New glasses + haircut
I thought I’d post a pic of me in my new glasses with my new haircut.
Creepy
Yesterday afternoon/early evening as it was beginning to get dark, I went out for a walk. After a while, I noticed that I was being followed. By a green plastic bag! LOL. It was filled with air so it was almost like a balloon and it rolled along behind me for a while. I kept looking over my shoulder because it looked a little odd but after a moment it just stopped and lay there. Odd.
Doing some shopping – and more
Yesterday I went shopping in the bigger town (“Thn”) that is about ten-fifteen minutes away (by car – a little longer by bus). It’s pathetic really, how different it feels from shopping here. This is probably just me, but I feel more confident there and even thinner (LOL), even though it’s basically the same as this town (“Vbg”), only bigger.
First I want to have my eyes checked up, then looked for new frames. After that I did some grocery shopping. There’s so much more to choose between in this mall, including yummy (soy) ice cream cones.
To finish off I went into the town center to the library to get a library card. Again, there’s so much more to choose from there. A month or so ago, I went to Vbg’s library to look for a couple of books, to maybe sit there and browse through them before I decided if I want to borrow them. It turned out they didn’t have them. The library in Thn did. I wish I’d had time to sit down and look through a few books. Maybe I’ll borrow some next time.
Before I left I checked if they had my two books and they did. They’d even put one of them on the side of one of the bookcases to promote it. I still can’t believe I saw that. It feels completely unreal.
Meme – about me
I found this meme on Livejournal, but it’s originally from Tumblr. I decided to borrow it and adapt it a little.
I write fan fiction
I write original fiction
I publish books
I don’t acccept criticism well
I’m different from the others
I can’t wait to start my own family
I love The Chronicles of Narnia (and the LOTR books and… – how long do we have?)
I live in a fantasy
I love books, even e-books
I was once so ill I nearly died
I’m quiet but I have a lot to say
I hate getting up early
I have never been on a plane
I have been on tv (to talk about my fan fiction writing)
I just need some time off, away from everything
I have blue eyes
I’d rather buy cd:s than download them online
I’m easily distracted
I feel like no one listens to me
I’m a different person online
I’ve lost a parent
reading is my escape
writing is my escape
I long for a happy, long-lasting relationship
I’m shy
I miss summer
I’m the kind of person who uses complete grammar, even while texting
I’m a thinker, not a talker
I’m a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers kind of girl
I want to be forever young
I’m a vegan
I’m starting to lose hope in humanity
I’m concerned about what’s happening to our planet
I’m ashamed of the human race
I love animals more than people
I feel enormously protective towards animals
Disappointing vegan group
Recently, I’ve been rather disappointed in some of my fellow vegans, or perhaps it’s better to say that I’ve been disappointed in certain (Swedish) hangouts for vegans. Most people there, especially the more vocal ones, are only interested in allergies and food sensitivities. It’s their business of course, but they can become quite aggressive when they imagine they’re being questioned.
For now, I’ve decided to leave these troublespots alone and just hang out where I feel welcome. Though I must say it’s sad that we vegans can’t stick together.
Another thing that’s been very disappointing is that so many vegans go out of their way to ‘prove’ that vegans don’t have anything in common with each other. I think we do, even if we might have different reasons for going veg.
The whole thing started out with a girl asking if anyone else would like to find a village or some other place to live close to other vegans. Everyone, except my sister and I, seemed to despise that idea and went to great lengths to put it down.
I find it all depressing and discouraging. Personally, I’d love to have more vegan friends, preferably some who share some of my other interests and living close to them would be even better.
Female role models in tv, movies and books
I recently read an article about positive female role models in movies. In general, there is a lack of good female role models so I think the short list in the article is a good starting point in changing that. I began to wonder which female characters I would deem positive and came up with this list (some of which were in the original article):
Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver, the Alien movies (especially the first and second)
I read that Ripley was originally meant to be a male character, which figures. What man would write a female character like Ripley? Or anyone? Which is too bad, because I think that any woman who was physically capable would have done exactly the same things Ripley did. All she did was save her own life and those her adopted kid/s and try to pay a corrupt corporation back for killing her crewmates and setting them all up to bring back a lethal weapon in the form of an ‘exo lifeform’.
Erin Brockovich/Julia Roberts in the movie by the same name
Erin Brockovich is an unedcuated rather simple woman who stumbles across corruption and finds that she wants to do something about and then does exactly that. Simple enough, but at least when I watched the movie, I was impressed with her development from someone who just wanted to make a living to someone with a conscience. Normally, I don’t like Julia Roberts, so I was surprised to find that I liked this movie and the main character.
Olive Hoover/Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Olive is anything but a cliche. You might say that her grandfather is not really the kind of person who should have been helping her create her act for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and you’d think someone would have thought of that before the actual pageant, but I guess then there wouldn’t have been much of a movie. In any case, Olive is an amazing kid and several other characters in the movie are quite unusual and interesting too.
Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey
Catherine is adventurous, imaginative and though I understand she’s supposed to be a parody of the typical heroine of a ‘gothic’ novel, I really like her. She’s fun and human and flawed, but in general, just nice and you find yourself rooting for her throughout the novel.
Anne Elliot, Persuasion
Anne is also quite different from the other Jane Austen heroines, which is probably why she and Catherine are my two favorite characters from Jane Austen’s books. Poor Anne has been rather too obedient to her family and that has left her in the unenviable situation of being unmarried at the old age of 26. She spends her life trying to help her family and keeping them from bankruptcy. Then when she gets a second chance at life, she’s strong enough to go against her snobbish family and do what she wants for a change.
Beatrice Eliott/Stella Gonet, The House of Eliott
In the first episode of the House of Elliot, Beatrice and her sister Evangeline are basically slaves to their selfish father, but when he dies – which he does during the first five minutes or so of the first episode – Beatrice is the one who quickly finds a way for the sisters to support themselves, doing something they’re both good at and enjoy doing. Beatrice is fun, tough and the sort of person you really root for, except when she’s mean to Jack.
Trudy Joplin/Olivia Brown, Miami Vice
Trudy is the most fun member of the Miami Vice team. Crockett and Tubbs may be sizzling hot, but Trudy is fun, tough and cool. I love her outfits (when she’s not playing prostitute in sting operations).
The rest of my list:
Constance Peterson, Spellbound
Alicia Huberman, Notorious
Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray
Jane Eyre, in the movie by the same name.
Alice, Alice in Wonderland
Miss Froy, Alice Henderson, The Lady Vanishes
Eowyn, LOTR
Stephanie Plum, Lula, Grandma Mazur/mormor Mazur, One for the Money
Veronica Mars, Cindy “Mac” McKenzie, Veronica Mars
From Downton Abbey:
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lady Sybil Crawley
Lucy Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe + Prince Caspian + Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Morgan, Cutthroat Island
Janet, Charmed Lives, Diana Wynne Jones
Tea with Mussolini: Most of the female characters.
As you can see this is a mix of characters from movies, tv series and books. They’re in no particular order, chronological or otherwise. I just put them in as I thought of them. Some are from the early 19th century, others from this year or last year and the rest from anything in between. Considering how long a period of time this is (nearly two hundred years) you could say that it’s a pitifully short list, but of course I’ve probably overlooked several great characters that I might have come up with if I’d taken more time to consider. Also, it’s just characters from the English-speaking world. Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is my list. Do you have one too?
A day out
Yesterday I was going to Gothenburg, to a clinic, to re-take a blood test that they’d taken but neglected to send along to the lab, or at least so I’d been told. When I’d already booked a return ticket and was sitting on the train to Gothenburg, an apologetic nurse called and asked me if I was already on my way. They’d found the test result and I didn’t need to come all the way there. Great. I lost money on that, and the trouble is this was the second time I was going there to re-take tests they’d made a mess of. More money lost for me… Not that they’ll ever compensate for that, that sort of thing doesn’t happen here. I barely got an apology. And just to make it clear, this is a private clinic.
Mom wanted me to get off the train and return home, but since I was already in this other town where I sometimes go to do some shopping, I decided to stay a while. I’d still be back long before I would have if I’d gone all the way to Gothenburg.
This town is more than twice the size of the one I live in (suffer in, more likely) and there are more shops and far more choice when it comes to – well, just about anything. I found some delicious vegetables (and berries) that I hadn’t seen or dreamed of buying for years. I also made a visit to the health food store and found some veggie stuff that I can’t get anywhere else (or rather this is the closest place for it).
On the way back, the bus driver pointed out that using the credit card to pay my fare, would be far more expensive than getting a bus card. I told him I don’t travel very often so it wouldn’t be worth it. It turned out that he recognized me from when I used to ride this bus far more often. I said it’s too late now anyway, since the bus was about to leave. He said: no, it’s not, I’ll wait for you. So I hurried back and refilled the bus card and got back on the bus. That was so nice of him. I’m sure that no ethnic Swede would have been quite that nice about it (I don’t know where he’s from, but it was obvious that he was an immigrant). He was nice to the other passengers too, offering to help a girl get her baby and stroller off, but in the end, another passenger did it for him.
So, all in all, my day turned out a lot better than I’d imagined and at least did something to compensate for the failed trip and the grumpy old man and the surly old woman who glared at me at the bus stop. This town is famous for its unpleasant, unreliable and ugly people and I certainly can’t argue with that.
Rain…
I went to do some shopping today and when I was about to walk outside again, it started to rain. Not just a little, it really poured down in sheets. ‘Whole water’ as we say. I had to wait until the rain stopped again (temporarily) to start walking back. By the time I got back, I was soaked through – at least my shoes and my hair. This is probably the worst/rainiest summer I’ve ever experienced. Is this part of global warming? Well, at least rain should be better than droughts.
How to start using Second Life
I thought I’d do a post about how to start using Second Life. There are other 3D worlds (for instance InWorldz) and I’ve actually used another too, OSGrid, but that was a few years ago, and I never got very far there. At the time, it was very much like SL but far less evolved. So this will be about joining SL (becoming a ‘resident’).
Signing up is quite easy. You just visit the Second Life homepage and click the Join Now link. There’s also a link to click to get more info.
I think that these days you need to provide ‘payment info’ but that doesn’t mean you have to pay anything. The basic level of Second Life membership is free and you can do enough without ever having to pay for the upgrade to a Premium account. However, if you do, you’ll get some of your money back as ‘pocket money’ every week.
Once you’ve signed up and downloaded the viewer (sort of like a web browser, except it’s in 3D, there’s the official SL viewer as well as a couple of others that you can use instead if you prefer), you need to start creating your avatar (which is a 3D version of yourself if you like and in any case, it’s your alter ego inside the 3D environment).
If you think it’s difficult to customize your avatar you can start out with one of the ready made avatars included in your inventory. There are actually quite a few to choose between, both male and female, realistic or more fantasy like. For instance, you can be a vampire or an elf/fairy, or a gladiator. There are also some ‘future’ and steampunk people.
In fact, if you want to spend money in SL you could be anything you like, such as a famous actor, a robot, a pony, teddy bear or even a plant. Anything goes. Even if you’re not interested in upgrading or putting real money into your SL account, you can mix and match the several different items of clothing, hair, skin and shapes that come with each avatar to create your own unique avatar.
There are also several freebie places to teleport to (that’s how you get around in SL – from region to region – in SL regions are called sims). The freebies are usually of quite low quality, unlike the things included in your basic avatars.
After you’ve finished creating your avatar, you might want to go to a ‘newbie’ or ‘noob’ orientation place. There are several different ones, and you probably end up in one of them right away. That will be your first ‘home’ (the place you always return to and log in to). If you upgrade and buy land you can have your own home, but some sims allow you to join their group and then set home there. For instance, the communal SL Botanical Gardens is one such place that allows ordinary residents to set home in their sim.
After that you can just start exploring, socializing, listening to music or maybe even building things. Some people make buildings, others furniture. You can also focus on trees and other things to put in your garden. Then again, you could learn to make clothing and other items for avatars, including hair (which is quite a complex process, I believe). Building or creating items is one good way to make money inside SL.
You can also use real money and exchange them for Linden dollars (the SL currency). There’s actually an exchange rate. The good news is that one L is not worth much. I think it’s less than a cent/penny. So if you do decide to splash out on some fancier items a little real money goes a very long way.
Finally, I’ll just mention the different groups. The majority of groups are really no fun at all, from my point of view. They’re just a way of marketing items for sale, even though supposedly, you as a member will get good offers. There are also specialized groups such as ones for veg*ans or music lovers. If you join a music group, you’ll get notifications about upcoming music events. Sometimes real life famous artists come and perform in SL, and sometimes you get really great ‘amateur’ performers as well. There are all kinds of different types of music, from medieval and baroque to jazz, rock and pop, so there’s something for everyone. The events I mentioned above are actually live events. Someone is singing and/or playing music at their homes, sometimes in real studios and you get to listen to them in SL, using your avatar and the viewer interface.
If you’d like to take a look at some sims in SL, you’re welcome to visit this Tumblr. There are plenty of images from different sims in SL and you get to see some adapted basic avatars as well.
Fandom Survey/Meme
Choose your top three fandoms (in random order):
Robin Of Sherwood
X files
Dr Who
(It’s very hard to choose just three when there are so many…)
The first character you fell in love with:
Robin (the first Robin)
Mulder
The Doctor (Nine)
The character you never expected to love so much:
The Sheriff (He’s so funny.)
Scully: She’s really cool.
Hard to say, maybe Rory, I didn’t know what to expect at first.
The character you’re most like:
Marion.
Melissa Scully
Donna Noble, I guess. I’m not very much like anyone really, but maybe her.
The character you’d slap:
Will Scarlet. I just don’t like him.
Frohike or Langly (Or rather both of them)
Maybe Donna’s mother or Martha’s or maybe Rose’s – do I detect a pattern here?
Three favourite characters:
Robin, Robin and Guy of Gisburne.
Mulder, Krycek, Scully
The Doctor (of course), Jack Harkness and Donna Noble. If Jack doesn’t count as being from Dr Who, I’ll say Rory.
Your OTP:
Robin and Marion.
Mulder and Scully (predictable, I know)
Jack Harkness and pretty much anyone – or Amy and Rory.
