Today is another day off work (they made me use up all my annual leave before I finish, even though I didn't really want to as I felt kinda guilty over taking so much time off at Christmas time to go see my family and spend my last Christmas before my mission with them, even though I hadn't at the time yet earned that annual leave which I used, since you only earn like 1.75 days per month, and I hadn't even been there for a whole month at the time) so I'm at uni. My lecturer said he would e-mail his current students to let them know I'd come to uni today, that I'd be available to help with Experimental Practice presentation (which take place tomorrow) but nobody has come for that purpose (some people have been around but not for that) and it seems very much that that e-mail was never sent. So I am alone in the lab, working on my project (which I do need to tell you guys about, since I'm slowly getting a little bit excited about it) and listening to TED-talks on YouTube (the project I'm working on is done in Flash, and Flash can be a very mind-numbing programme to use). So I'm link-hopping on YouTube. I wanted to listen to inspiring academic lectures, and have at the end of every video just clicked on an interesting-sounding related video, and that has got me to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W51H1croBw
It's a sort of a stand-up comedy about aliens, but also a touching tale of human relationships told through anecdotes ("close encounters"). I really enjoyed it, and thought I'd share. Now I move on to the next related video.


Except that I'll tell you about this project. The university is building a big multi-layer carpark behind the library. Car parks tend to be uninteresting architectural elements even at the best of times, so they have decided to stick a giant low-res LED screen on it. It's a pretty cool thingie actually, and the screen is controlled by a software that can be downloaded from the internet. You slap some media (pictures or video) into this software, and it translates it as closely as possible into LED light display. I've been involved in this for some reason (the reason being: I love my lecturer so much that I would do anything for him) even though my interest in LED is very limited (I'm a tungsten kinda gal). But all along I've been involved saying "some very interesting things could be done with this" and "if something was made specifically for this screen, it might potentially be very interesting". I've been saying this stuff to the point that my teacher said "make something specifically to the screen". So that's what I'm doing.

Now, I live in Coventry, UK. It's not a particularly remarkable place, it was bombed flat in WWII and as a result is in some circles a symbol for reconciliation alongside with Dresden; Lady Godiva is from Coventry, as is Saint George; it's been famous in different times in history for the colour blue (nobody else knew how to dye cloth blue like some monks in Coventry did - and now that knowledge is lost and that colour of blue cannot be achieved anymore and it is lost forever), for watchmakers, weavers, for car industry, for bicycles, for aeroplanes, etc... Coventry Cathedral was destroyed in the war, and they built a new one next to the ruins, which is sort of a tribute to modernism of the time (40s-50s etc). And it has this tapestry, Christ in Glory, instead of a stained-glass window. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham_Sutherland_Tapestry_-Coventry_Cathedral.jpg So as this LED screen is oblong and unlike a normal screen, it made me think of a tapestry, and the connection came. So I'm making this LEDed version of the Christ in Glory tapestry, that will be animated to be woven and unwoven on this LED screen.

Yesterday I was going home from work. I left the office and went to the bus stop and waited around. It was raining. Usually my boss (not the one who I fancy, a different one :P) catches the same bus, but he wasn't there yet. The bus was a little late. When it came around the roundabout, I hailed it, and as it stopped I saw my boss on the other side of the road. I saw him see the bus, and start running. So as I stepped onto the bus I asked the bus driver to wait for that man (who was quickly crossing the dual carriage way) as he wanted the bus also. Now this is a bus that comes every half an hour, and the journey to where we want to go (the airport/train station) is 20 minutes long. When I expressed my request, the bus driver said 'no, we're already late'. I was so taken aback by the idea that he thought standing still for about 30 seconds for my boss to get on the bus was unreasonable. Amusingly enough, I was so taken aback that I literally took a step back - obstructing the doors of the bus, and I took hold of the handle of the door. So I stammered something along the lines of 'but he's right there' - all the while my boss is bolting across the dual carriage way to the bus stop. My unintentional stalling tactics did the trick and my boss got on the bus and I moved on inside the bus (as the bus driver said something along the lines of the 'step away from the door' and 'could get shot'). I went to stand stupidly in the middle of this jam packed bus, shaking, trying to figure out what had just happened, while my boss bolted to the upstairs of the double-decker to find a seat. I came to enough to realise that I might be able to sit down upstairs (and also hide away from the busdriver - for some reason the whole episode had made me terrified of something), so I went up too. I was shaking and trembling all the journey long.

So. Why was I so taken aback? Why was I so scared afterwards?

First one, I think is much to do with the way I assume that everything I think is obvious. I don't think I have unusual thoughts, I don't think that anything that I understand is complicated for anybody to understand (if I could figure it out, surely anybody can?) - I think that everything is obvious. And not once does it fail to make me utterly baffled when it turns out that it's not like that. I think that everybody wants the world to be a better place. And because I want the world to be a better place, I want to help other people as much as I can, because the world itself is too big to be helped so focusing on helping individuals is a more attainable and rewarding activity. So I think that everybody else wants to help other people too. So when the bus driver - a person employed to serve the public - says he thinks it more important to drive on as quickly as possible, leaving somebody waiting for the next bus that isn't due for another half an hour, than waiting a split moment for someone who is running for the bus -- well, that leaves me flabbergasted.

Second one, I'm not so much baffled by the fact that I was scared - I'm scared most of the time, by things that excite me and interest me, by people I know and love and adore and respect, and by situations that are familiar and comfortable. Fear just kind of works for me, it makes me do things, it stops me from doing other things, it motivates (though sometimes it cripples)... I operate with constant fear, and that's fine. But why was it so delayed? Maybe I'm really slow on my reactions, that is possible, and it was just my regular fear kicking in with a delay. But this fear was different. It wasn't like my usual fear. So I am baffled here also.

How something so small and insignificant can cause such a tumultuous brain-process over such a long time... I'm sure there's a defective (observe the use of one of my new favourite words, courtecy of Meatloaf and Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back) chip inside my brain there somewhere... How much is lobotomy these days?



Still no mission call. Been on edge all day. I'm going straight home from work today to wash laundry, and to receive a visit from my home teachers later tonight - if the call isn't there waiting for me when I get home, look out in tomorrow's headlines for: "Housemate finds woman dead in living room. Detectives suspect spontaneous head'splosion."

Still no mission call.

I know my diaries have recently been very 'amg I'm going on a mission' -focused, and I came across this page that explains pretty clearly what exactly that is. So for your benefit, while you wait for me to get back get on with your lives while I get on with mine, here's a link to a thing:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/background-information/missionary-program


In art news, I've been to uni a couple times, and it's exactly the way I left it, and I love it and miss it so much. And I'm doing a project for my teacher, that might become a public art -type of commission thingie. :3 Exciting.

I was thinking about the last Sunday before I go on my mission. I know how all this run-up-to-the-mission -thing works, so I know I'll have to give a talk in church on my last Sunday, and that I'll be asked to pick a hymn or I'll get to ask the choir sing for my farewell, etc... So I was thinking what would I pick. The very first one I ever thought I'd pick was 219 'Because I Have Been Given Much' - which is Marc's favourite hymn - but we sing it all the time, and Ray is pretty fed up with it. It does have a really appropriate sentiment "because I have given much I too must give" the sort of idea that you get blessings and you in turn bless others, which is what the mission is about. But because we do sing it all the time, it makes it lose meaning. So I've been thinking of alternatives.
                   
There's a bunch of really missionary-themed hymns, but I'm strangely averse to them - like "Called to Serve" is the missionary hymn. And I don't like it very much. There does seem to be a huge tendency to sing the bigger number hymns in the book more often, like around the 200s. I prefer the little numbers. So I was flicking through the hymnbook yesterday because I was bored, and a couple stood out to me as interesting: 8 "Awake and Arise", 9 "Come, Rejoice" and 28 "Saint, Behold How Great Jehovah". They're all restoration hymns rather than strictly speaking missionary/service ones. I haven't heard 8 or 28 before. The words to Awake and Arise are really nice though, and it's sung 'Brightly' and one of the scripture references is Doctrine and Covenants 133:7-10 which is win, not only because it's leet :P Come, Rejoice is a lovely, bright tune. We don't sing it very often, but when I was picking it out on the uke, I did recognise it. The last line of every verse has my favourite word 'hosanna' on it. :D Also it references Doctrine and Covenants 29:4 'Ye are chosen out of the world to declare my gospel with the sound of rejoicing, as with the voice of a trump' which is very missionary-appropriate. 28, 'Saints, Behold How Great Jehovah' I also haven't heard before, but as I played it on the uke it's really a lovely little tune, about restoration and gathering, which is what missionaries talk about. It too references D&C 133, verses 37-38. (I'm liking that chapter of D&C at the moment).

There's a whole bunch of other hymns that would be appropriate too, but I think I'm leaning towards 9 Come Rejoice. It's the hosannas that do it for me :) I might even call it my favourite hymn from now on.

Anyhoo, I was thinking of the other last Sunday stuff too. Like what I'd say in my talk... Mention having watched David and Chris, Claire, Pun, Guy, Joe, Alex etc... all go ahead to their missions and leaving me behind, striving to follow their example. How observing them has made me familiar with the leaving-side of the mission, what it's like to those who stay, what it's like on the build-up to the departure (the preparation, filling the papers, the farewell, the last Sunday, the setting apart, the begging for letters... :P) So I've been able to think of all that and plan all that (because I don't have family in the church who'd plan that for me, I have to take care of it myself). And all that has kept my mind busy enough to not start thinking about what's beyond what I've seen my friends do: the actual leaving, going away, not knowing where and with who, not seeing the people I love for a really long time... I'm a natural born worryer, and most things in life make me scared - even good things. So all this run up to the going on mission has let me not-focus on the scary bits, has let me look at the process step at a time: get the papers, get the medical sorted, get the interviews done, get the call, prepare to go, get my stuff sorted, get my family sorted etc... It's all to stop me from going "holy crap, this is scary and I don't want to do it" - because I do want to do it.

Of course I wouldn't say it like that, and the example of friends would be a very small part of the whole talk. But I'd like to mention it.

http://xkcd.com/576/

Why didn't I think of this? :D WIN!

http://michiedo.blogspot.com/2008/12/im-glad-im-boy-im-glad-im-girl.html
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/6081/bart-hess-at-the-dutch-invertuals-exhibition.html

I wish I replied to blogs.

Well, in a desperate attempt to be more like the Gilmore Girls I bought some Pop-Tarts today. My intention is to have a Pop-Tart related accident (the intention was to have that accident at lunch time with lots of my colleagues witnessing it, but I ran out of time because technically my lunch hour started at 12 when I went to talk to my stake president {who conveniently enough works at the same office I do} to sort out the mission papers). So if you hear in the news something along the lines of "Pop-Tart stuck in Frenchman's eye socket - physicians bamboozled" (holy crud, I can't believe my spellchecker agrees with me that 'bamboozled' is a word! It thinks 'Gilmore' is not a word but 'bamboozled' is? Well that's left me positively bamboozled), then that's me causing grievous bodily harm to the people who live in my house. Maybe the unexpected blessing in such an event would be the French de-occupying my house. One can dream.

As mentioned in a bracket there, I sorted my mission papers today. I believe the phrase I am looking for is "and they're off!" So yes, after a wait of about 7 weeks (give or take a bit) I will hear back from God who will tell me that I am called to serve him, and he'll tell me where I'm assigned to. That'll be exciting, now won't it?

I wish I had some more news for you from my exciting jet-setting urbanite lifestyle. And I do. (Because let's face it, any news will beat "bought Pop-Tarts" and "am waiting for the next 7 weeks"). Let's see. ... Hmm... I'm sure there was something.

Well, while we wait for that to happen, let's have a look at this upcoming week in brief:
-Monday: make animation LED lightshow for George (but I'd much rather read though the junk-forum!)
-Tuesday: elder Ballard arrives in Coventry, choir sings, will have to go to ASDA to exchange bras.
-Wednesday: complicated plans involving changing the tyres on James' car, going home with him to eat and waste time, buying cinema tickets while he drives off to pick another girl up and then watching Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D. (I have never seen anything in 3D - I reckon I don't even operate 3D vision, I think I see in 2D)
-Thursday: Institute is back, so I'll spend my evening learning about religious things.
-Friday: I can't remember, maybe it's empty. That could be my internet night.
-Saturday: I need to find a place to play croquet in. A park-space. Also I need to buy a croquet set :S Proper ones are really expensive >.<
-Sunday: the day of rest, but I'm going with the missionaries to help them or something.

Amendment:
-Friday: Go round Silvie's
-Saturday: Be round Silvie's
-Sunday: Leave Silvie's and get back to Cov in time for a YSA Fireside.

I wonder if I would be allowed to skip this upcoming week, as I've already lived it out. Could spare me the time while still gaining the experiences... No?

Next time, more about Pop-Tarts.
(PS, does anybody know how long you are supposed to heat them in the toaster? All the package says is "use lowest heat setting")

The other day I swore to myself that I would never ever sing in choir again, especially not alto, that I'd quit as soon as the Easter concert was over. Well, it's over, it went really well (I botched up only once, when I started one of the hosannas too early, and the lesson learnt there is 'look at Ben, whatever you do, just friggin' look at Ben') and we'll be singing again (not the whole cantata, but the same hymns we did last night and the last number of the cantata If Ye Love Me, which is the second-best song of the whole thing, after Hosanna to the Son of David - btw, hosanna is now my favourite word :3) on the 21st when elder Ballard comes to Coventry to give a talk (wewt, I get to sit next to the apostle, though it's also slightly lame that I have to sit on the stand for choir, and then look at his back while he speaks :/) So yeah, I guess it's fair to say that I'm not quite given up on choral singing yet.

I'm also greatly enjoying reading Finnegan's Wake, as impossible as it is. It's not a novel, it's not even a story. It's not exactly a poem either, though it is poetry, I would say. It just tickles so incredibly much, it's doing to language what surrealists did to realism: twisting and changing it, making it funny, makign you see relations and correlations that you hadn't really seen before and that aren't really there either. :3 It's one of a kind, I don't know anything alike it. I don't recommend it to anybody (except maybe Linderel and Silvie, maybe), but I do encourage people to be aware of it, and maybe someday willing to take up the challenge with an open enough mind to say "I will not understand this when I read it - but I'll read it anyway. All the way through". No, I haven't got through it just yet.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talking about Easter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFhS0dAduc

I love elder Holland, he has this really evocative, emotional, strong way with his words, it's marvellous (I recall a few months back him talking about Joseph Smith and the time he spent in Liberty Jail (gotta love the irony in that name) and it still is one of the best talks I've seen).


Today's dialogue of the day:
-Boy, do you have any pornography in your bag?
-No sir, we don't even own a pornograph.

Amg, where is Silvie? I need my Silvie. Silvie is in French? I mean, France? I need my Silvie ._.

So, with the lack of Silvie and a thing I need to say, I'll encumber you people with it:
Amg, what is going on? People are, like, social to me?! In real life! People talk to me on a bus stop! Some kid on the bus was all smiles and "how you doing" flirty, and and and... I said hi to a totla stranger on the street, thinking she was my housemate *spatzes* Also, the other day, I had Chinese take-out. By myself. I'm frightened by my urbanite habits.

I don't know if I should do updates... But I will: choir needs singing, church needs attending and God needs believing in, photos need editing, work needs... going to and coming back from and doing stuff at and being social with people I like, events need arranging, mission papers need sending, movies and arts need seeing in Birmingham, reviews of movies and events and arts and books attended seen and read in Birmingham and London need writing, art needs making, house probably needs cleaning but I'm not going to so no point in mentioning that...
Meh a lot.


*edit* Z0mg, you can strike the mission papers, they're finished! :D :D :D Just had the final bit (chest x-ray) info given me, and it's all doooooooone! :D Now I need to have an interview with the bihop and then the stake president, and then... they'll be off! :D Amg, it's unbelievable! My papers, let me show you tham! (I won't, but let me anyway!!)

...Yet another ET-crash wiped diarying. I really flipping hate that so incredibly much that I... don't know what to do. Maybe I'll just go away from ET and internet for 18 months and add ET-diary-crashes into my list of "things I won't have to worry about on my mission" -_- *is really friggin' unimpressed* You'd think I'd learn and make back-ups or some such of diary entries I want to keep. But I don't (learn, that is). Meh. I can't even remember what diary-entries I lost. The one with the circus review and other random bits, and an invitation for people to watch General Conference last weekend (which was pretty brilliant, by the way, I went to three of the four sessions and loved every minute of it, and I may or may not be linking you at some point to specific talks, if I can pick ones to share).

I'm sure I had something more interesting to share, but I can't remember what, I'm so annoyed now. *sighs and goes to do photo-editing*

This made me go "oh noo! XD
http://xkcd.com/557/

Also, I propose a new game based on http://xkcd.com/561/
What is the uncomfortable truth the well would tell you? (Feel free to take your time, I'll need to think of this for myself for a while).


Also, the recentest Order of the Stick (Varsuuvius' story line) made me cry ;_;

Waltz with Bashir review

After a recent link in [Viking]'s diary to a Jeffrey Tucker article about Intellectual Property in LewRockwell.com (I really need to learn to read that place), I got interested in this guy Tucker and started to look at his archive, and in this http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker135.html there is a great paragraph:

All market failure arguments have the appearance of plausibility about them. Let's say you have a poorly managed apartment unit with a porchlight that is out. Everyone would benefit from having the bulb changed. But if one person benefits, so does everyone. All dwellers enjoy the light and only one pays. That's not going to work, is it? No one would act. Except that at some point, someone comes along and befuddles the failure theorists by changing the lightbulb.


I just wanted to share that because it's been a while since I've been looking into IP-stuff, which is one of the rare things (alongside drivers that don't indicate when they turn) that drives me to an indignant rage and therefore would be something that I would be interested in being actively involved in professionally, in regards to policy-making and intellectual public debate (by this I mean that I would consider IP-stuff a career - though I'm not sure if I'd ever consider a non-indicating-drivers -related career, but I sure would bash their heads in if given the chance).



I have recently been more actively researching mormonism and art, and did indeed find huge amount of incredibly useful things that really help me understand how my newly-adopted religious background affects my work (because it has to have some effect and therefore I need to know what this effect is). I will share some of the results with you at some point, because not all of it is only applicable to me (some of it is, of course, because out of the people who see this text I think I'm the only one who is freaked out by the fact that one of the apostles said that if you don't use your artistic ability in a way that the Lord would have you use it, you might not have that ability in the Kingdom - this worries me, because an eternity without being arty? no thanks. But I doubt anyone else cares about that :P). But I've discovered some absolutely wonderful texts about photography, poetry, art as a tool for improving families and individuals, there's a lot of talk about beauty, and a lot of condemnation of this romantic artist-as-God/cult of fame notion that is around a lot - that last thing made me particularly joyful because I've been anti-that for a long time. But yes, that is to come in drips and drabs in the future.

I still also need to write some reviews about/from the Flatpack Festival. I've had this strange nagging idea, that if I attend or witness something temporal (an event), I should write and publish about it for the benefit of all those people who didn't have the same opportunity. It's like it's my duty to do that, so that things that are done but tied in time will not be forgotten. It also grieves me to think of all the marvelous things in the past that are tied in time and lost. I think this kind of ties to the IP thing, because copyright causes destruction of creations, when all they would need to continue living is a copy.

Amg amg amg so very full of WIN!

http://xkcd.com/556/

<3

Sorry for cross-posting Facebook-friends, but...
Why Do Mormons Build Temples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x_-TQivCx8

I'd just like people who know/like me to watch that because you'll get a small insight into what is important to me: the temple of the Lord. Also it helps to explain why I go "amgsquee!^_^!!" at times after having been to the temple (I'm going on Good Friday to do baptisms, and on 23 May hopefully to go properly <3)

*runs off to exiting art happenings* See you Monday or something :P

Well, Chelsea won Coventry lost, photo shoot went great, and I found out they make Earl Grey Rooibos tea <3

Tomorrow is the 7th of March, 2009. It is a Saturday. I plan to go round a friend's house to do someone I know a favour: a photoshoot for someone's daughter who turned legal this month. Her mom reckoned it'd be a pretty cool and special and different birthday present, something she'd remember and keep for a long time. And it helps that the girl is pretty too, and not camera-shy I hope.

Also tomorrow Coventry Sky Blues will play Chelsea in the Ricoh Arena in Coventry in the FA cup quarter finals. Which, for some reason (reason which I know but won't say here), I care about despite the fact that footie means very little to me. So hopefully I'll be able to catch at least a bit of that on the radio or TV or something (if I wasn't doing this photoshoot I'd go to a pub and watch the game).

Today I had a day off work 'cause I needed to get stuff done and run a lot of errands. It was a really gorgeous day today and hopefully tomorrow will be too.

Also tomorrow is exactly two years since I got baptised. Two years. How marvelous. Two years since I last drank coffee, tea or alcohol. Two years since I made a covenant with the Lord and took His name upon me, to remember Him and keep His commandments. Two years of having the companionship of the Holy Spirit. I look at how my life has changed in two years and I marvel at the miracle. (I can obviously see how it needs to change even more for the better, but it's all good so far.) I can honestly say that I am happy. Not just today or this week or something, but I am honestly happy with my life, even with the problems and difficulties that I have. It all makes me happy.

A proposal for a new reading practice: Extreme Reading.

I made a NotFunny wiki. You can look at it if you agree it's not funny.

In case you've missed it so far, Minesweeper is pretty cool for a contest, and people should enter. :3