schneefink

Yesterday was the annual (except last year, for obvious reasons) get-together barbecue of my father's side of the family. It was nice to see all the relatives that I usually only see once a year. One of the little cousins got a belated birthday present that was Naruto-themed and was very surprised that I know about Naruto, after all I'm old ^^ (They told me they watch Boruto.)

Today DD and I returned to our apartment. I was exhausted basically as soon as I stepped through the door, not sure why. I should clear out my luggage but I always procrastinate on that. My room is not so big that my luggage isn't an annoying obstacle. I was planning to post this to hopefully motivate myself, but then I started procrastinating too early... Tomorrow.

This year for Christmas, DD and I are engaging in a classic trope: fake dating!
Accidentally, I swear. DD isn't going home to her family for the holidays, and when my mom realized that meant she'd be alone on Christmas eve she invited her. DD agreed, but said that this won't help her mother's impression that we're dating. I said it's fine, my parents used to think that too. Then my mom asked me how many guest beds we'll need and I managed to imply that we'll only need separate beds because DD is currently sick.
We both found that very amusing, and then spent the next few hours making ill-advised totally non-kinky comments at each other. Our brains, seriously.
Anyway, we're off to my parents now, there'll be good food and singing, and Yuletide fics tomorrow morning. Happy holiday season :)

( Health stuff )

I'll get a job offer in the next few days: the company where I worked last year wants me back for a few months because they need more people for a new project. It'd be part-time and I could easily schedule it around my classes, and it's not particularly stressful work so that's good too. The only thing that makes me hesitate is that they're likely (I'll only get their actual offer probably on Monday) offering less money than I want and think I'm worth, so I'll have to decide if I take the job regardless. Con: less money than I would likely get elsewhere, a job where I don't learn anything new. Pro: I could start immediately instead of however long it takes me to find another job, job applications suck, it's a good test of how many hours I can easily work while taking classes, and I always do better when I have an external structure. So I'll probably take the job anyway, fingers crossed the money will be ok. (It'll be fine for what I need in any case, but nothing extra.)

This weekend there's a family reunion on my father's side of the family, which I have little contact with. I'm a bit apprehensive because I don't know who exactly will be there, but almost certainly my aunt H, who I used to like a lot and see semi-regularly until we had a weird fight over three years ago and we haven't spoken since, and I don't know what if anything she told the rest of the family. But it's just for two nights and the worst thing that can realistically happen is that it's awkward the whole time, and I can deal with that. And the food will be excellent.

I had yet another spectacularly unproductive week, so, to distract myself from that: Cooking!

DD moved in two weeks ago, and it's been great. Apart from all the other bonuses – an actual friend in the apartment that I can talk to, someone to share chores with and watch hockey and movies with – I love being able to cook and eat together. I eat a lot more regularly since she moved in.

DD is vegetarian and, because of allergies, practically vegan. That's fine with me, I usually eat meat once a week when I visit my parents and sometimes I just add cheese to my portion of a dish. We're eating very healthy, a lot of vegetables. Today, for example, pizza, which is basically bread with vegetables. Yesterday I made a mushroom and potato casserole, which was good (unfortunately required a lot of clean-up, and that on the one day this week when I did it all on my own because DD had a deadline.)

I had a very limited spice sortiment – salt, pepper, garlic, nutmeg, that was basically it. DD cooks with a lot more different spices, which is interesting; I just have to occasionally remind her that I'm not good with very spicy stuff. She also cooks with ingredients I almost never used, like lentils and chick peas and broccoli and soy sauce and tahini. I'm learning new recipes (although to be honest just as often the "recipe" is basically just "put all that together in a pan.") When I got her into watching "Nirvana on Fire" she made Chinese dumplings, they were very good. (We had them with left-over tomato salad, not exactly traditional but good.)

We also explored some of the shops around here that I'd never really used before. In a five minute radius on foot around our apartment there is one Austrian supermarket, a German discount supermarket, a Thai shop, an Afro-Asiatic shop, an Indian shop (new), and three(!) Turkish shops. It's pretty cool. We got spices from the Indian store and we occasionally get fruits from one of the Turkish stores, they have the best fruits. The Afro-Asiatic and the Indian shop also have a lot of fish, and some very strange vegetables I hadn't even seen before.

As a moving-in present from her mom DD got a soup-maker, which I'd never heard of before but which is very convenient. Just put whatever you want in there, wait for ~20 minutes, soup! Excellent, I predict we'll use it a lot especially when it gets colder. We can also use it to make smoothies, yum.

Tomorrow is my grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, so dad + LB + I are driving seven hours there and then seven hours back on Sunday. The things we do for family. I'm not exactly thrilled – the celebration will be nice but the travel time is such a hassle - but LB said he made good playlists for the drive so maybe it'll be entertaining. I told him to add Hamilton because he still hasn't listened to it, and he apparently also included several other musicals, we'll see.

ETA: Aand I just found out that we need to find a new third roommate. Let's hope I get this lucky again.

My mom has been learning Spanish for several years now and will soon spend several months as a music teacher in Bolivia (!) She got a new ebook-reader for the trip and LB and I want to get her some novels to read in Spanish. I know very little about Spanish/South American literature, so recommendations would be very helpful. A friend already recommended Frederico Garcia Lorca and Isabele Allende and "that one author whose names escapes me right now but I'll tell you later", but not specific works.

I got very lucky this year, I got two amazing stories!

For Hockey Festivus:
Battle Ready by downjune
Relationships: Marc-Andre Fleury & Jeff Zatkoff, Sidney Crosby & Marc-Andre Fleury
So many goalie feelings! Goalies supporting each other, goalies in eyeliner, goalie & captain hug… goalies <3

For Yuletide:
Navigational Aids by genarti
Steerswoman series, post-canon epistolary
I love this fic a lot, instant new headcanon. The relationship between Willam and Rowan and Bel is great and so warm, I just want to hug the story and the characters too.

Some people liked the stories I wrote, so I'm happy :)

I spent Christmas with my family, it was nice. I even went to evening mass, which I originally didn't intend, but mom said she'd really like it if I came to listen to her and LB and also she needed someone to turn the pages for her on the organ. (The sermon was okay, but the mass as a whole emphasized that church is currently not for me. I am proud of the parish for taking in a refugee family.)

Among other things I got a cupcake recipe book from my parents, I'm looking forward to baking a lot! LB said he thought about what I might need now that I live in my own flat and got me a "Minions" DVD xD He's the best.

Today LB and I made our first Christmas cookies of the year. A new recipe, coconut macaroons with chocolate filling, they are not excellent but they are good.
Dad made roast pork <3 With bread dumplings and sauerkraut (not exactly sauerkraut but translating kitchen words is hard.) He's already an expert at roast pork and gets better every time.

A third of my choir visited the already much smaller refugee camp at Vienna's central train station and we sang a few songs from last year (this year's songs aren't good enough yet.) It was nice, I'm pretty sure they enjoyed it.

I started playing Flight Rising, because pretty dragons! At first it was a bit confusing, but fortunately myrdschaem and forests_of_fire helped me out and then I discovered that Wind Flight is amazingly helpful and generous.
My first association with "dragon clan" were the Pit Dragon chronicles by Jane Yolen, where humans breed dragons, so it took me a few days to go from that to independent sapient dragon clans in my head. (Breeding for specific genes still feels a bit weird in this context, eh, handwaving.)
I already have several very pretty dragons in my lair. I can't not make up stories about them, and it's fun. Maybe one day I'll write more about my dragon stories, or actually write my dragon stories, but I wanted to post today because the twins grow up tomorrow. I have two beautiful blue male Skydancer babies from my second nest and I want to show them off :)
( pics )

Dinner conversation between my little brother and me yesterday:

LB: I just thought about Voldemort reading the Evil Overlord List. Especially [#29] "I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion."

Me: Yes! Or Emperor Palpatine. And Vader.

[brief discussion about Stormtrooper vs. Death Eater aesthetics, and which evil overlord could get away with it more easily. The mental image of Voldemort appearing in a Death Eater meeting all colorful is beautiful. Lucius could be appointed fashion advisor.]

Me: Imagine, when they're practicing against boggarts in Hogwarts, and one of the students is most afraid of Voldemort, and the goal is to make him look funny… A pink cape with flowers?

LB: Singing!

Then we started brainstorming which songs would be best:
- the "Schuh des Manitou" version of "Oh when the saints come marching in"
- "Pokerface"
- "Who wants to live forever"
- "My heart will go on"
- "If you wanna be my lover…" (we decided this was too morbid)
- dancing the Macarena
- the Voldemort rap line from Mysterious Ticking Noise
- moonwalking like Michael Jackson
- the Chicken Dance
- the dwarf dance: Hey Zwerge, hey Zwerge, hey Zwerge ho
- Voldy Style
- "Er heißt Voldemort" (The sequel Nie wieder so einen wie Voldemort comes after they won the war: "the boy was sometimes so strange, and unfortunately he lacked a soul, but sometimes I think it was a beautiful time.")

Obviously the students would need to practice a lot. And some of them have cameras. The wizarding world has moving photographs. Imagine photographs of Voldemort in a pink cape dancing in the "Daily Prophet"…
Voldemort's reaction: [Ahmed the dead terrorist voice] "I'll kill you!"

Other great ideas:
- "Maria" from West Side Story would definitely be sung by Snape, as "Minerva."
- In Voldemort's "Gangnam Style", Bellatrix Lestrange would try to be the sexy lady but Lucius Malfoy would trump her.
- In "Oppa Gandalf Style", one of the dwarves would be one lady and Thranduil another one.

Filed under: things I will miss when I move out.

My little brother sometimes gives great quotes, and I always tell myself I'll write them down for some future use. (Maybe his wedding. Our cousin's brother did something like that and it was great.) Usually I forget and regret it bitterly later, but not this time! Some recent LB quotes:

"Mozart was already dead at the time of Creation."
Tbf we were talking about Haydn.

"Two violas playing together is a faux pas."
- when I asked about the composition of string quartets

To my mom's question of who was Alan Turing: "He built the first bombs."
Technically not true, the Polish did it first. The name of this cryptography device means bomb in German, I have no idea why they used the German word in English instead of translating it.

We also have a new secret code in case one of us is taken over by an alien. It's utterly nonsensical and neither of us remembers how we came up with it, but it's fun. I can't tell you, of course, because then it wouldn't be useful anymore in case one of us is taken over by an alien. (Of course it only works if the alien in question doesn't have access to our memories. Yeerks are scary.)

( less pleasant family things )

This week I had surprisingly many discussions about feminism-related topics. One about child custody, one about gendered spelling, one about a women's quota in supervisory boards and yesterday was the strangest because LB thought he was talking about unclear phrasing in an article and didn't get that he sounded like he was dismissing violence against women. And also a few talks about the negative image of feminism and what is considered modern feminism. I'm tired. (Mostly because of my wonky sleep rhythm and study workload, but this didn't help.)

When arguing with my father (moderate conservative) I always "lose": he went to law school and later went into business law, he's well versed in politics and media, and he can argue well. Even in the topics where he doesn't "win" by default because he knows far more about them (how to argue for or against a law if one doesn't know exactly what the current legal situation is and what exactly the law would change?) he always brings up good points that I have trouble countering. Which is good! It makes me think and teaches me about the other side and stuff. It is frustrating at times, especially when I know I'm right but can't communicate it, can't convince him because I can't argue well enough, but I know what to expect. Anyway I'm getting better.

Talking with LB about it is different. LB recently started complaining about a teacher who constantly talks about sexism against women in two different subjects: it was getting boring, he already got it thank you very much, discrimination against men was not addressed at all, and it felt like the boys in the class were being directly accused of being sexist pigs. (Having had the same teacher myself I agree that she is occasionally boring and repetitive.)
Now LB and I grew up fairly sheltered (white middle-class academics' kids who kept to themselves, never had difficulties in school etc.) I know that he grew up thinking and is convinced that women and men are equal, but he doesn't get exactly how much this is still not the case. He sees the difference in wages, but not the difference in perception. He thinks women should not get jobs instead of better qualified men just because of a quota, but doesn't understand how many men get jobs instead of better qualified women just because of their genitalia already. When he talks about "male plurals always automatically refer to men and women equally" I shake my head about his idealism. When I talk about sexism in society he feels defensive and brings up examples of discrimination against men.

I want to make him get this, I really do - he's smart, he's for equality, he's my brother - but I don't know how. I sent him two links, Privilege 101 and The Male Privilege Checklist (and also some statistics about domestic violence and violence against women because seriously, "I don't know what kind of violence they were talking about, maybe some of them considered storming out of the house violent?" is not an appropriate response to "one quarter of women experience violence at least once".)
He hasn't reacted yet. I'm looking forward to the next discussion.
If LB doesn't get it I have little hope for society in general -.-