Agatha's Musings

State Legislature is challenging Prop 8!

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:38:43 GMT

So… Y'know how I was wondering how they could change the state constitution to take away people's rights with just a simple majority vote?

Well, it looks like some of the legislature was wondering that, too.

It looks like a key point of the argument hinges on the difference between amendment and revision; in the state constitution, it's stated that amendments can be made through the initiative process, where all the text in that section about the process in the Legislature for changing the constitution talks about amendments and revisions. The legislators who put forth this resolution are arguing that Prop 8 is a revision rather than an amendment.

(I expect they'll see some grumbling about this point, but it looks like they're legally backed up on this; see http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/inmyopinion052108.htm . Basically, there's a strong argument that taking away existing rights -- and contradicting existing anti-discrimination clauses -- constitutes revision of the constitution rather than an addition to it.)

But I think the strongest part of the resolution is the following paragraph:

   WHEREAS, Proposition 8 would severely undermine the foundational
principle of equal protection by establishing that any disfavored
minority can be targeted to have its fundamental rights stripped away
by a simple majority vote [...]

There's a lot of other really good points as well; if you're interested the Senate version of the Resolution is here:
http://info.sen.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sr_7&sess=CUR&house=S&site=sen

(Assembly version wasn't up yet when I looked.)

Equality California is urging people to contact their State Legislators to support these resolutions by December 19th (which is the date when those opposing the resolutions will be presenting their briefs); they'd be happy to help you with that if you visit http://www.eqca.org/actioncenter .

Contact Info for Live Long And Marry

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:19:45 GMT

Hi everyone,

For the purposes of Live Long And Marry, I can be contacted at:

agatha_b AT speedpost DOT net

(No spaces)

Oh, Pooh :-)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:04:30 GMT

Is there no topic that the wisdom of Pooh does not touch upon?

In the grand tradition of the Pooh Perplex, the Postmodern Pooh, and Pooh and the Philosophers (In Which It Is Shown That All of Western Philosophy Is Merely a Preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh), a Top Obama advisor cites Winnie the Pooh as model.

In a speech at the Center for New American Security, Richard Danzig used the following passage from the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh to describe the need for the current security model to change:

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.”

Danzig also went on to use metaphors about Luke Skywalker and soccer fans, using Cultural Studies to illustrate topics in national security. :-)

Whoa.

Sat, 31 May 2008 06:30:01 GMT

It's probably not a coincidence that this is my first post in a while.*
I'm feeling optimistic at the moment. And impressed.

Here's why.

Not only did LiveJournal address a number of issues that people have brought up, showing that they actually listened to and considered the input of their users, but they did so in a clearly-presented and well-thought out manner, and did so within the time limit that they stated that they had set out for themselves. Awesome.

Of course, there is also the fact that I agree with many of those decisions, which doesn't hurt. More about that later, I expect.

*No, I've not been striking. (Hah. Who would notice?)
Just a combination of my usual not getting around to posting combined with my mixed feelings about the site since my last post.
But hopefully I'll be posting more now.

Another update on the feedback request

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:11:24 GMT

I have closed my support request from feedback.

While preparing a letter explaining my concerns in more detail, I realized that the lj_biz post addresses more of my concerns than I had previously realized. I think I will have to plead fatigue and that the content was unfortunately obscured by the mediocre formatting.

Here's what I realized:

LJ's official position is now that any visual depiction of under-18 characters/individuals involved in sexual activity is against their policy.
- Gets rid of that pesky artistic merit question, so good for them in that regard.
  Plus, I finally realized that they were only using the definitions from the child porn law and not in fact trying to say that the artwork was, in fact, child porn (which it wasn't, even if the characters were under 18)*
- Unfortunately, elaboration did not believe that her artwork portrayed characters under 18.
  However, future misunderstandings like this should be less likely because...
The wording in the statement about how character age is determined makes it sound like, in most circumstances, artists' statements about the ages of their characters will be respected as long as they are reasonably plausible. I highly anticipate that artists will make such statements whenever posting material that is anywhere close to borderline from now on.
I have a reassurance (in the letter I got, not in the lj_biz post,) that the abuse policies page will be updated. (I will be watching to see if this happens, but believe that LJ will do so as it is in their best interests.)

These are the issues that I mainly wanted them to address. I have other issues (they have communication issues with their customers, transparency in the review process would be extremely helpful), but I can't think of a way to word these in which I would be likely to get a useful answer.

I did, however, comment on and sign blunder_bubble's latest draft of her open letter, though.

* The artwork could have been "Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children," which is also icky in implication, but quite different, and subject to the Miller test, which I think both pieces could pass on artistic/literary merit.

Much belated update: Obviously, as this shows, the above optimism was a little optimistic. Also, the policies page still has not been updated. I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but I am *still* so exhausted and disappointed when I think about this whole mess now. (Sept. 03, 2007)

Thoughts on response from LJ Abuse Prevention Team

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:07:05 GMT

LiveJournal got back to me on the letter that I sent to Feedback.

Here's the letter I got in response:

Dear [agatha_b's legal name],

Thank you for contacting us. Your request has been transfered to the Abuse Prevention Team, because you specifically raise questions about other content on LiveJournal. We're happy to investigate material which may violate our Terms of Service, and you can report that to us by following the instructions in http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=105.

In regards to this specific incident, LiveJournal management has made a statement, which can be found at http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/241884.html, to clarify the question of, specifically, material dealing with the sexualization of minors. LiveJournal does not differentiate between explicit material containing male/male, male/female, or female/female activity; any material that contains an apparent adult and an apparent minor falls under this policy, regardless of the sex of the participants.

I am very sorry that LiveJournal's policies have been communicated in such a confusing manner; I know that LiveJournal management is trying very hard to be as explicit as possible while dealing with a very confusing and challenging set of circumstances. I can assure you that to the best of my knowledge, and based on everything I've seen, LiveJournal management wants to place the minimum restrictions possible on the free expression of their users, including expression of sexuality -- whether those expressions be fiction, art, or discussion. The problem arises when material involving the sexualization of minors by adults is reported to LiveJournal, and that's the kind of material being discussed in the lj_biz post and in the latest controversy. It's a very hard topic to draw lines around.

I hope that the post made in lj_biz last night can help clarify some of your questions, and I'm very sorry for the delay. LiveJournal management had hoped to have the post available sooner, but given the challenging nature of the situation, the very difficult issues surrounding these problems, and the strength and passion of the emotions involved, I know they felt that it was better to take some extra time and work harder to make sure they addressed things in as clear a fashion as they could.

Updating the Abuse Policies and Procedures page is something that we do intend to do as soon as possible, and I thank you for your suggestion.

Regards,
Cassie
LiveJournal Abuse Prevention Team

I'm not yet sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is nice to get a response. On the other hand...

I feel like it reads like a cut-and-paste job. Not quite a form letter, but almost. I'm really not sure from this that they read what I wrote.

I suppose that it's nice to be reassured that LiveJournal does not differentiate between explicit materials based on the gender of the participants; that's great, but I never mentioned it. Not once, not on my journal, not in my comments to anyone else, not in the lj_biz comments. I realize that other people may have thought that LiveJournal was targeting homoerotic material, but I am not one of them. (I think that some people who are looking to report material may be targeting homoerotic material, but there's nothing to be done about that.)

So that was probably meant to be reassuring, but it wasn't really. As in the case of the last lj_biz post, this is something I knew or guessed already. Moving on.
Next paragraph: nice to hear, it really is, but yes, I know (or could have easily guessed). In fact, I acknowledged in my letter several times that these are difficult issues to deal with. Important, I guess, but I'm starting to feel like we're leaning heavily towards reassuring me that "LJ cares about the issues that are important to you" and less about actually working on doing anything about those issues.
Next paragraph: a reference to the lj_biz post. Which did not really address any of the issues that I mentioned. At all.* Nice try, but sorry, no prize there.
The last paragraph was nice. I'm glad to see that they are planning to update the policies page; it's long overdue. So they got my addendum. But I'm still not sure they actually read the letter.

Now, to be fair, mine was a very long letter, and while calm in comparison to the throngs of angry rants and cat macros, it was still somewhat emotionally charged (and fandom-specific), especially in the beginning.

But I feel that the main point of my message got lost.

What I was trying to say, and apparently failed at, was that when someone can get permanently banned for an image that they thought was not portraying underaged characters (and I'm primarily talking about elaboration here,)** we have a serious failure of communication.

I feel that a large part part of the point of permanently suspending users on the first offense for certain offenses is that these are not offenses where the person was unaware that what they were doing was unacceptable. Even the stated policy on child pornography contains the following clause: "If, in Abuse Team member's discretion, there is reasonable suspicion that the poster did not know that the image qualifies as child pornography, suspend the user until the user agrees to remove the images, rather than terminate the journal."

As I understand it, elaboration was suspended not for child porn, but for alleged obscenity portraying a minor in a sexual situation, which is an arguably lesser offense. While ponderosa121's images have been the subject of more discussion, I know of no one (other than the Abuse Team) who has seen elaboration's image and believed that it was in fact portraying Fred and George at any age under 18. Yet elaboration was not given the opportunity to remove the offending image. Is this because the Abuse Team did not believe that hers was a borderline offense? If there was a case with a borderline offense, would they give the user the opportunity to remove the image?

I think that these are legitimate questions, especially since the Abuse policies have not been updated since November 2004 and do not even specifically address obscenity.

Also, I think it would be helpful in this case if LiveJournal would specifically address the differences between obscenity vs. obscenity involving children in sexual situations vs. child porn as they will be enforcing them. It's all muddled together right now, and I don't think that's helping with these discussions.

I also want to hear back on LiveJournal's thoughts about people's suggestions about additional transparency with the review process.

I would feel a lot better about the letter that I received if it was the first portion of a response. But with this response, my request was closed out.

Since many of the issues that I brought up were not addressed, I will probably rework some of the above into another addendum. But I am a little worried that the response I got was really a polite kiss-off, and that further attempts to get real answers will not be welcomed.

I know that some of the concerns I brought up are not things that can be answered by volunteers on the Abuse team, but I am willing to wait for deliberation and an official response, or even, I think, to accept a reassurance that LJ is thinking about/talking about these issues internally. (Obviously, I would want to see some statement about that process once those decisions have been made, but for the time being, an acknowledgment that they are in fact considering the issues would be nice. Heck, an acknowledgment that they'd read them would be nice.)

* Correction: the post did address some of my questions about the review process in terms of how LiveJournal decides whether or not characters are underage in a given piece of artwork. Unfortunately, I think it confirms my concerns about the way the two posts people have been discussing were judged, and I don't think it's too reassuring for certain fandoms in particular, as I still think LJ doesn't understand certain basic concepts about fandom. But these statements should be of some use to users in the future when deciding whether (or how) to post borderline content.

** ponderosa121 has said that she is making no statement about the intended age of the characters in her picture, since that incarnation of Harry "doesn’t exist other than as I rendered him." She seems to accept that the content of her post was borderline, and accepts that LJ has the right to rule what they will about that.
In contrast, elaboration still does not believe her own post was in violation of LJ policies, and this is what I am focusing on here.

In related news, bubble_blunder is still working on her open letter. If you're interested, you might want to check it out.

ETA: femmquixotic has a very well-written open letter as well.

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 06:55:50 GMT

I posted the following over at lj_biz:

In the future, once you have committed yourselves to drafting a response to a situation like this one, please consider creating a brief post, closed to comments, that says something to the effect of: "We are listening to your concerns about these issues and are currently [discussing/drafting a post that will address] them. As these issues are important, it may take us some time to properly address them, but we will be communicating with you on these matters shortly. Thank you for your patience." Since comments on the post would be (optionally) closed, perhaps in that case you could add a note that additional comments should continue in the original thread.

It might sound silly, but as a person who is in a customer service job myself, I can't emphasize enough how important it can be just to let people know "Yes, we're listening." Even if your answer isn't going to be something that they want to hear.

As a concerned community member, I can't tell you how much anxiety it caused me to see that there was no response, day after day. A simple acknowledgment that you were working on a statement would have done a lot to reassure some of us.

Also, as a note for future posts like this one, some HTML list formatting might have helped make your post a little easier to read, although I understand that it might have taken longer to create.

I do have additional issues that I would like to see addressed, but if I could ask you to do just one thing at the moment, it would be to please update http://www.livejournal.com/abuse/policy.bml and post a link to it here. I think that the format there would help clarify several people's questions further.

Thank you for responding to us in an official format; I do appreciate your use of the theljstaff account, and think it will help lessen the likelihood of further misunderstandings along the lines of the recent incident with burr86.

Of course, that's much politer and calmer than I feel right now, but I am tired, and didn't really want to blast away without having a chance to be rational about it.

I have issues, of course. Among them being that if they are going to base their policy on U.S. Law, then they should really post links to all of the relevant sections, please. Or suck it up and say that these are the rules, based on their own prerogative (with a side of legal backup if you like), and that's what we're sticking with. This way we avoid issues to deal with fictional representations vs. actual personages, whether or not something classifies as child pornography or obscenity, (and I don't think most people are aware there is a whole separate section for "Obscene material portraying the sexual abuse of a minor" that is completely separate from child pornography,) questions of artistic merit, etc.

I'm actually even hoping LJ/6A goes with the latter at this point, although I don't know that they will if they think it involves them having to change their TOS because of recent California law regarding site TOS. But it would be nice because then we could do away with a lot of the ambiguity.

Meh. Started with this mess right after I got back from work. Skipped dinner. Need sleep.

By the way, if you haven't yet, you should still definitely check out bubble_blunder's open letter.

Important - Another Open Letter to LJ/6A

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:35:36 GMT

bubble_blunder has written an incredible open letter at http://bubble-blunder.livejournal.com/80818.html and is taking suggestions for editing. She will be collecting signatures on the final copy and sending print copies to people in Corporate. Please consider taking the time to read through and make suggestions or give your support.

I am really impressed with the time she is taking to write this and to go through all of the responses.

Also, I noticed that in the comments for her post a couple of people associated with the company have mentioned that they are drafting another lj_biz post that addresses some of these questions. Would that they would actually mention that they are in the process of doing so on, for example, lj_biz. It makes me feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

ETA: Apparently in the time that I spent reading and commenting on bubble_blunder's open letter, lj_biz has updated. I think the new post addresses very few of my concerns (which, I'll admit, would probably require some changes in the way things are done). Right now I feel like the only things that were addressed were simple reiterations of material that I could have guessed or that was already available elsewhere (maybe an obscure elsewhere, in some cases) on the site.

I stand by bubble_blunder's letter, and I'll probably come back to read through more lj_biz comments and rant more later.

This is not the sigh of relief I was hoping for. :-/

An Open Letter to LiveJournal - Draft

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:48:34 GMT

LJ, something is obviously wrong here.

When a user (for example, elaboration) is permanently suspended for a drawing because it has "underage characters involved in sexual situations" and her response is "What?... But ... I don't draw chan!", then multiple things are definitely wrong.

This is not an image produced by someone intending to encourage, promote, or glamorize sexual activity with minors, this is an image someone whose art style happens to skew towards a slightly youthful look. We are talking about a borderline area, in which the slender builds of the characters could suggest to some that the characters were teenagers, but which is in fact consistent with the way that the artist draws characters meant to be in their 20s. Elaboration mentions elsewhere that no statement was made as to the intended age of the characters in the post, but that it was certainly not her intention to portray them as underage.

Obviously, there can be difficulties determining whether or not a drawing is meant to be of an underage person, particularly when the overall style tends towards slender, manga-style lines rather than a more realistic style of artwork. But I would think that the best policy would be to warn an artist about borderline artwork when it is not obviously intended to depict a character that is underage, rather than immediately and permanently suspending all of her accounts (including those that are not related to her art or to fandom).

I had not recently seen the post for which elaboration was suspended, but I wonder if it was the content of the drawing itself that caused you to determine that it constituted a violation or the fact that the drawing was of characters who are underage at the time that some of the canon takes place.

If it is the latter, I would remind you that characters grow up. The characters in question would have been at least 18 or 19 by the end of the series. Furthermore, fandom has a tendency to age up characters, to place them in situations where, despite the timing of canonical events, they are together as adults, or to arrange situations in which, for example, the characters are playing out a shared fantasy involving the kinky use of school ties, even though they are both now adults.

I would also like to add that while it may be difficult to determine "artistic merit" from a single drawing, fandom places these drawings within a specific context from which it is easier to locate artistic and literary merit. In my years of observing fandom, I have always noticed that any fannish activity incorporates two major elements: an element of discussion and analysis, and an element of fantasy.

Fannish works do not exist in a void; they are part of an ongoing discussion within the fannish community, and address both previous fannish works and discussions as well as their creators' impressions of the canonical work(s). Obviously fantasy is a part of this as well. It is the blend of these two things that makes fandom so much fun; the ability to speculate, extrapolate, and create as well as to comment, to analyze, and to discuss.

Therefore, I would remind you that when you see a drawing of Fred and George involved in sexual activity with each other, there is definitely an element of prurient interest present (some people find it hot), but there is also the distinct possibility that the picture in question is also expressing the artist's feelings or impressions about the closeness of the characters or about their delight in mischief-making, or perhaps expressing her feelings about certain events in the canon that I will not comment on so as not to leak spoilers to people who have not yet read the books.

Similarly, when you see a drawing of Snape and Harry together (and yes, I think the image that was cited in ponderosa121's suspension was also borderline in terms of whether or not the younger character was underage; it appeared to me that one could as easily suppose he was 18 or 19 as one could suppose he was 16 or 17), while there is an element of the prurient about it, there might also be inherent commentary on the idea that despite the immense amount of personal baggage between the characters (or in some cases, partly because of it), such an intimate relationship is still possible between them.

I am not intending to speak for elaboration or for ponderosa121, or suggesting that they intended to express these specific things through the pieces of art for which they were suspended. I simply wish to remind you that there is a context, that fannish works have not only the ability, but the predisposition, to build on and comment upon each other and invite analysis and comment in their turn.

Because fannish works become part of that larger fannish discussion, I feel that it is likely that many fannish works have the context necessary to be classified as speech rather than obscenity. They are part of a continuing discussion, and I would be sad to have that discussion hampered by the removal of works that, at least in my opinion, are only questionably against the rules of the LiveJournal community as a whole, and that were produced before those rules were clarified.

However, that said, I am not a lawyer or a judge, and I respect that you do have the right to ban whomever you wish for whatever reason, particularly when it is a case of material of questionable legality.

I would strongly encourage you to, if possible, clarify your policies further so that there are no more (or fewer) situations in which individuals are taken aback because they are suddenly banned for material which they thought was in compliance with the rules.

If exact clarification is not possible, could you please post links to the relevant sections of U.S. law — I believe someone mentioned Title 18, Part One, Chapter 71, Section 1466A earlier — along with a brief overview of how LiveJournal plans to deal with borderline cases or with additional material (please specify) that is objectionable/against your rules? Most of us don't even know where to start looking for this stuff, and some members of the community are less familiar with U.S. law because they do not live in the U.S. It's difficult for us to know what will be problematic because of existing laws when all we have is what people "have heard" to go on.

Also, would additional transparency in the review process be possible? I'm not talking much, just a log of when the review committee met, which standards the material was in allegedly in violation of, and a couple of notes as to why the material was found to be in violation (e.g., character appears to be a minor based on [artist's statement, age of character in book, physical attributes in drawing, whatever], and drawing is sexually explicit, and drawing was found to lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific merit). I think it would help us to understand a little more what is and is not acceptable. (Obviously having the ability to refer to the original post would help with this, but I can see why, for a multitude of reasons, that would not be desirable on your part, and therefore suppose that would not be the best idea.)

LiveJournal has been an incredible resource for fandom in the past, largely because we are an interwoven collection of communities with an ongoing discussion. But if people feel that they can no longer hold that discussion here for fear that a single questionable post will get them permanently banned, they will have to move elsewhere. I would be incredibly sad if this were to happen. Please help us fix this situation.

Thank you for your time,
agatha_b

Edited to remove extra "or not"... thank you, macaroniprotest!

ETA: This has been posted at lj_biz as of 7:21 pm PDT.

ETA: Emailed (with some minor additions and modifications) to feedback at livejournal dot com as of 12:45 am PDT, August 05, 2007. It was automatically made into support request #796673 (private request under my legal name).

ETA: I received a response from an LJ Abuse Team staff member at 06:34 am PDT, August 08, 2007.

WTF, LJ? WTF?!??

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:27:51 GMT

For those of you that do not know of the latest round of LJ f--kery, ponderosa121 has been suspended.

According to the message from LJ Abuse that she posted at http://www.greatestjournal.com/community/fandomtossed/45060.html , the suspension was because of a piece of fanart at http://community.livejournal.com/pornish_pixies/470020.html, which supposedly "contain[ed] drawings depicting minors in explicit sexual situations".

Ponderosa mentioned that she wasn't sure which piece this was; according to other posters, it appears to be "Tightly Held", which was linked from the July 03 issue of Snape News (although obviously the link to the art doesn't work, because she was suspended). Based on the description there, [ETA: And having seen that particular picture from a link from one of Ponderosa121's GreatestJournal entries,] Harry was not obviously depicted as a minor, so I'm wondering what is going on here.

Post-Book Post (SPOILER WARNING)

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:49:13 GMT

So, minutes after finishing Book 7, I am writing to say...

I'm generally satisfied. Pleased even. Want to read the whole thing again, am very happy that Book 7 didn't have any head-pounders for me like Books 5 and 6 (which had some elements I was very unhappy with, although more in Book 5). There were some minor flaws, but generally, I'm quite happy with it. I like the place it ends, and don't feel the need for any sequels; so far I feel like this ties everything up nicely. I suppose it's possible that I may feel differently on rereading, though, but my first reaction is contentment.

I'm having some mild difficulty believing that it's finally over, but I think that's partly because I've read so much fanfic that deals with the end. This is the canonical ending, and a good ending, but it's not the only ending out there for me, and I hope that the fanfic continues to be present and flourishing and appreciated on the web because I have enjoyed seeing peoples hopes and wishes and theories and ideas.

That was the saddest thing for me, yesterday, as I was waiting for the book to come out: the worry that the fanfic might end, or be abandoned. Truthfully, I'm in this thing as much for the fandom and the friendship as for the canon itself, and I feel sad for not being a more active part of that.

Now, as for the actual content of the book...

I was really happy to see the way a lot of the characters were handled, particularly towards the end. Would've liked some more details about Percy. Loved Neville. Trelawney has balls! And I was worried that it could have turned into a giant mess of giving everyone their cameo, but it really didn't for me.

I was saddened by most (perhaps all) of the deaths, but I cried for a moment over Snape. I was mostly right about him, in the end, although there were a couple of things that I should have figured out, but hadn't quite caught on to yet. In his case I just didn't really expect the end to come until just a little later.

I suppose I hadn't quite figured out the thing with the wand, but I feel as though I ought to have been able to figure it out if I'd taken the time to think about it a little more. Which reminds me of a moment during the book where I reflected that I really am better off in Hufflepuff than in Ravenclaw; I'm not particularly brilliant with brainteasers, as I don't feel that I think particularly well on my feet, but if I take the time to prepare properly, with a little insight, I do fine. If I were in Ravenclaw, I would have had problems with being late for class because I couldn't get in to get my books in time.

Hmm... let's see, what else...

I was a little worried about Aberforth originally; I distrusted what we were getting from Muriel and Rita Skeeter, but I was starting to wonder if those inappropriate charms on goats mightn't be the result of testing some sort of Dark magic in his youth. Now, I think it's far more likely that those may have simply been bits of Ariana's magic escaping.

There was something in the middle of the book that I wanted to talk about, but I can't remember what it was...

I like that different people destroyed each of the Horcruxes. Would not have guessed Crabbe.

As for my predictions, I was right about at least half of it, I think.

I feel like I was almost spot-on about Snape (although I don't think I had really anticipated the extent of the thing with Lily), definitely right about McGonagall, pretty good on Dumbledore, right about what little I predicted about Harry and the death of Voldemort, only half-wrong about Sirius (didn't play a big role, but glad he was there), and right about Regulus.

Ginny did indeed kick ass, although I was wrong about her being targeted (and am still unsure exactly why not, as that would have been really torturous for Harry, although considering the end I wonder if it wasn't at least partially in consideration of Molly Weasley's wrath.

Neville also kicked ass, and really came into his own. No mention of his early childhood was made. Go Neville, you rock! (I should also mention here that I was really happy with Neville's talk with Harry right before he went off to meet Voldemort. "We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?" That was the best part. Even if Harry didn't make it, or circumstances required him to do something else. And the fact that Neville knew that Harry needed to hear that... just... ::love::)

(Also, while I'm interjecting, I also loved that Snape asked Dumbledore what about his soul. It was an important point (well, from Snape's perspective at the very least, and something I thought of while re-reading Book 6.)

I was wrong about Hermione, in that she didn't bring up exams once. I should have realized that once Hermione really considered what they had to do and decided to commit to it, she would really commit to it. Hermione was awesome throughout. I was impressed.

I don't feel that I was wrong about Ron. The shouting and subsequent departure was about what I expected; this is the way that Ron works through things. It seemed necessary, but I will admit that I was worried as to when Ron might find them again, and as to what sort of trials he might have to face before then (especially since it took so long). As for Kn2K, we may never know...

Overall, I feel really good about the book. Yay for everyone, including JKR, all of the characters, and all of us to whom the book was dedicated, and especially to You.

Highlight-test area:

(If you can read the line below without highlighting, don't click on the links unless you don't mind spoilers)

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

End highlight-test area

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Mid Book Theory (SPOILERS)

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 18:42:00 GMT

And now for a mid-book theory, Book 7, page 501...

SPOILER WARNING; PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK

(Highlight to read)

So at page 501, when Voldemort retrieves Dumbledore's wand, I suddenly exclaimed "YES!"

Because if it is the wand that Voldemort thinks it is, and it can only be transferred through murder, as they think it might, then the wand does not belong to Voldemort, and I'm not sure that Voldemort realizes it. It's a powerful wand, and it may perform well for him nonetheless, but the wand does not belong to Voldemort. It belongs to Snape.

I wonder if this might have been what Dumbledore had in mind all along when he was asking Snape to kill him in Book 6. (See my earlier theory.)

(Highlight ends here)

Of course, I could be wrong, and this could all just be a knot of Nargles...

Predictions for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:53:25 GMT

So, L suggested that we write down predictions for Book 7, and I was less than enthusiastic about the idea.

Firstly, because there are some pretty wild speculations out there, and I sort of have negative associations with some of them, and secondly, because I really want to let the book be just the book for me. I don't want to really speculate on it before hand; I just want to experience it for what it is.

That said, particularly after having re-read Book 6, I do have some modest ideas on how I think it will turn out in certain areas. So, here goes, by character.

Severus Snape, good or evil?

I really feel like this question is slightly beside the point. I don't feel that he is particularly either.

I do, however, think that he is a whole lot better and braver than Harry gives him credit for. I do not think that he betrayed Dumbledore's trust in him; I am convinced that he killed Dumbledore at Dumbledore's own urging, and that this is (at least part) of what they were arguing about in the Forbidden Forest, somewhere in the middle of Book 6. (Yes, that early).

It seemed to me like there was some particular reason why it was important for Snape to kill Dumbledore, and that Dumbledore may have been working to hold the others off (including Draco) until Snape got there.

Also, the parallel between Snape having to kill Dumbledore and Harry having to force-feed Dumbledore a potion that could have been slowly killing him (and that Harry had to pretend to Dumbledore, at one point, would kill him and release him from his pain) was kind of hitting me over the head with a mallet.

Whether or not there is a big reveal where we find that despite everything, Snape really was working in the interests of the good guys, is, in the end, immaterial. (And in fact, I think I would probably find a big reveal slightly distasteful.) It would take an awful lot to convince me that Snape wasn't at all worthy of Dumbledore's trust.

McGonagall, good or evil?

Good.

Dumbledore, really dead? Secretly alive? Still fighting?

Probably died on purpose, possibly in an Obi-Wan in Star Wars IV kind of way. Still dead in Book 7, but this probably won't keep him from helping out in some way (see Sirius).

Harry Potter, dead or alive?

Doesn't really matter to me.

No, really, it doesn't.
I don't see why people are saying that the prophecy means that Harry has to die, though. Harry certainly mightdie. Voldemort might die. They might both die around the same time. All the prophecy means is that one of these things has to happen. It doesn't seem to indicate a particular preference as to which. And I don't particularly think that there is any strong indication that Harry has to kill Voldemort per se, (although there may be a part of the prophecy I'm forgetting) although I will admit that I think it means that he has the best chance.

As long as JKR handles it well, I'll probably be happy with whatever outcome happens. Of course, I'm finding that I don't really want to define "handles it well" in too much detail, so... as long as she writes it so I'm satisfied, I'll be satisfied. Damn circular non-logic...

Voldemort, (finally) dead or (still barely) alive (if you can really call that living, anyway)?

Dead. I will be surprised and somewhat dismayed if Voldemort is still alive at the end. (Also worried about the temptation to make further installments... yes, "Harry dies" people, I know you're glaring at me over this point.)

Sirius Black, dead or alive?

Not living. Personally, the "Harry in the Underworld" theory with Sirius as guide kind of works for me. I see that as a viable way to go from here. Am almost certain that Sirius is not out of the picture.

Neville

Is not secretly Sailor Moon to Harry's Sailor V after all. Sorry. ::nods to shipperamy::

Pauses to wait for readers to scrub sailor skirts out of their heads...

Neville plays a lesser role, but still rocks, and possibly had some sort of incident involving a memory charm (or multiple memory charms) at/since a young age. (And may or may not have been Sailor V to Harry's Sailor Moon as a baby...)

Ginny

Will still have a definite presence in Book 7. Don't think she's just going to be waiting around at home. Personally, I am hoping that she will still be kick-ass.

On the other hand, I am also reasonably certain that despite Harry's sudden attack of "We can't be together any more because he'll try to target you to use against me," Ginny is still going to be a major target. Harry, dear, it's a little late to think of that several weeks after the entire school is talking about how you two are going out together. So we'll see how that goes, and how these two ideas mesh.

Ron

Will be awesome. Will not betray Harry. Is not secretly a younger version of Dumbledore.

Hermione

Will be practical and helpful and, if not at Hogwarts, will take a moment or two (but just a moment) to be worried about not being in school and preparing for her NEWTs. Unless they are allowed to take the tests at a later date. Which she will probably bring up, if that is the case.

R.A.B.

Is probably Regulus Black, I think. Go him. Wonder if he actually managed to destroy the locket? Am sure they will have to find out...

So yeah...

No sweeping predictions, no really radical theories, nothing particularly new. But there you go.

Looking forward to tomorrow night!

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 07:51:29 GMT

Friends who are fans:

Have you joined fandom_counts? It's a community for fannish members of LiveJournal to stand up and be counted; no posts, just join if you want to show that you're interested in fandom on LiveJournal. It was started in response to Strikethrough '07, but despite LiveJournal/Six Apart's relatively swift decision to reinstate the fannish journals that were wrongly deleted, it still seems like a good idea to me to join up and be counted. I think it's important to let LiveJournal know that we, as a group, are a significant portion of the userbase and that we're interested in what happens to/with fandom and fan fiction on LiveJournal.

Considering the swift resolution of Strikethrough '07, I expect that the rate of new members will fall off sharply over the next few weeks and months, but hey, it's possibly still worthwhile. Give it a thought?

LiveJournal Mass Deletion

Thu, 31 May 2007 07:46:37 GMT

ETA: As of Thursday, May 31, Barak Berkovitz has admitted "We really screwed this one up" and the fandom journals in question have been restored.

You know, one of the things that I have been waffling about with my journal is how much I want to identify this journal with my fannish interests, particularly since I also post about my mundane life. And I know I don't post much, but—

Recent events have disturbed me such that I am really concerned about the future of some of the journals that I watch. Most of these journals are not on my friends list; I am a lurker, and I have my own set of issues about that.

But the reason for my concern is LiveJournal's recent decision to "delete[] around 500 journals this week[.]" The impetus for this deletion is apparently the actions of several groups who have searched for journals based on their interests and reported these journals to LiveJournal.

These groups are primarily concerned with protecting children, and reported journals that they felt, based on their interests, "promote pedophilia, child sex, child abuse, and other illegal activities" 1. LiveJournal then reviewed the requests and deleted journals from that group as they felt appropriate. Theoretically, there should be nothing wrong with this, but there are several fannish journals within that group that do not appear to me to promote any of those things, including the community pornish_pixies.

I have been confused by LiveJournal/Six Apart's responses to the deletions; the response to the inquiry about pornish_pixies seems to indicate that Pornish was deleted simply because the community had "incest" listed one of its interests. While this makes sense in relation to lynnenne's post about a letter from Warriors for Innocence encouraging LiveJournal to consider the effect of unwanted contextual advertising on its sponsors, (as does Six Apart chairman Barak Berkowitz's quote from the above article: "'Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues,' countered Six Apart's Berkowitz. 'It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not.'"2) and it certainly makes sense that a sudden wave of deletions would not allow time to go through the content of these sites to determine whether or not they actually did "promote" the activities in their interests, it seems odd to me that the community would be deleted solely based on that "interest".

Part of the text of the aforementioned response to an inquiry about Pornish Pixies was as follows:

material which can be interpreted as expressing interest in, soliciting, or encouraging illegal activity places LiveJournal at considerable legal risk. When journals that contain such material are reported to us, we must suspend them. Because LiveJournal's interests list serves as a search function, and because listing an interest enables other people also interested in a similar topic to gather and/or congregate, we have been advised that listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity....

We recognize that many people list these types of interests for shock value, as a method of expressing opposition for these illegal activities, or to indicate fictional activity. Unfortunately, the Abuse team does not have any discretion in these cases; if a journal profile contains interests that support illegal activity, we must suspend the journal. Journals, on the other hand, may express or imply interest in illegal activity or express or imply a desire to meet and/or interact with others with similar interests, but only if the journal clearly (1) is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity, (2) does not encourage the illegal activity and (3) is not used in furtherance of any illegal activity.

While I think I can understand that it would take an enormous amount of manpower for LiveJournal to actually read through all of the reported journals and assess tone and content, it seems odd to me that the existence of a stated interest would imply promotion of an interest. Fandom aside, I can think of plenty of instances in which people might be interested in a subject, but do not support the idea stated. People can be interested in the discussion/rhetoric around an issue without being in favor of the issue itself, for instance. 3

It seems ridiculous to me that once it has been reported to LiveJournal that someone has an illegal activity in their interests, the journal must "clearly" (through what, the user profile?) indicate that it "is in opposition to or condemnation of the illegal activity." Some people's journals have many interests; it would be impossible to address them all in a profile, or even have a clear indication within the first few posts of where their sympathies lie. It seems to me that this is a case of using a feature for policing that was not intended to be a clear indicator of actual approval or disapproval of different topics.

Furthermore, while I understand that it would be bad for LiveJournal to be seen as harboring people who support illegal activities, what is the line between supporting and encouraging illegal acts versus freely and rationally discussing laws and the issues behind them? Does that line change based on the moral or legal severity of the offense? Who decides? Is it possible for a journal to be undecided about an issue, or for a community to have mixed opinions, without promoting the issue at hand?4

I'm not arguing that the fannish journals deleted for containing these keywords were "freely and rationally discussing laws and issues," but neither would I say that pornish_pixies was promoting illegal activity.

And unfortunately it is late, and I am tired, and I will rant more tomorrow, as I have more to say.

1. From the Warriors for Innocence blogspot journal, which I found interesting, but which I do not want to trackback— see the above CNET article for a link to their page.

2. ETA:
In retrospect, I feel that this statement was probably intended to reflect Berkowitz' decision that sites actually promoting pedophilia were not in keeping with the community that LiveJournal wanted. In the context of the article, however, I think a lot of people read it as Berkowitz saying that he was aware of the different contexts of the deleted journals and that LiveJournal/Six Apart had decided that all of them were not welcome as part of the LiveJournal community. His later apology seems to show that this was not in fact the case.

3. ETA:
In today's apology, Barak Berkowitz cited LiveJournal's view on interests: Obviously, the former approach failed to note that people use websites in ways that may be different than originally intended, and that people may have seen that as a suggestion for those who didn't know what to put, rather than a demand that affected the way they would be perceived to be following (or not following) the TOS.

4. I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily the case with any of the issues singled out in this particular case, but trying to take this policy to its logical conclusion. How does this apply to cases of other illegal activities, or cases where the interests in question consititute illegal activities in one user's country/state/province/local government, but not another?

Happy New Year!

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 05:09:04 GMT

Man, I need to make some new icons.

So, I was looking back on my journal, and I realized I hadn't updated since November. Of 2005.
And since one of my last year's New Year resolutions was to post more often... um. We'll see about doing that one as a rollover resolution, then.

Yay for the new year as an excuse for new beginnings!

By the way, I friends-locked some of my old posts. Mostly out of paranoia. (It's a recurring problem for me.) So now, if you aren't logged in, there's 30% less neuroticism!
It was kind of interesting reading through my old posts, though. Heh.

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 07:33:18 GMT

1. Make an LJ-cut post with "DO NOT READ" as the text.
2. Do not select a 'mood' for this post.
3. If anyone clicks the cut, they are to comment and admit to doing so.
4. Anyone who reads this also has to do the same in THEIR journal, thus continuing the neverending madness

I doubt the madness will be neverending, exactly. Not from this end, anyway... I caught this meme from lady_songsmith; most of my friends-list overlaps hers... if nothing else they're bound to be suspicious...

(Yes, I clicked. I would be embarrassed, except... obviously, so did you...)

Just when I thought I was finally getting it all together...

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 22:55:25 GMT

The car broke down yesterday. ("Mom, the car is steaming. And it smells like burnt French toast...") So we took it in this morning, and the estimate came in just before lunch... (It's bad. Two words: head gasket.)

I need a job so I can afford a car (among other things). I need a car so I can make it to the job. I need class so I can get a better job, but if I don't have a car, it's going to take me approx. two hours to get to class...

I wonder if this is Murphy's way of kicking me in the ass...
::goes to look up bus schedule::

My first political-ish post

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 08:09:41 GMT

Well, I mentioned a while back that I was going to make an effort to write more and censor less, and not worry about including subjects that didn't fit my original plan for this journal, like ::gasp:: politics.

But even though I have a couple of things that I've been *wanting* to write about, I haven't lately. Partly its the time, partly its because I seem to be in the mood to write only when my head is about to hit the pillow, and partly its because I'll realize that I want to write about something three days after I've read it, which is five days after everyone's discussed it to death, and when I'm finally ready to talk about it, I can't find the link anymore. Which is a lot like now.

Get to the chase already, Ag.

So, about a month and a half ago, I was surfing about and came across this article in the Guardian about a man (Gerald Allen) who proposed a law which would "ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that 'promote homosexuality'" in the state of Alabama. The blogger that linked to this (and I'm very sorry that I can't find the link to her entry... it was something that I came across more or less randomly,) was very worried that someone might try to implement something like this nationwide, and called out to her fellow bloggers to list all of the great works that would be banned if this were so.

And I looked at the list and tried to think of what that would look like, tried to think of all of the areas where state funds are used and what the landscape would be like. Would this mean that those works could not be taught or performed in public schools or aired on public television? Probably. What other areas would this extend to? What would happen in cases where copies of the works had already been purchased, or where copies in a public institution were purchased through private funding? Would it mean that I would not be able to use my student grant from the state if I were attending a private college and majoring in gay and lesbian studies? I didn't know how they'd interpret any of that.

In any case, it seemed odd. Some of the works on the list were quite clearly works that would be restricted under such a law, but some were more of a stretch. Does subtext count? Historical context? Even Allen, who proposed the law, seemed unsure in the article, saying, "I expect details like that to be worked out in the committee stage."

How would one decide something like that? How does one even try to enforce it? In the end, I simply couldn't quite grasp the idea of it. It was too huge, too vague, and I (armed with my still tightly-held idealistic optimism) told myself that I was in a flutter about something that yes, I *should* be upset about, but that was rather unlikely to happen.

And then, yesterday, I came across an article in my local paper that helped put it into perspective. Last week, PBS decided not to distribute an episode of "Postcards from Buster." According to the article, the episode "shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont — a state that recognizes same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring." The episode had received criticism for its subject matter, but my local PBS station decided to air it anyways. Yesterday afternoon. Since I had seen the article in time, and was curious, I decided to watch. Then I went back and re-read the article.

Part of what had gotten me interested in watching the episode was the quote included in the article from Margaret Spellings, who had said in a letter to the president of PBS, "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode." Since I couldn't imagine that the show would be any more risqué than, say, "Sesame Street," I was rather curious to see what, exactly, was so objectionable about the portrayal.

The answer is nothing. I saw nothing at all objectionable about the portrayal, and I was really trying hard to look through my "imagine my seven-year old cousin and/or conservative family members are going to be watching this" glasses. The episode follows Buster, of course, so it's all from the point of view of the kids; I'd doubt that the adults even got a quarter of the screen time on the video portion of the episode. (As with the rest of the series, part of the episode is live-action, and part is animated.) Most of the time is spent with the kids biking up and down the hillside, going to dairy farms and seeing how maple syrup is made and making chocolate chip cookies.

Partly because the show is from the kids’ perspective, the episode does not make an issue of the fact that Anna and Gillian are a married couple; the only reference (other than when Mora tells Buster he'll be staying with Gillian "and her partner, Anna,") is when ten-year-old Emma picks up a snapshot of the two women looking into the camera and says something to the effect of, "This is my favorite picture of Mom and Gillian.... Gillian's my stepmom." Other than that, if I had missed the first few minutes of the episode, I would probably have missed that aspect of their relationship. During the rest of the time spent with the two families (at dinner and a bonfire), it was basically just like any other extended family gathering.

From the "would not want their young children exposed to" quote, I would have at least imagined some uncomfortable questions, or a wedding album, or public displays of affection, or something. But, no, pretty normal. The worst extent to which I could imagine parental concern was that the episode might raise some questions that parents might have a difficult time answering, like "Emma's mom is her mom and Gillian is her stepmom, and they live in the same house, Mommy. Why can't my stepmom live with us?" And surely that would barely be tougher than "Mommy, what's Shabbat?" or "Mommy, can we have a bonfire to say goodbye to winter?"

Of course, I then realized that Spellings' concern is on some level the same as Allen's. The issue is not that the episode exposes children to "lifestyles" outside of the norm, but that it shows that for Emma's family, life is normal. The issue is that it is supposedly "indoctrinating" young minds with the "gay agenda" </scare> by suggesting that her family's life is okay.

That realization was scary enough. Then, after I re-read the article, I realized something important. I had thought that the person who had written the letter to PBS was merely acting as a member of a group of “concerned parents,” but when I re-read the article again I realized that this was the Secretary of Education of the United States of America speaking. I also found an earlier article, a portion of which reads thusly:

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the "Sugartime!" episode does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to "research-based educational objectives, content and materials."

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent yesterday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

"Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."

She asked PBS to consider refunding the money it spent on the episode and warned: "You can be assured that in the future the department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds."

Now, the Educational Philosophy statement from “Postcards from Buster” reads "To build awareness and appreciation of the many cultures of North America, and to support elementary school-age English Language Learners." Whether you include the "lifestyles" of which Ms. Spellings speaks in "awareness and appreciation" or not, the rest of the episode certainly fulfills those objectives, and, I’m sure, others as well. So the whole issue of whether or not the episode was fulfilled the objectives for which it was granted the money lies solely in the fact that it chose to include in its portrayal two families that each had two lesbian women as heads of house.

Spellings' last line worries me; I had thought Allen’s proposal shaky at best, and it was only for the State of Alabama. Does Spellings intend to propose a similar policy at the U.S. Department of Ed?

I may not have updated in a long time, but...

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 22:09:14 GMT

I voted today.
Did you?

Whee!

Wed, 20 Oct 2004 04:52:33 GMT

Class made sense today!

(Yeah, I know. But I've been spending a lot of time playing catch-up, and sometime between studying for the midterm and finding out that I knew more than I thought I knew and figuring out that yes, I did understand the general physics behind multi-mode fiber-optic cable, everything just seemed to come into a whole new focus... )

Of course, I was also wondering to myself in class if any artists out there were working with fiber-optic cable in terms of its significance as a connective medium... thereby demonstrating my ability to simultaneously be geeky on several different levels. But it felt really good to finally feel as though I was caught up with the rest of the class.

Um, let's see... in other news...

I saw "Shall We Dance?" last weekend. This was something that I originally approached with great trepidation, since I *loved* the original Japanese film (with English subtitles), and I wasn't too sure about how that very charming film was going to translate to Chicago. And Richard Gere.

But I have to say that for all of my worries, the new version definitely has its own sort of charm, carrying through many of the themes of the original film, but giving them its own little twist. And although I felt that my first viewing suffered from what I've come to think of as "the Harry Potter effect," (in which I have a difficult time seeing the movie as a complete work in its own right on the first few viewings because, no matter my intentions, I am still seeing it as, first and foremost, an adaptation,) it seemed to be a pretty good film in its own right. The script really shone in places, the music was wonderful, and most of the actors did an exceptional job with their roles. There were a few scenes, however, where I thought the performances just didn't work as well as they might have, but these were relatively few, and my perception of them was probably filtered due to the aforementioned effect.

All in all, I was very happy. Although there was a sort of surreal moment where I realized I was one of the few people in the theater under the age of thirty...

Eeep! It's been far too long since I've updated...

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 05:45:17 GMT

Much going on. Signed up for a new semester of classes, volunteering during the day, trying to get things tidied up and arranged in some semblance of order...
(Hopeless? Yes, I am...)

Recently got broadband access (Yay!) which is both a wonderful tool and a further distraction... Am resolving to do better in the future.

Unfortunately, the future is not now, as I have to go to work in the morning. (Well, volunteer work. But work nonetheless.)

::yawns and reminds self to delurk occasionally::

Goodnight.

Anticipation...

Fri, 04 Jun 2004 05:43:36 GMT

Hooray! For tomorrow night I fly off to New York to meet with good friends and watch Harry Potter at the POA_NYC IMAX event!

Just had to get that out of my system. It's been keeping me going for a while now. ::grin::

Promise to post more later, really I do. It's just that with moving in and getting settled and getting started at work, it's been really busy and I'm still behind schedule. It's been a busy week. And it's going to be a busy weekend. ::grin::

stress, stress, and more stress

Fri, 28 May 2004 06:09:37 GMT

Lots of stress.

When I first got back from school, I basically avoided doing too much that had to do with school, since I didn't want to think too much about the friends I wasn't going to see for a long time, or the work that I still had to finish, but couldn't until I got my computer and my papers out of storage. And for a while, that worked, because I had other things to worry about.

Things like suddenly noticing that I'd packed absolutely everything and didn't have my phone charger, the rest of my meds, or more than one spare pair of pants. Things like trying to figure out if I could get my driver's license in only two weeks and trying to make the requisite DMV appointments. Things like casually trying to figure out what the heck I'm going to try to do with the rest of my life.

Two days ago, I started dreaming again in the mornings (I usually don't get enough sleep for that during the school year) and the first dream I can remember was about stressing about thesis (along with a lot of other people, all of whom did much better than I did). Since then, it's just gotten worse. Not the dreams, really, but the number of things to stress about.

My two weeks are almost up, but despite having been relatively busy, I only have a few things checked off on my long to-do list. I've done a lot of research, made plans and appointments (including a behind-the-wheel test and a job interview), and I feel like I should have calmed down a lot from the post-graduation rush of stress.

Instead of feeling like I've gotten a lot done, however, I just feel like each of the things I have set up represents a door behind which lurks... more stress. And the amount of stress is growing. Not only do I have to figure out what I'm doing with my career and finding a job and schooling, but the job situation at home seems precarious; my mother's hours are being cut again, and both of us are worried that she's going to have to start looking for a job again as well. Which, on top of all of the other work- and health-related stress she's going through right now, just makes life a lot more stressful for the both of us.

Well, I guess all I can do at this point is hope that tomorrow brings more good news than it does bad, and sort through this tangle one strand at a time. Ack.

Hello World!

Thu, 20 May 2004 22:04:13 GMT

Finally!
I've been fascinated with LiveJournal for a long time, but I've only recently decided that I should give in and sign up for an account... probably due to a combination of peer pressure and being at a point in my life where I really want to take time to write down and sort out my thoughts and ideas.

I'm not only new to blogging, but new to journaling as well, so if you happen to be reading this... please bear with me. And with my frequent overuse of ellipses.

That's all for today I think.
Off to do more chores now...