This is going to be an incoherent post, but I don’t care (blogging makes me think I’m productive). I know this because I tried four times to spell “incoherent” correctly. Three to spell “spell” properly.
I have a mad and unreasonably passionate love for Latin. Slight mockery makes me resent you. Praising Latin’s awesomeness makes me explode with little bubbling hearts. Studying Latin makes me crush on you. Stalk you. Consider naming my firstborn after you.
…Why am I so creepy.
However, in the last two years the most complicated Latin I’ve faced is “nemo dat quod non habet” (Property Law ftw!). Finally reunited with Latin, I was made to read a speech Cicero wrote at the peak of his career. When he wrote this, he had long been established as Rome’s best lawyer. The year before he had been consul. Meanwhile I couldn’t even remember how to recognise a gerundive – it’s true that parts of your brain rot when you stop using them.
…Luckily, it was much easier this time around to learn all fourteen noun declensions. Yuss~!
In this speech, Archias the Syrian poet might be thrown out of Rome because he’s been accused of not being a legal citizen. Cicero comes to the rescue with convincing legal arguments:
- Prosecutation wants evidence that Archias enrolled as a citizen at Heraclea. The law states that he must have done this.
Cicero: HOW DARE YOU ASK US FOR EVIDENCE WE DON’T HAVE. THIS IS SO UNREASONABLE.
- Prosecution asserts that Archias didn’t have a permanent residence at Rome, like he needed.
Cicero: ACTUALLY HE DID BUT I OFFER NO PROOF OF THIS. INSTEAD I WILL MOCK YOU FOR SAYING HE HAS NO A PERMANENT RESIDENCE WHEN I JUST SAID THAT HE DOES. SUCH INCOMPETENCE YOU GUYS.
There are more, but I don’t want to ~blow your mind~. Cicero then spends most of his speech ranting about how poets are magical beings (NO REALLY), and how without them society would just fall apart omggg.
The GREATEST LAWYER OF ROME, everybody!
(Also, he won.)
How miserable that in defence of such liberal arts, Cicero has to emotionally declare that “ROCKS LOVE POETS, THEREFORE SO SHOULD WE”. Failing that, there’s the “Well, no one ever died because I read literature” argument. Archias faces the same prejudice that Arts students do today, and that is all Cicero has to defend us with. I feel so reassured.
…Now try writing an essay about Cicero’s apparent persuasiveness. Keep in mind that he apparently knew what he was doing (I remain cynical). Do it without any sense of despair. I dare you.
Worst essay ever. But I blame Cicero. Seriously, what were you on.
I fantasize about being Hugh Hefner.
He has a library of scrapbooks and photo albums that I envy. I know this because I am an avid fan of Girls of the Playboy Mansion. But that’s not the point. Thing is, I want to be a bitter-and-fluffy old lady with a tall bookshelf of my tl;dr journals (I also want three blonde girlfriends.)
With this in mind, I decided to go the “self-publishing” route for optimum fanciness. I’m blogging about it because I can only find reviews for photobooks, and hopefully someone who wants an plain ol’ b/w text book will find this~ ♥
Blurb.com
I tried these guys first, because Blurb lets you automatically pull (“slurp”!) posts from LiveJournal into your book. A b/w text book could only be 5×8 inches, however, and slurping wasn’t even an option! Pffft!
I had to pick a size that better suited for photos. Square. Awkward. I then found this slurping business sucked – loading entries took at least ten minutes, and sometimes didn’t even work (comparatively, LJ Book is quite fast). Nevertheless I tolerated this, since I had a lot of entries, but it insisted I only had 473 posts, when I have at least a thousand! There was also no way to specify you only wanted posts from 2008 – you had to click on each individual post.
But I am patient. I want to emphasize this, by the way. I am patient. When I’m in the middle of playing Sacrifice and my computer freezes right in the middle of something EPIC, I am patient. I have control. I can breathe.
…All that yelling/screaming is only because the game is working properly.
Anyway. You edit your book with BookSmart, which I hearby dub the most frustrating program OF ALL TIME. BookSmart froze. Every. Ten. Seconds. It froze after every slight alteration. Now, the default layout I didn’t want, so I had 400+ pages to change. I was emitting frustrated high pitched screeches. Flailing! Hitting things!
This can all be avoided by getting a pdf of your LiveJournal with LJ Book (where you can specify you only want entries from 2008), converting it to a .doc, which BookSmart can add. You can also do this with 5×8 size. It’s not perfect, you’d still have to edit pages. And you’d still have to deal with BookSmart.
BookSmart can die in a fire.
LULU.COM
Lulu I found frustrating too, because links often went to help pages that didn’t exist. I stuck it out with these guys though, just because BookSmart sucked that badly.
Editing was much easier. Luckily. You decide what size book you want. You download a .doc template, and your words go in there. You don’t have to watch silly videos telling you how to use a brand new program, either – it’s just Word. As a bonus, spontaneously changing the size of your book is less of a hassle than with BookSmart.
Lulu has so many options that it’s confusing: binding, paper quality sizes… and I’m notoriously indecisive. It’s actually a state I enjoy. “OKAY BECKA NOW IT IS TIME TO ASSEMBLE THE JIGSAW PIECES OF YOUR MIND.” After several pie charts, I decided on “Digest” (8.5×5.5 inches), which instantly limited me! It’s only available in “publisher grade” paper, and I could only get it in paperback. Mehhh.
As far as the cover goes, you have the option of templates, doing very basic things online, or being hardcore with Photoshop and uploading a pdf. I was lazy/impatient and did something simple online – just purple. But it’s not the cover that I cared about, but the non-stop lulz that is documenting of my life.
The 310 page book, including shipping, etc, came to about NZ$30. Pretty decent for a book only marginally better than Twilight, and with an even more dubious plot. It would have been more expensive with Blurb, I believe.
I was really impressed when it arrived: it is indeed a book (….um, obviously I didn’t know what I was expecting). I was truly relieved by the paper quality, it’s not at all quasi-newspaper-ish, with pages like a cheap romance novel NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW WHAT THOSE LOOK LIKE OF COURSE. Only thing is: Blurb.com inserts a blank page first. Lulu doesn’t. I didn’t realise. You open the book, and BAM WORDS, which I’ll keep in mind next time.
But the bottom line is: Lulu definitely recommended. And in the upcoming days there will be photos going here. I promise. Hurrrr.
Though this isn’t a new thing, I was only recently accused of having a nose fetish. I feel it would only be responsible to have a coming-out-post. …And have an excuse to compile a list of noses I swoon over. Whenever someone mentions on of these people, probably the first thing I think about is their beautiful nose. I’m so shallow.
Adrien Brody
My favourite nose of all time. I even think he’s to blame for all of this.
Dev Patel
His nose was the highlight of Slumdog Millionaire, I tell you. Now I’m in a moral dilemma until 23 September, when The Last Airbender is finally released in New Zealand. Protest racism or indulge in Nosefest “10?
Spoiler: I probably won’t go, since I have no one who likes Avatar (MY FRIENDS ALL SUCK) and going to a movie solo feels rather depressing. Also, I heard Appa’s barely in it, which is a total slap in the face for my OTP. Sigh.
I also think Dev Patel is all kinds of gorgeous. To the point where I felt oddly guilty looking for a nice photo. I WAS JUST DOING IT FOR THE BLOG OKAY, ONLY FOR THE BLOG. (His ears are making me giggle.)
Lady Gaga
I’ve often heard people calling Lady Gaga ugly because of her nose, whereas I just cannot agree. It’s my favourite part of her face. Even if saying so is pretty weird.
..Now that I think about it, whenever I see photos/video clips of Lady Gaga, I’m constantly looking at her nose. While I adore her for wearing the most flamboyant, ridiculous costumes non-stop, the nose is the best part of Lady Gaga.
Gala Darling
For a long time, I wanted a nosejob more than anything else in the world. — (source!)
I subscribe to a couple of fashion blogs. I adore her style, her tattoos, her hair… She’s one of my (two!) e-crushes. Ooh I just read she went to the same high school as one of my friends (Samuel Marsden, hollaaa!).
I’m so glad that nose job never happened, because it’s part of what makes her really beautiful. People have got to embrace their quirks. I’ve decided this should be the point of this post (instead of my creepiness). If you cringe because of your nose, I’m probably secretly infatuated with it (and I’m still creepy).
Edit: Hurrr I made a new layout I’m very excited about~ So back to this one temporarily. And why upload a layout you’re not satisfied with? How much sense does that make?
I wanted white, clean, simple. The websites I love most do this. I am in awe of minimalism. They’re deceivingly simple, until you try it out yourself. It takes a lot of skill to do almost nothing and not look half-assed.
I find the whole “less is more” idea is is like writing an essay when you’re over the word limit. You have a 50 word paragraph, your essay could survive without it, but you’re convinced it’s just so good…
As for this layout (and all the others!), I’ll let you know a wee fact about me: my favourite colour is grey. Teamed with more grey. Maybe some black for added excitement. I like #333 next to #000, and that’s why I struggle so much with colour schemes. “What colour should go here? OH MY GOD ANOTHER SHADE OF GREY.” All other colours are afterthoughts, and even then they’re just shades of the same colour.
I’m not exactly satisfied with this, and a few things need to be tweaked, but it’ll do for now. I was so sick of the other one! I’m also certain the code in some places is quiiiiiiiiiiiite shoddy, so if it’s not displaying properly, please let me know! 
I said I ordered Pagan’s Daughter online.
While I may exaggerate for ~literary effect~ (I AM AN ARTISTE, MY KEYBOARD A PAINTBRUSH), that was just a blatant lie. I have disturbed the trust my few readers have of me. I hope you can forgive me. I truly was planning on ordering it, after all! I just needed to get my credit card, but my laziness won me over when it promised that ordering from Borders would be cheaper.
Turns out I didn’t even have to order it, because it was in the store. I scampered my way over to the final book to my most beloved series. Guess where I found it?
…In the section labelled “Ages 8 – 12″. FMLLLLLLLLLL.
People I’m friends with on Facebook, they like the Jane Austens and other oooh la laaaa-type authors. Impressive books that make you think of dense tiny print. My favourite book is for little children. >_<
But you know what? I’m glad they have access to such quality literature in this dark age where the only thing marketed towards these brats is vampires. So there!
Oh, and this Pagan’s Daughter thing. Fans sound iffy about it, so I’m mostly reading it for pretty things about how much Roland and Pagan were in love with each other (lol jk, I think they loved each other so much that to say such a love can only exist in a romantic sense only cheapens their relationship. Hurrrr!). Especially since the only person still alive from the other books is Isidore.
…And other fangirlish rantings like that. I’m exciiiiiiiited. I’m about to start reading it. (Except I’m lying again – I started last night.)
