An Eclectic Tongue

So yea, I'm a awake but a but grouchy. Both my mom and my dad have very early morning exercise and be at work schedules. I'm glad that they're exercising and not letting their lack of weight loss put them off their diets or exercise routine. I don't mind being vaguely awake and aware of those grumblings when they're moving around. I don't really mind when they call out to talk to me and make me fully awake either but I can't fall back asleep and when they leave I'm just tired and grouchy with nothing to do

It's all good, I'll drink tea later and life will pick up.

As a side note now that my facebook picture hunt addiction is over and my try to revive the insanejournal has proven it's not enough (can only post so often, sometimes I have nothing to say, not committed enough for a nanowrite, and can only respond to some friends and coms) I am addicted to facebook apps. I've got cafe world, farmville, fish town, and happy fish. I have others that I tried and just didn't make it to the temp addiction phase. So yeah I'm a little lame.

Moved around all my icons again. Since I only have about 100 free slots whenever I plan a massive update I delete a few I'm not using and add in the newbies. Sometimes i have more space at the end of the swap around. My fannish icons are getting less and less these days but I think that's because I'm not participating in the fandom as much as I should/thought I would. Need to find some Dollhouse and Fringe groups stat.

In other related notes, I've been slowly backdating old journals I never posted because I didn't have internet and journals I wrote by hand.  While going through my Senior high school journal I realized that beyond being pretentious and righteous and a know it all I sometimes had interesting thoughts and connections, but there's a lot of muck to rake through first.  

Also thanks to my backdating, all my Wyoming journals are off the first page of my journal.   There's more in between I should type in but I'm stuck at a particularly angsty journal I don't want to write in or look at again maybe ever. C'est la vie. 

Finished my application for an educator's liscence.  Hopefully the second set of tests will be worked up and graded soon and I'll have everything I need to start applying for jobs.  It's not an ideal time to hunt but we've all got our crosses to bear on that front.  Minimally tutoring of some sort should be approachable.

The rest here @ pfodge

So I passed the math portion of the teacher's test. I don't know about the English junk yet as it's a new test and they hold on to it forever, but hey the math part is good and that was the part I was worried about. Go me!

My brother is a terrible writer, as I think I mentioned last week. It's not that he can't write, but he needs some one on one focus and some very specific but simple training. All of that is ok. He and I are working on it and I really think he could be in gear for the limited writing he'll do in college with an engineering major.

I suppose I should say that he and I were working on it. My mom took over, partly because Kyle wasn't smart enough to plan so that I could really look at the work and partly because she doesn't like when others are in control of what's hers .

He has rolling admissions and someone needs to push him through this. He couldn't or wouldn't do it on his own. She might have just felt like she had some momentum left after Kyle needed her to look at the common app and pushed through. I don't really know.

What I do know is that she stopped being "helpful" to the cause yesterday. She's fine at correcting but she doesn't get the kind of one on one detail work that needs to be done. She doesn't get that because you can correct it all in one draft doesn't mean you should (not if you want Kyle to pull something from the mess anyway). She doesn't get that oral correction is like you never did anything. She doesn't get that even written corrections just don't get translated over to the paper because Kyle can't copy word for word and he's so unsure about his work and his own instincts he won't correct stuff in the essay that doesn't make sense to him because he knows that's part of what you wrote down so the not making sense bit is all in his head.

Basically she doesn't get that beyond coaching Kyle in writing and compensating for some of his learning disabilities, I'm coaching him in confidence and doing my utmost to make sure that he understands, can do what I did, and feels good about where he is and the progress he's making. It isn't easy and I don't lie to him about anything. If it's bad I say so, but the trick is not to belabor that point. I tell him we all come in at different starting points and there's nothing we can do about where we start, we can only do something about where we move to. I always stress that we can move this to A work The piece is going to finish strong. I focus on the improvements from last time how he stopped doing x and that was great or I could tell he understood and really worked to keep tense together. To be honest how he picks up and integrates what he understands is very promising.

Anyway, my mom has been yelling for two days and it's getting more insulting and personal each day. We all know she has her limits and snaps. We all knew she'd already broken down on this issue once and was therefor more likely to go crazy over it a second time.

I don't get it. I don't understand what she thinks she'll accomplish yelling at Kyle telling him he's stupid and he can't do the work and his attempts are pathetic. I don't get how I can sit and explain what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and point to some positive results and she can still come in and shit on it all.

I don't get what Kyle was thinking when he didn't jump on this after the first time she went ape shit crazy. I know how demotivating she can be. I know she can shake you in a lot of cruel and hard ways. You know I get the hesitation and I get that the quality of work is going to be less than it was before because now you're shaky. I don't get not trying to dodge all the abuse and crazy you can.

I don't get the whole deal.

My mom and I have been talking about this Halloween party we're putting together since September. It's really very sweet that she's trying to share my enthusiasm and general need of this holiday. Its the one Christian holiday that was never ruined by some sort of whatever junk that's tainted all the others. You know all that junk that's covered them which generally result in me having a bunch a panic attacks and nervous break downs and general freak outs as they come closer.

I mean my connection to this one holiday in the most secular of views is probably one of those big subconscious things that tipped the scale in favor of some neo-paganism classic where I can celebrate Halloween as a big party. A culmination of last year and a clean start on the new year. Beyond the party and the food and all that I'm really trying to focus on that last bit. I need a new start. I need to let go of what I'm carrying and reconnect with some of the good energies and things that I used to sense so naturally. I thought that I could do that without a mile marker, but since I can't, I'm hopeful that the little addition will help.

Anyhow, I'm cooking for a party this year. My brother and his little friends are coming over. The food is mostly weight watchers friendly because I really do want to help my mom with her diet. I want to rent out the Rocky Horror, Evil Dead, and Rosemary's Baby. All classic movies Kyle and his young friends have missed that just need to be remedied. I'm not really a Rocky Horror fan, but I don't think my prejudice should stop peeps from seeing it. After all I'm not a Monty Python fan either so what do I know about great cult classics.

Got food shopping and movie renting and class and work all on the horizon. Ta.

I keep having nightmares and vivid dreams. I wake up and for a few brief seconds I expect to be in Wyoming and then I remember my life and that part sucks almost more than the dream. Zac and Jeff run rampant in my dreams always starting off as people I'm happy to see and turning into people I hate or hide from or am emotionally wounded by. When it's not them it's about strangers abducting me and horrible things happening. It's always winter in these places. I hate it all so very much. I always wake up tired and sore and wishing I could still be asleep even if I'd be back in those dreams. At least the dreams aren't real.

Jeff is gone to Indonesia and I never said good bye. I've been dog sick and busy with work and Kyle's paper stuff. I think there's a chance I can get him to write an essay on his own and I'm not screwing it up. Plus I don't know if I'll ever want to talk to Jeff again. I don't know if I can stomach all the pushing for something more something I'll never want.

I've written and thought about why I hate Jeff's advances now when before I felt similarly. Before Jeff was the best boyfriend I'd had. It was easy to still be interested in him when my current bfs didn't have what he had and didn't have and qualities that filled the void.

Zac filled the void. He's not like Jeff in the least, but he's a complete package. I was with him for so long and appreciated the consideration and thought he offered so much how could I go back to someone as selfish or self centered as Jeff.

I know Jeff believes he terribly considerate to me, and how he acts towards me compared to the world at large is considerate. I've lived with more though and I'll always want that now that I've had it.

Beyond the whole comparison of exs though, Jeff exists on a completely different thought plain than I do. That wasn't the case even months ago, but letting go of a dream and a lifestyle and choosing something else that still nebulous and unknown has completely warped my outlook.

My aura color is altered. Kathleen and I have argued the positives and negatives of it, but it comes down to the fact that I don't just feel like and an altered being, I am an altered being. How I think what my focus is the way the world looks is all different.

I've finally had or taken the life changing experience that people talk so much about for college essays and all that. Odd.

There are spoilers regarding the latest episode of the Dollhouse and possibly all of season two so far.

During the first season of Dollhouse, I gave it the tentative thumbs up.  The device wasn't the best I'd seen, but the whole troupe of actors playing completely different parts each episode is really cool.  That the lead was a woman showing her versatility as an actor made me happy.  The different games, cult infiltrator, rock star back-up singer, hostage negotiator, and so on were fun.  I like that Echo twisted traditional roles.  She did unexpected things and took her character to the next level in a lot of the mini skits.  I could overlook that the power she showed in these moments was wiped away at the end of each episode because I like the mini person and in the big picture it looked like Echo had been powerful and willful and was still a force of potential danger and power.  There was a hint of maybe and the maybe was just another taste for me to want the uprising and to see it as a potentially big and glorious event to look forward too.  I don't know if I'm the only one who feel this but the whole show reminds me of The Pretender with a female lead.

I never in a million years wanted the show to become about the actual Dollhouse.  I didn't want to learn more about it's internal workings.  I didn't want to see that Adelle was in many ways as much a doll as the actual dolls to a bigger group where some men sit in a dark room and smoke.  The implication that these men existed and that Adelle had to walk softly to get around them was enough for me.  That she sometimes was getting one over on them and that there could be consequences beyond her power to alter if they were involved was enough. 

  I never wanted Topher to be more than a sad narcissist incapable of real relationships or empathy for others.  The question of whether those remembering or those who don't get to remember suffer more isn't a question or theme I want incorporated into the show.  Hello been there and covered it best through Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind thanks.  By the way the answer to who's better off is always the people with the power are better off.  Those remembering always win.  They have a choice, they have the knowledge and they have the power.  The dolls have to wander around in the dark.  That I could ever grow to sympathize with Topher or his position is to make overly light of the whole scenario  It makes me blindingly angry.

At the end of the latest episode Topher talks about how Sierra was never meant to be in the Dollhouse.  This implies that others in the Dollhouse are meant to be there.  Sierra's story is particularly sad and tragic.  Comparatively to November's story, the only other doll's back story we have a full account of, it does seem cruel and awful  November did seem far more willing in the process than Sierra does.  

Still what we know about Victor implies some sort of war trauma why would that make him belong more?  And with Echo it seems that she was snooping into the Dollhouse's experiments  It seems that the company probably killed her fiancée and was going to send her to jail with trumped up charges.  She knew too much and was being silenced, or at least that's what I've gathered.  How does this make Echo belong more.  Is it because she was "asking for it" by "snooping around" and "sticking her nose where it didn't belong"?  Echo is clearly upset about her options and she seems to fully understand in her meeting with Adelle that she's probably never going to be Carolyn again.  How is that chilling terrifying knowledge and forced choice make her belong more than Sierra's choices?  

Beyond that, how come Sierra is always a victim?  Within the dollhouse her keeper was raping her.  Outside her doctor drugged and raped her and got her sent to the dollhouse to become a doll after which he continually paid for her to do engagements where she slept with him "willingly".  It's too much for me.  Too much victimization  Too much powerlessness.  Too much focus on what is the most unpleasant part of the show and not enough time using the Dollhouse as a tool to do completely different shows every week.

Echo might have some power in this place.  She seems to be growing more capable the more she ignored and left to her own devices.  Where last season she stood out as "glitching" she now hides that through lies and deception while she tries to lead the other dolls to the same awareness she has now.  When caught we find Echo's favoritism continues with Boyd who has a soft spot for her and through Ballard who apparently considers her the insider that will make it possible to take the dollhouse down. 

As if one woman's rise in power above suppression and cohesion must be shot down Sierra's character is hit with all time low.  As the character that is supposed to be the fighter the gun carrying woman who cleaned up messes, she's become the victim White but still foreign woman to be punished and continually taken advantage of.

Season 2 really hasn't been the same at all as season 1 and I'm not sure whether I can hold onto it after this past episode.  I've been watching and waiting for a return to fun echo on assignments with little side trips to the dolls developing personality, but it's not what I'm getting.  Echo has up and changed for no particular reason maybe the multiple personality boot is what did it, I don't really know but suddenly we were let in too much to her world I think.  It was too much change in her basic doll structure to go so unnoticed.  I mean it was a big deal when Sierra Victor and Echo started sitting together.

At the end of last season Ballard suggested that who the dolls had been always effected the imprint.  He used Alpha's past as part of the proof and it shows again in Echo's responses.  I want more of that kind of direction if we must talk about the dollhouse.   I don't know.  I'm really unhappy with the second season and how the show looks and feels.  I can't give the same defense of it or any defense really that I gave back in season 1.  The nefarious has become too much I guess.

There are things in life that are beyond me.  I don't know what it would take to make me happy.  I don't know if there is any foreseeable time when I'll ever be able to move out of my parents' house.  Gods know I want to, but there's all this work, which I'm working on, that's in the way before I can even consider it.  It's ugly and heavy and bitchy of me to bring it up.  Gosh knows they should be the ones who are angry and tired.  I should be thankful that my brother takes so much energy and time. 

Kyle is another thing that's just beyond me.  The kid is a senior in high school and he really can't write an essay on his own.  I mean I know children where that's the case, hell I know college peeps who can't write essays and are successful.  The difference is that they know they can't write essays,  They know it takes a team and they prep in advance so that the whole team can work it's magic and the essay works.  

I like working on Kyle's essays.  I like to help him.  I mean I'm not useful at as many things as I'd like to be helpful with but I'm really really good at anything English oriented.  It's one of those things that college and Wyoming and life kind of made me forget, but I really like literature and I'm really intuitively good at parsing out bits and pieces.  I know what to write down to get an A and I know how to write it.  I know all about the different processes you can take to get those words on paper.   I know how to lead people with no skill or intuition into the same answers that come to me like a form of divine intervention.  I know how to rewrite the shittiest most primitive work into something respectable.  I can do it with poetry, lit analysis, exposition and so many other forms of writing.

  I know how to weave the obvious into something subtle and rich with meaning if given the opportunity.  I am a fucking spin machine.  My problem isn't that I don't get it, it's just that there's so much to get.  I can go off for hours about the uses of what are seemingly arbitrary words.  I can point out what was probably intentional in an author and what was luck.  I can point to conscious and unconscious decisions in work.  I can follow any lit critics analysis not matter how asinine if he or she throws out a few examples.  

I know how to use styles that are considered difficult to master.  Hell, I've written some of my best work in the second person and for me if was pretty simple. 

I'm not saying that there aren't better people out there.  Obviously there are.  I'm not even suggesting that I could be helpful to everyone.  I think I could help a majority of people with their work if given the one on one time with them and a person who really wanted my help.  What I'm saying is that I know what I'm doing and I'm good at it.  I can make a plan that will work for a student who has trouble in that area because even though I have a good intuitive grasp of the work, I have several disabilities that make the process as difficult for me as other people less talented find it.  I know a lot of tricks, and even ones that don't work for me, I recognize the kind of person they might work for. 

For whatever reasons Kyle can't or won't help me work out a schedule for him to do his work by.  It's causing tension in the household because everyone has agreed that I should take point on this task, heck I'd like to take point on this, and I can do nothing for a person who won't work out a schedule with me and then stick too it.   

Oh well.  There is some good.  I know that even though I'm good at English, I'd probably fail in job where I'd have to work with more than ten people on their work.  I think that working with Kyle has helped to bring back some of my passion too.  I mean I'm writing again and I want to write.  I feel like some of my poetic inclination is back too.  Who knows, maybe some of my poetic flow is awake and well.  It's all baby steps. 

I still hope to help him.  I really want some of this college stuff nailed down.  I'll just have to keep pushing at it and hoping it works out.

24 icons...
1->5 Matrim Cauthon WoT, art via rosemusek's DeviantArt
6-> Gaiman's "Introduction"
7->9 Ravens
10->13 Lucifer Comics, Micheal Kaluta
14-> Brightly Burning, Jody A. Lee
15->22 Favole, Victoria Frances
23->24 Prada Commercials, James Jean

PLEASE AT LEAST CREDIT THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS

1	2	3

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