesome. Fandom kicks ass ♥

Even though time continues to hurtle by at quite alarming an alarming speed, I am at least happy that things seem to be looking up now. Because I remain far too fond of this easy format, again I present a list of HAPPY:

__ I PASSED ABWL!!. Just about made it with a four (Carmen kicked my ass with a 3, but woo we are both through!), and hoooooooo fuck am I ever so relieved! This means that I can hand in my Freie Wahlfächer form early Jan, hope it gets approved in the three weeks it takes to process, and theeeen once my final last two seminar grades are in the system by what will hopefully be early Feb, submit my Bachelor's Degree application form thingamajiggers so that I can finally fucking GRADUATE already after the additional three weeks it will take for that to hopefully go through the system. Graduating university seemed so much more easier and full of pomp and ceremony in the American movies, lol. I guess it's still just true that no one here gives a flying fuck about Bachelor's Degrees, though I am not about to start my Masters just because part of me does kind of want a nice ceremony

__ jorajo!! I GOT YOUR CARD YESTERDAAAAY ♥!! Thank you so much Rhonda, I loved the adorable penguins~~~ Your signature is so loopy and cute, ahhh I AM ALL FULL OF FUZZY PENGUIN FEELINGS NOW. And ironically, I am still sitting on my large pile of mail for EVERYBODY EVERYWHERE, lol whoops?? EXPECT THEM TO BE SENT OFF MONDAY/TUESDAY OR SO. I hope. At least I can guarantee that it will be extra awesome mail? (Especially laulan, I am already curious how much the shipping will kill me, but PREPARE TO GET YOUR MIND BLOWN with this Chrismabirthday package ;DD)

( More HAPPY within ♥ (Vampire Diaries, The Princess & The Frog )

( ONE OF MANY TO COME END OF YEAR MEMES just for funsies )

Oh and THIS was pretty cool. A "gibberish rock song written by an Italian composer to sound like English". Interesting things about how language sounds to be heard here, and I for one really did think at times that it sounded understandable at times, but more in the nonsensical words in the trippiest lyrics ever way. A link for the language nerd in all of us!

PS OH WOW THIS ENTRY IS LIKE A GIANT WALL OF TEXT. But it felt good to type. So yeah. Feel free to TL;DR or something XDD

-COMPLETED ABWL EXAM. I can be social again, now that the crunchtime is over! Or tomorrow, when I wake up again. But back to the exam. Well. What to say about it? It would be lying to say otherwise: This was one of the most difficult tests I have ever written. Due in part to the pressure (IF I PASS: LAST UNI EXAM EVER) but also because I had no real concept of how to do a large part of the math in it. Still, there were bright points, most notably the fact that the BWZ people are lazy fucks and apparently like to reuse the same exam questions, so some of the answers I tried to halfheartedly memorize off the ~dubious answer sheets~ were actually featured. And drilling some simple formulas into my brain actually paid off. Made it even more embarrassing that I got really mixed up on some of the theory though, what the hell. Hope that won't be my undoing, hah! All in all, I still wouldn't be surprised to have failed, but oh how I hope that luck is on my side and that I made the correct guesses... I do not want to have to redo this exam, all the note-taking I actually ended up doing has got to have been the most physical writing I have done since forever. I am such a horrible uni student. ANOTHER REASON WHY GRAD SCHOOL WOULD BE SUCH A HORRIBLE IDEA FOR ME

-Carmen and I looked utterly fab, dressed to the nines even headed to our academic doom in the JESUS FUCK IT'S GETTING COLD of Viennese weather. Her: Kickass yet feminine leather jacket, roughly-knit dark red scarf, dark blue fitted v-neck sweater and her swank long-ish dark blue/green/white plaid skirt with boots. Moi: my awesome new indigo winter jacket, black shirtdress with silver/black sequined squiggle pattern, dark grey tweed shorts + grey stockings & boots.

-Early X'mas present exchange time! Swapped our gifts since we won't have much time together once her sister arrives on Wednesday and combined it with watching the Dexter S4 finale and the first four episodes of The Vampire Diaries. Will probably have to make another separate post tomorrow, but suffice to say HOLY SHITTTTTTT re: the former, and GODDAMN, THIS IS SO FUCKING ADDICTIVE to the latter. Damn you, vampire show that I actually wholeheartedly enjoy. True Blood doesn't really count, as I am really just interested in what Eric and his entourage are up to... ANYWAYS. So I had no idea what this giant rectangular thing wrapped in aluminum foil (in lieu of wrapping paper, wut) on Carmen's bed was, amidst little tiny gifts like hairbands, pudding and caviar(!) face masks, which made my mind even more blown when I opened it and saw: THE FUCKING COSMOPOLITAN MEN'S B&W CALENDAR FOR 2010!! LOOK AT THIS FUCKING PIECE OF ART. The size alone pretty much blows me away (71 x 49,2cm!!) and the men pictured are all just simply gorgeous. And naked. I don't know how much I have mentioned this on LJ, but it is pretty much something I have always done since I started uni here-- treating myself to a nice b&w male nude calendar every year. My uni friends are apparently at turns either delighted or vaguely weirded out at how enthusiastic I get about it, tss~~. This year's calendar was quite disappointing, which meant just using some old favorites as decoration, but now? I am extra-thrilled to hang this baby up in January ♥
And I was pretty happy that Carmen liked my present for her-- basically assembled a set of blue and nautical themed accessories (batik sky-blue scarf, turquoise+anchor earrings and matching bag keychain, blue & white glassbead flower earrings) as well as a pair of Nepalese and Indian bracelets snagged in Bangkok and the last of the fancypants Green tea I set aside. Buying presents for her is so satisfying, ahhh :D


.....is it nearly 3.30AM already? FUCK. Sleep calls! Man, I hope that when I wake up, Sabrina's male ~visitor~ will be gone. I knew there was a reason behind her cleaning the bathroom all hardcore like that a few days ago! Good thing I spent so long over at Carmen's room, ugh I remember the previous visits all too well. NOISE POLLUTION. They should go back to fucking at his place, ugh I despise them so :|

ON TUESDAY:
-Watched (500)Days of Summer with cheshire_tabby! It was wonderful and exceedingly charming and just a movie that was made with such care and love, though you really were in it just preemptively feeling sorry for JGL's character already. But if you were to get your heart broken to smithereens by someone, I guess Zooey Deschanel would be a worthy candidate. HER EYES ARE SO UNREAL AND GORGEOUS, HOLY CRAP. And JGL does "head over heels in glorious and all-encompassing love" so damn well, I actually felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable staring directly at his face sometimes. THIS GUYYYYY. The music was also a delight, and Olga I most def want to borrow the OST from you sometimes! PS. I STILL HAVEN'T DECIDED ON WHICH RINGTONE I WANNNNT :O

ON WEDNESDAY:
-Watched the first three episodes of season 9 of Scrubs. I must admit-- it ain't that bad! Nothing can measure up to Scrubs back in its heyday of awesome, but I actually like the new characters, though I still have difficulties remembering their names (Number one/Drew and Angry RA are my two favorites so far though)
-Distracted myself from everything ever (I AM RUNNING OUT OF FANFIC TO READ NOOOOOO)
-Received quirkytaverna's AWESOME, AWESOME Christmas card ♥ ♥! Thank you so much~~ It is simply adorable, I love the über-Australian X'mas on the beach motif :DD

-Was debilitated by the most overwhelming cramps I have ever experienced in my 21 years of life. Seriously, I had taken two painkillers which are normally more than enough, but didn't do jack shit this time round. I was actually pale in the face, felt nauseous, dizzy and my entire lower back and my lower abdomen were hurting like hell. Didn't know if I needed to throw up or not, and was considering spending the evening sitting in the bathroom with my back to the (glorious) heater and deciding whether or not crying would be a good idea, when Sabrina came back and proceeded to have what sounded like a very intense phone conversation in her room, with foot-stomping and yelling, so I dragged myself over to Carmen's place instead. Probably alarmed her a bit with my insistence of staying seated on the floor of her bathroom, clutching her god-send water bottle and trying not to moan in pain at random intervals. But it helped, and eventually, after about an hour and after a lot of water and tea I felt well enough to head back to my own place. Jeebus christ, I sure as hell hope that this won't start to be a usual occurrence! DNW to be utterly fucked up over this every damn month, ughhhhh. /womanly woes

ON THURSDAY/AFTER I WAKE UP AGAIN:
-I MUST GET STARTED WITH ABWL PRACTICE. OH MY FUCKING GOD SELF YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO START SINCE MONDAY, GET WITH IT!!!
-Get mail (+presents) started for people and ready to send off (or at least a first batch)! Have already laid out all potential postcards that were carefully hoarded in Copenhagen and collected over the years... and wow that was an exercise that shouldn't have taken as long as it did. Shows how ingrained my pack-rat mentality is that it took me at least multiple attempts to put a travel location card in the "to-send" pile. I mean, I KNOW I do not need at least 3 different motifs for each city I've been in, but tell that to my inner-rabid collector.

OH AND EVERYONE!, if you are not already, this is me telling you to go check out all the goodness that is being posted over at yuletart right now! I can't wait to see when mine is gonna get posted, but until that happens, there are other super cool artworks and handicrafts being posted three times a day! LIKE THIS FUN STAR TREK ART. Ahhh, so cute!!

1.) CARMEN HAS BEEN BACK SINCE SUNDAYYYYYYYY ♥! My dorm life, my uni life, my ~~life in general~~ now feels complete again! I mean, I functioned pretty well and was actually quite social on my own, all things considered, but it really is a different kind of complete awesome, now that she is back. We went shopping on Monday and I basically had an intensely productive haul, hello SWANK NEW BLACK ANKLE BOOTS and really awesome indigo blue Esprit EDC winter jacket that I can't direct link here, but believe me when I say that it is totally stylin' ♥ Also, I ordered Havemercy and the Generation Kill book from Thalia-- holiday reading, here I come!

2.) So many fun things are planned for these next few days/weeks-- outings with Hazel and Marius, lunch and movies (NEW MOON LAWL) AND IMMINENT COPENHAGEN!1 with Carmen, girl's night in with Daniela and Romana, maybe something with Wido so he doesn't freak out over his thesis AAAAAAND I have been ace with skyping people recently (laliandra I LOVE OUR CONVOS, even if the internet is a cruel cocktease connection-blocker!) and JOHANNES even skyped me of his own volition. Good boy <33

3.) MISS OLGA AKA cheshire_tabby is back from her trip to Chi-Town and I am already all a-quiver to hear ALL ABOUT IT and botherbotherbother her and her glorious bachelorette pad again. YOU BREATHED THE SAME AIR AS MISHA AND THE Js, DUDE I WILL FOREVER BE SO JEALOUS, AND THAT PICTURE WITH MISHA IS LOVELY ♥

4.) Fantastic mail from my RL friend La and dearest mcollinknight! C, I cannot state how much I adore those ginormous earrings, and lol now I am actually thinking about future wardrobe pieces to buy to wear around those earrings, as I fail at having neutral basics to really flaunt these babies :D Already got compliments from the two days I wore them though ♥ Must start on my own mail packages, haven't decided when I should time the sending off of stuff-- maybe one lot pre-Copenhagen and then the Copenhagen goods get smooshed with the intended Xmas mail? HMMMMM.

5.) MY WEEKEND WAS SO BOSS. Career-confirming, even! PR and magazine writing, you are doable, but you can never ever measure up to the joy that advertising brings me ♥ I never would have though that spending 12 hours doing uni seminars on a weekend would have been so enjoyable, even considering that *shudder* MATH was involved. Media Planning is crazy hard, but I can kind of see the fun in it, and the beauty in getting the numbers to align and fall into place. The CEO of a really big Media research firm in Austria was even our prof for this course, and lol he apparently was a graduate of this major, too? A SIGN THAT PUBLIZISTEN CAN ACTUALLY GET REAL JOBS lolol. Have a lot of time to work on our final assignment for the next session that is the weekend we get back from Copenhagen: A PPP on our own new media impulse and idea for an established brand-- mine are the tiny yet delicious D'Arbo Fruchtikus. I THINK IMMA BUY SOME AGAIN... for "research" purposes, ya know ;Db

As of this afternoon, my Bakk2 thesis was officially out of my hands and off at the printers to be binded nicely and cost me far too much cash (38€ WHAT THE FUCK). I FINISHED IT! And I must say, with no small thanks to the glorious ladies cheshire_tabby and laulan and their eagle eyes and willingness to listen to my extensive complaining (if you think I was bad on LJ/FB, just imagine me on a mobile phone) and go "YOU ARE BEING VAGUE HERE. CLARIFY" at the bits where I was lazy and throwing around words like ~aspects of identity~ and being all hand-wavey.

TOTAL PAGE COUNT OF ACTUAL THESIS PAPER CONTENT: 54!
TOTAL PAGE COUNT, COMPLETE WITH TRANSCRIPTS AND LITERATURE AND EVERYTHING: 97!!

This is by far the most I have ever written in my life for a single purpose or course or whatever. I know I kept whining about how I hope I just pass, but honestly I have become kind of proud of it, and I hope the prof likes it and gives it a good grade. Tomorrow morning, all I have to do is pick up the thesis paper from the printers at nine, half past nine-ish and head off to the institute to drop it off in the secretary's office tomorrow morning before noon and I should be hopefully set and really and truly done with it. It is such a strange feeling, I mean, I just spent the evening kind of blankly sitting and staring at stuff online because I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. Lol somehow looking for distractions doesn't work as well when one doesn't really have anything actually pressing anymore XD.

ALSO,TOMORROW ONWARDS I now have no more excuses for the following: starting with Yuletart and SPN/J2 Xmas artings, translating my CV into German and writing cover letters to apply for shit, DOING MY LAUNDRY WHOOPS and thinking about what other uni things I need to get done. Ahhhh!

IN CONCLUSION: Have a typically strange video from my favorite Thai band ever, MODERN DOG ♥ The best part of their songs is how they build to a gradual crescendo (at ca. 3:00 ish in this song), wait for it~~ And this version at least has subs so you all can understand the random spoken bits in between. I still want to know more about the story in the beginning though :<

Today in a week, I should have my printed BAKK2 thesis in hand, ready to dump it at the secretary's office at the institute, because apparently my prof isn't in town yet. Am at 37 pages so far, two more of the interviews to analyze (or rather, summarize, man I am totally winging it), the conclusion and hypotheses and additional theories to add in the beginning to go! I hope it's gonna be good enough to pass, and maybe even get a 2 or something out of it. I really can't tell how she's gonna grade it, but ahh nothing I can do but get it finished in time eh?

But of course, I haven't spent the last few days solely working on my thesis like a good student would do, I have instead been trawling rec lists and reading oodles of Gleefic, as Puck & Rachel have kind of overtaken my brain and are sharing space with the overwhelming love I have for Kurt. So to spread the joy and distraction, here be some of the ones I really liked beyond the cut!
( Thank god, there is decent Glee fic out there, woo! )

Some other worthy distractions:
The Fun Theory ...stolen from the lovely laulan and her wonderful "Awesome-up your Monday" posts, here be a link to what the good people at Volkswagen have been coming up with to make every day activities more fun. I ADORE THE PIANO STEPS LIKE WOAH.
FOOD GAWKER ...aka "WOULD YOU LIKE TO FEEL HUNGRY AND MAKE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO EAT ATM SEEM HORRENDOUSLY INADEQUATE?" If you answered: OF COURSE, well this site is perfect. Ahhh, the delicious looking fooooooooood~~
Accidental Dong ...it is kind of hilarious, okay?? I own up to my sometimes lamesauce sense of humor, though I take solace in still not finding fart/poop/puke jokes & humor funny :|
WHYYYYY ...SPEAKING OF DONGS, ugh 1) why is it 500$ and more importantly 2) WHY DOES IT HAVE MY NAME DD: Why can't there be better things named after meeee, bawww.

PS WHO WATCHED THE LATEST MAD MEN? Holy fuck, it was so good. JON HAMM NEEDS HIS EMMY, STAT.

And I am slowly feeling that thrumming beat of OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK that will hopefully spur me on to greatness, or at least a passable okay-ish grade by the end of this month. I have to get in done by the 1st of November (Sunday), get in printed on Monday, and as that takes 24 hours to bind and etc., I will then hand it in on Tuesday the 3rd, which Teach thankfully approved, though I just realized I typo'd the date in the email. Oh well. So far: I HAVE 13 PAGES. Of at least 50, but I think the hardest part is basically the theoretical part I am struggling through now. I hate writing these parts, all you're doing is regurgitating quotes and trying to wring some sort of a logical order out of them, all the while hoping you quoted correctly and are not committing indirect plagiarism and hoping the Prof doesn't notice you've been using the same three sources over and over again for one page. Ugh! TWO MORE WEEKS!!

Other than that I have been a winner in procrastination and time-wasting-- as two of the previous days were basically lost and spent in a stupor in front of the computer... man, I think I need to unplug the internet when I continue work tomorrow. WORST WORKER EVER I AM, that's for sure.

I do have some awesome links again though!

Things probably relevant to cheshire_tabby's interests:
"Twisted Princesses" ...basically this guy reworking the Disney princesses in ways that are creepy, scary and generally quite awesome. I like Mulan the most!
Fantastic "Lord of the Flies" illus ...got the link from wredwrat's LJ and I just loved the art. The cover is somehow supremely unsettling to me, lol wut.
ALLSAINTS IS SO EXPENSIVE BUT DAMN THIS COAT IS FINE ...seriously, it looks so damn swank and like the best damn trenchcoat ever ngggg the sexy, sexy detailing! The uneven edges! Also, THIS is also swoon-worthy. A double-breasted coat! The buttons! The almost suit-tails effect in the back! SIGHHHHHH ♥

Fashionistaaaa things:
Actually cute "vampire-inspired" jewelery ...well okay, it's a crocheted necklace, but still. I wouldn't wear it, but I'd strongly consider it for Halloween lol? Would make the perfect gift for some Twihard, I'm sure.
FFSkyer_nancy's Flickr photostream ...nabbed this link from bravecows and I simply adore how this girl also draws her outfits. So lovely and whimsical!

Supernatural vids:
A Charming Man by giandujakiss. Castiel-centric and ohhhh, how this makes the potential menace that Castiel had in early to mid-season 4 more present in my mind. I adore how tightly edited this vid is, in particular the sequences with Dean, Castiel and the Crossroads demon. And how the lyrics fit so damn well. Just noticed I still had the tab with this link still open lol, not that I haven't already downloaded it and watched it a kabillion times. Those of you who haven't should do so, asaaaap. So good!
Legion by sockkpuppett. A demon-POV-centric (Team Hell!) SPN vid set to a metal mash-up of Paramore's "Misery Business"? I would never have thought it, but it was pretty much AWESOME. And so fitting, given my still ongoing obsession with that damn song. Snappy editing here again, with some really smart moments and pretty neat, subtle effects.
Little Lion Man by killabeez. Featuring quite possibly one of the most addictive songs I have recently heard. It's one of the things I love about vids the most, getting introduced to these fantastic bands that I wouldn't ever have heard of before. Even if you aren't a SPN fan, I think the song itself is worth a listen to. That lead singer's voice! And of course, the BANJOSSSSS! And back to the vid-- oh holy crap, it's just a great depiction of the messy, intertwined relationship that our dear Winchesters have going on, and it especially shows that shoving blame on someone is a two-way game. The editing is nigh heartbreaking at times, gaah.

SLEEP NOW. GAAH. TOMORROW'S GOAL: AT LEAST FIVE PAGES.