Kanna-Ophelia: librarian, lesbian feminist, socialist, Quaker, saffic fan, doll collector and obsessive reader and ex-pat Adelaide girl freezing living in the UK. I'm newly married to gibbon_plinth, which makes me the luckiest woman in the world. ♥

I have too many opinions and rarely keep them to myself. I hover around the edges of fandom, poking a bit. Sometimes I write.

I guess I really have let lj go. I'm kind of overwhelmed by how much I have to say, enough that I can't say it. Short list: my rapture in my new job has settled down to warm contentment, English Spring is pretty, I still catch every bug going, my mother and aunt have arrived from Australia, we have the prettiest dresses ever and the best marriage ever, Izzy and I have finished marathoning Roswell and moved on the Pokemon, we're very, very happy, and...

THE WEDDING IS IN JUST OVER A MONTH.

Maybe if I write it here it will scare me/us into actually:
- scheduling engagement photos
- figuring out just how much cake we actually need, and if we need more cake plates, cake stands etc
- ordering crinolines for us both and a tiara for myself (I've PICKED it, after all)
- ordering the bits of the favours that need to be ordered
- sending the last few invitations
- sending the celebrant our final thoughts on the service
- finish selecting the music
- write and print programmes
- think about a seating plan

*crawls away and hides*

Current Mood: giddy

So, the conclusion is that a socialite who didn't put on her seatbelt and (probably due to considerable alcohol consumption) thought it would be a really cool idea to have her car drive very fast through a tunnel and race the paparazzi died of... well, look at the rest of the sentence. In order to prove that her bad decisions weren't caused by the machinations of MI6 and the Duke of Edinburgh, it cost over £7,000,000.

In other words, over ELEVEN MILLION children in poor countries could have been immunised against fatal and preventable diseases for the same amount of money. I guess it just demonstrates the relative value of the lives of poor black and Asian kids vs white women who are good at simpering at the camera while wearing expensive clothes.

I really hope the Diana worshippers are happy now. Their Queen of hearts > millions of other lives.

Current Mood: nauseated

Eeeee, sesana! I am never going to fit into my wedding dress, ever. I can't believe how yummy almond M&Ms are.

( much squeeage over beautiful presents )

There has been much baking lately, as we practice for the tea party part of the wedding - buying everything has slowly become "we'll make lots of stuff, and buy cakes to fill in the gaps." Everyone on both of our families tells us "You don't want to do that, you don't want to bake the day before your wedding" which is kind of odd, because I'd swear that was exactly what we decided we wanted to do... I kind of want an Anne of Green Gables style wedding, with as much as possible home-made and cosy and possibly show-offy.

Let me tell you, Cocoa-cola cake isn't nearly as nice as it sounds. *throws it away* i was probably insane to think it sounded nice in the first place. Ooh, coke! In cake! That's not going to be sickly at all!

We've just made what looks like an incredibly gorgeous Bienenstich/bee sting cake, marking my first attempt at proper pastry cream. I am rather smug over that pastry cream. It was looking all silky and perfect when I popped it in the fridge to set. But it's kind of a lot of boring fuss for glorified custard, and it's possible our wedding bee sting cake will be filled with squirty whipped cream instead.

Current Mood: accomplished

I forgot to sing the beauties of Triumph Doreen bras. For those of you with sizeable racks, omg, RUN DON'T WALK. Izzy has a couple, and after envying her gorgeous shape, I tried one on in a shop and was converted for life. They look like granny bras, but they are shaped like 1950s bombshell bras, sexiest things ever under a tshirt or jumper/sweater, and I am all beautifully shaped and comfortable and firmly supported and LOOK NO UNDERWIRES. These 38H *things* of mine have found their one and only bra.

Also, you kind of look like you've dropped at least half a dress size when you put them on. This is a good thing when you are eating up experiemental wedding cake.

I think the best wedding decision we have made, after the tragedy of M&S three tiered cakes doubling in price (which turned out to be a boon), was to make our own cake.

Yesterday was icing experiment day, and our confidence was just boosted like woah, because we never would've thought our first attempt would turn out so well. We used this recipe for the cake, with two spoons of Christmas spice added (Izzy's inspiration). It's fab - kind of a cross between traditional fruit wedding cake and chocolate cake, only nicer. It's all dense and firm enough to hold up under icing and stacking, we think, and very very delicious. We used readymade apricot glaze and ready rolled marzipan because we are cheats like that, but we made this marshmallow fondant in chocolate (so much cheaper than buying plastic icing, and it worked like a dream), and... we were really kind of smug and impressed with ourselves. And much less scared of the process.

We were kind of scared of the whole base layer and fondant thing, but it was easy. (I say that, but Izzy did the hard bit.) We have a few ickle creases as we rolled out the fondant between sheets of glad wrap/clingfilm, but next time we will use the smooth thing the marzipan came with, so that won't be a problem.

We quickly decorated it with cheap chocolates stcck on with vodka, and it's not perfect - we need a deeper, richer brown than cocoa will allow, and gold ribbon around the bottom, and prettier chocolates, and the bottom tier will be about three times as deep and we didn't even attempt our heart top layer this time. We also forgot until we had cake and icing and marzipan all ready to go, that we had forgotten to buy a cake board. Oops. Yay dinner plates! Anyway, it is going to be really, really possible to pull this off and it will be ours, and we had so much fun making it.

And, um, about a zillion, zillion times less expensive than having a cake made. As well as more personal. And as a brilliant side effect, we now have really sensitive, fab kitchen scales and lots of lovely cookware. Yay for excuses.

We're also thinking of making a sandcastle cake to go on the dessert buffet, just because it would be fun. And we'd been lead to believe that baking (as opposed to mere cooking) was really challenging and intimidating, but actually... dead easy and fun.

( slightly blurry, but proud, pictures )

Um. We have a lot of cake right now.

Current Mood: accomplished

I forgot a couple of things when posting about general joyousness. One was my last, temp job - not leaving it, although it was bottom level admin and I'm much happier being a librarian - but that I worked with lovely, kind, supportive people and it was really good for my self-esteem and confidence. I miss them. On my last day, they brought a My Little Pony cake for me... I'm so grateful to them for everything. And I also think that no one should be allowed to work in academia without working in univeristy admin, too, to have their eyes opened a little as to what is exactly is done to coddle them.

Also, Ghibli wise, we borrowed Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Only Yesterday. Laputa defeated us. I'm sure it's lovely, but it was the same kind of dub as the first Totoro dub, where the characters chatter on inanely. Fine, we thought, we'll switch to Japanese. But the subtitles were for the dub. In the end, watching speechless scenes in which the subtitles babbled relentlessly at us drove us too crazy to go on. We'll try again, with a better dub.

But Only Yesterday... We loved it even more than Earthsea. Years ago, the idea of watching a dubbed animated movie about a 1980s office lady haunted by her 1960s childhood and crying with the sheer happiness of it would have seemed bizarre to me. But it was so beautiful, and sharply observed, and tender and moving and... oh, gorgeous. And my once anime-haring wife is a confirmed Ghibli fan.

Kanna is a happy girl.

It's been ages, and I have so much happy I don't know where to start.

First fortnight in my new job, and I'm adoring it. It seems like the best start ever. And I think I have a vocation to be a librarian - I'm just amazed it took me so long to realise. My Brenda Starr doll sits on my desk and looks sternly through her tortoiseshell glasses, reminding me to be a good librarian.

And unbelievably, Grandma is coming to our wedding. I still can't quite realise it - but I'm so, so happy about it. If there was ever proof that samesex marriage/civil partnership is the Best Thing Ever for tolerance, that is it. I will have at least three aunts, three cousins, Grandma and Mum, and maybe more Australians. It's amazing to me that people care enough to come halfway across the world to celebrate our wedding.

We have ordered our wedding dresses. Yes, dresses. Izzy had a last minute inspiration/change of heart and found the most amazing dress and we will be wearing different dresses, but in matching light champagne and, oh, she will be the most beautiful girl in the entire world. Which she is already, but she'll be the most beautiful girl in the world in a beautiful wedding dress, with a taffetta pickup skirt and sweetheart neckline and corset back and discreet beading and complete, utter fabulousness.

Then, there's presents. Tami and Angie sent us all this decadent silicone bakeware, which tempted us first into a frenzy of baking, and flushed with success, into the scary/wonderful decision to make our own wedding cake. We can blame them. (Although also - we love cooking together, and for each other. It seems like such a loving, nurturing thing to do. And oooooh, silicone. Converted for life.) It will be a chocolate wedding cake, marble fondant iced and decorated with chocolates and gold ribbon. We think the bottom tier will be deep and round, and the top tier will be heart-shaped, because silicone is just cool like that. I have trepidation, and also deep joy. (Also deep joy regarding Tami and Angie in general *loves*.)

And Mae's long-delayed (not her fault) Christmas present arrived, and it was DS9 figurines! We commerate having finally finished watching it together and Izzy realising that it's actually the best Trek. ♥ We are dividing them up to sit on our various desks, both because they are DS9 and awesome, and to remind us of Mae, who we love very much. ♥ And we love our little tiny DS9 people. They didn't love Julian enough to put him in the set, though, so we can't marry Julian and Miles figurines, which is disappointing. We have to settle for marrying Odo to Quark. Odo is marrying Kira, too, because we're inconsistent like that. But he will be married, oh yes. Very married.

And - Sprite! My new job celerbation cum Christmas present MSD sized blue bjd is perfect and beautiful and delicate and there Will Be Pictures, only we were kind of trying to tighten her strings and her legs kind of sort of you know, um, fell off. But she's perfect anyway, and I love her, and even Izzy loves her, and there's a custom wig on the way, and we will make her clothes and put her back together.

And lastly, Tales of Earthsea. At my last job, a middleaged Iraqui-English lady (age and background mentioned because she's not exactly the stereotypical anime fan) told us how wonderful it was, and added "Even though the book was really bad." (I remember quite liking Wizard of Earthseas as a teenager, but even then I thought the ending/great revelation was kind of cheap.) We agreed, too, that Howl's Moving Castle was much better as a Studio Ghibli production and disappointing as a novel, mostly because Sophie and Howl were so superficial and emotionally unconvincing as book characters, and their romance a bit cringe-worthy. Similar things follow - the Studio Ghibli movie has the same worldbuilding and setup, but with all the tenderness, beauty and deep emotion that was missing from the Earthsea books. Miyazaki Jr is not as good as his father, yet, especially at coherent storytelling, but it was beautiful - gaspingly beautiful, and tears-in-eyes beautiful. We adored it, and yes, more points to Studio Ghibli for taking what is good from a book and adding what is missing in terms of characterisation and emotion. The only thing we didn't love, really, was sudden fleeting moments of not-wonderfulness in the animation, and we think maybe the budget was drastically overrun at some point.

So - rare update, but very, very happy one. Did I mention having the best, most beautiful bride in the world?

Current Mood: loved

I have the best [Bad username: yuletide"] presents ever - the most utterly fabulous Lina Lamont story, and the most perfectly Gwen yuletide treat. I am squeeing my head off. Thank you so much, both my wondermous writers.

And everyone should go read them immediately. And leave lovely feedback.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Current Mood: grateful

Merry Christmas, everyone. ♥

Thank you all for the congratulations. I still can't quite believe I got my dream job. It's the best start to the new year imaginable. My life is so different to what it used to be! Really, I need to do all my interviews while half catatonic with the 'flu.

Izzy has promised me a new doll to celebrate Christmas and the job. Well, actually, she promised Haruka a body, but I kind of decided that I want a blue resin Bobobie Sprite instead. We'll get her a tinybear wig, and Izzy is going to make fairy clothes for her. So excited! She'll be a blue fairy. It was possibly the chance of getting her in blue that won her the competition.

I was kind of tempted by Demon Charisma instead. So cool. But not much with the being pretty and cuddling. I'm not sure Choseol wants Charisma for a big sister - she'd probably look even more tragic. And she doesn't come in blue.

I ended up writing two [Unknown LJ tag] stories for my recipient and one bonus one, so yay there.

Current Mood: happy

I sort of don't want to mention this too much, in case it all turns out to be some kind of horrible mistake, but...

...I seem to be an academic librarian. Or will be, come January.

Current Mood: jubilant

I really wish Freud had got to analyse my dreams. I woke Izzy and myself up by laughing in my dreams, and then explained it was because the dinosaur had insisted his giant lollipop was for measuring tomatoes, and the other dinosaur had said "Yeah, it's not for hitting dinosaurs over the head with at all, is it?"

There's probably some deep meaning to that.

Current Mood: giggly

At least I'm consistently getting the interviews, and I had really nice feedback from the last one. I just wish "We all liked you" translated to actually getting a job. Still, if I keep interviewing, it's only a matter of time... I hope. my line manager here told me she went to twelve interviews before she got her job; I don't know if I could last that long! I have an interview for another academic librarian position on the 17th, and a phone interview today for a library and information management specialist recruitment consultancy that might lead to something, and at least I'm earning money in the meantime, in pleasant surroundings. :) I'll just keep trying.

Izzy keeps saying we need to put up a picture of our Christmas tree. It's Barbie pink, it has a Kelly fairy doll on top and Barbie chocolate tree ornaments, and my brilliant wife figured out how to balance My Little Ponies on the branches. ♥

Current Mood: hopeful

The first - chapeterlet? Not quite a chapter, nor a scene - of a two chapterlet yuletide fic is done, which puts me right aghead of schedule compared to the way I usually approach yuletide, especially since I had to do a fair amount of research/immersion to try to get the tone of the universe right. Not as bad as last year, in which I actually had to finish watching Maria-sama ga Miteru in order to write, or the year before, for which I ordered Drop the Dead Donkey DVDs. It's probably a rule that you get the fandom you seem least confident with out of your offers, anwyay. Anyway, I'm very pleased with this year's assignment - it's great fun to do. I just hope the recipient likes it. Izzy does, but she's kind of a biased judge. :)

What I've written stands alone, if necessary, and is 2,000 words and safely over the 1,000 word minimum, and if disaster happens I can edit and send what I've got to my wondermous beta, so I'm ahead of the game.

yuletide is the one fandom thing I still get excited over. And for some reason, about the only time I can finish fanfic now.

Current Mood: accomplished

Far more of my family can make it to England for the wedding than we originally anticipated. *sparkles* Also, we are doing our own flowers - all of them, including my bouquet, my sister's bouquet if she makes it to be Maid of Honour, and Izzy's corsage. We may be insane, but... I'm really looking forward to it.

We have a phone line. It is not working yet, but it has physically been installed.

Didn't get either of the jobs for which I interviewed, but the second rejection came with a "But we might be getting funding for a special cataloguing project and would you like us to pass your name on?" which is what happened to me at Bath Uni and did result in work, so it's not all bad. (And it will also mean no interviewing, which is *good.* I know perfectly well I get nervous and flustered and babble, and don't interview at all well.) It will also, hopefully, help with the "your experience is not at a high enough level" thing, which is worrying me. I'm really getting the feeling that the career path for an academic librarian in the UK is to work your way up to Senior Library Assistant, the top administrative position, and *then* get qualified as a professional, and I'm not quite sure how to do that as I'm over-qualified as an LA. There was a lot of "But how will you deal with being in managerial position over people who are older and have years of experience?" questioning going on, for an *assistant* librarian job.. More short-term work as a librarian would maybe help.

It's not as bad as it could be, in that I love being at the Graduate School and in an atmosphere of study. Very different than having nothing to distract me from the job-hunt when Izzy is at work. I just want to be a librarian - I'm starting to believe I really have a vocation. I get scarily passionate about things like metasearch programmes for electronic journals. But I like my co-workers and the students, and I'm getting lots of encouragement to get my PhD *here*. It was suggested I have a chat to the Head of Cultural Studies today. And I *am* more confident. I thought I was rubbish in the MA, but my first research project won the biennual library prize, and my thesis gained High Distinction, and I'm no longer blocked by depression. /self-encouragement. In truth, bursaries or no bursaries, I couldn't do a PhD until Izzy finishes her MSc in Engineering, which means doing it in Australia anyway. But there's no harm in planning.

Something in kid's lit should span the lit/cultural studies/library thing nicely...

Current Mood: content

( Dear <lj comm=yuletide> Mother/Father Christmas, )

***

I want my real assignment. Damn false alarms.

ETA: It was the same one.

Current Mood: excited

Early in to work, so quickly updating. I signed up to yuletide from the parents-in-law's house on Saturday, but I forgot one request I wanted to make so I'm seriously considering spending my lunch break re-signing. I was much more conservative with my offers than usual. I was really please someone had suggested Yotsuba&!, because that was the main reason I was regretting having missed the fandom signup.

I have job interviews tomorrow, the day after, and Monday. I'm sick with nervousness, which is silly. I know from experience that people come from all over to these interviews, and that they only interview three people, and that last time I had a very near miss, so if I don't get one of these, I'll get another in due time. The one I am meant to get. Which is what I keep telling myself. But I want one of *these*!

But I'm working and earning and determined not to be silly about it - my life happiness doesn't ride on getting a particular job. It rides on having a loving and full, and increasingly Quakerish, life with the most wonderful woman in the world. Who plays Pokemon with me. Our pokedex is pretty damn impressive, job or no job, and I just traded my old Sapphire Skarmory, Domino, for a Jirachi. Priorities!

Current Mood: hopeful

Just quickly - we still have no internet (or phone) because of the Endless Saga of Doom, I'm temping at Izzy's uni in the Graduate School of Humanities so I can't get to the library, I have two librarian job interviews next week, and life is good. :)

It is a symptom of business that I seem to have missed the yuletide fandom signup completely.

Back to work!

Current Mood: rushed

Sorry to all the people I emailed and then vanished on. I'll start slowly emailing people, bit by bit, but the walk to the library has tired me, so it might take me a while.

Long story short: I had some medical problems; I'm (mostly) better now; the NHS is great - we arrived at the hospital and I was ushered into a bed; and I'm more aware than ever that civil partnership is not just a piece of paper, because I had Izzy with me when I was in pain and scared. Things like next-of-kin so she could stay with me and compassionate leave so she could look after me when I needed her were all much more simple than they will be in Australia.

I managed to walk to the library today, so nearly all clear. I'm rather sad that I have no excuse to use a wheelchair when we go to the Wedding Fair tomorrow. There's something incredibly comforting about your wife going "vrooooom" as you round corners together.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

That one. I wanted to try on that one. It was ont he rack, taunting me with its dull pinkness! And probably this Ian Stuart knockoff here. Why wasn't I allowed?

Current Mood: frustrated