Regina Noctis

Well, tagged me with the book meme (didn’t I do that one when got her free tag?) so here it is. Just know, sir, that people get to tag me once and I’ll do the meme. Since I don’t generally do these things anymore, but don’t expect anyone to know that since even I sometimes have difficulty reading what passes for my mind, people get a freebee round of tagging me. After that, further attempts at tagging will lead me to copious pointing and laughing. ;)

Find the nearest book.
Turn to page 123.
Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
Name the book and the author, and tag three more folks.

From Semites and Anti-Semites: an Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice by Bernard Lewis:

Like the Christians, they were not required, nor indeed – with some exceptions – permitted to bear arms. To fight for the defense or advancement of Islam was the privilege and duty of the Muslims; unbelievers, even those subject to the Muslim state, were not called upon to share it. It was not until comparatively late times that the acceptance of the Western notions of national identity and patriotic loyalty on the one hand, and the introduction of the European practice of the draft on the other, brought a change.

And, as per my usual policy, I won’t tag anyone. Do it if you like. I actually enjoy seeing little snippets from what people are reading. But if you don’t wanna, don’t.

This was actually the second closest book to where I sit. The closest was an art book, and page 123 had no text. It was only two large images. But this was sitting immediately under it, still not returned to the bookshelf from when I wrote the term paper for History of Middle Eastern Civilization.

Yesterday, in News of the Christophine, I got a call on the house phone, something that almost never happens. The last time, it was Essah’s wife calling to tell me that he passed away last month. I was expecting bad news. It wasn’t. It was kinda neutral, really. But I thought it was funny. You see, a US Army recruiter called to ask me if I’d like to join the army. He was quite pleasant, so I worked very hard not to laugh my ass off at the idea until after I hung up the phone. I didn’t ask, but probably should have, “Why? What opportunities do you have in the army for an art student with bad arthritis, flat feet, severe obesity problems, symptoms similar to both hypoglycemia and diabetes, a multitude of sleep disorders, a hatred of guns so strong I won’t even touch them, and a problem with being ordered to do anything? Maybe I’ll consider it if it sounds good.”

Yeah, I could see me in the army. My reaction to most forms of “You! DO this NOW!” is along the lines of “You! Suck my left nut!” Yeah, I’ve said it before. Does no good to argue that I’m female so it’s an impossibillity. My response has usually been that I’ve got a bigger pair than most men, and they’re made of brass. I could just see me and my anarchic little attitude and my problems with authority doing real well in the armed services, even without all the physical problems. I do not take orders. I’m more likely to give them.

While researching grants and scholarships for study abroad programs, I came across something that has triggered my indecisiveness.

I’ve been thinking, dreaming, plotting, and planning a semester abroad at the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy since I first discovered it about a year ago. One the problems has been that, in that year, their scholarship/grant page has had no information. It always just says that it’s under construction, so I wandered off and found the IIEPassport Study Abroad Funding site, which lists scholarships and grants for studying all over the world. I did a search on funding for studying in Italy, and have been weeding my way through the listings for a couple hours now.

That’s when I ran into the stopper. There’s another art school in Florence. It’s more expensive, but actually has a lot of grant and scholarship information. It’s real competetive – only one full-ride scholarship awarded per term, and a number of partials – but in some ways it looks a better school than Santa Reparata from what I’ve seen on their site. I’ve been reading and reading, and now I don’t know which I’d rather attend. I’m probably (almost definitely at this point) applying to both. There are others I could probably apply to. I know that I saw a couple listings in Rome, and one that alternates between Rome and Athens every year (anyone who knows me well knows I’m mad for Greece and have been for 22 years). I’ve become quite set on Florence, however. I only got to spend half a day and one night there last time (bloody school-sponsored, whirlwind 9-cities-in-10-days tour in high school) but it was just enough to know that I wanted to spend a lot more time there someday.

Sometime in the next few days, I’m going to have to see if I can dig up ’s email address, and ask her if she knows anything about Santa Reparata International School of Art and Studio Arts Center International. Barring that, anything about the parts of Florence the schools are in.

In some ways, based on the site info, I’m leaning a little more toward SACI than SRISA. However, SACI would mean putting it off, very likely, for longer. Unlike SRISA, SACI wants a DVD or slides of the work accomplished so far by applicants – minimum portfolio is twenty pieces in the field of concentration – and I just don’t have that. I’m not even sure what my field of concentration is at this point. I had one when I started at BC, but my plans have been altering. In particular, discovering that I have back at least some ability to use my hand again has made me less certain about concentrating on graphic design and illustration. Originally, I’d been planning on working toward the computer gaming field, but now I’m leaning more and more heavily toward illustration. So, my plans are in flux, and until they settle, I have no particular area of concentration. I certainly don’t have even the minimum of pieces for a portfolio, and wouldn’t be able to create them between now and the registration deadline.

I’ve been especially taken with a particular scholarship offered through SACI. It’s a full-ride scholarship for a year rather than a single semester. It’s granted to women only. They must demonstrate great ability and talent in their portfolio (and I finally have the self-confidence I didn’t have when I was younger that lets me know that I am good enough to be a candidate) within a field of concentration (there’s the rub) and who have definite financial need (I certainly qualify there). Considering that it’s granted to start in the fall and carry on to the spring semester, they would want to have my application in their hands by the middle of March. There’s just not going to be time to get all the pieces done in time for that. I’ll have coursework at BC that I’ll have to keep up with for much of that time, in addition to the fact that I have to work slowly because while I can use my hand, I have no speed and probably never will. I must work slowly, take frequent breaks, and generally baby my injury along in order to be able to work. All of this would mean putting off until fall 2008 the chance to study abroad, instead of applying for the fall 2007 semester.

Recommendation letters are not a problem. They want ‘em, I can get ‘em. I’ve had offers from every art instructor I’ve taken a class with so far to give me any recommendation letters and portfolio help I might ever need to get into any other school that might take my fancy, or when I start looking for work. I’ve been told across the board that I have great talent and dedication, and anything they can do to help said talent and dedication along is what they want to do. I’m simultaneously grateful and flattered in this unanimous interest I’m getting. Though I did warn one of my instructors that if this keeps up, my head is going to get too big to fit through the studio doors. I’ve already had moments of ego-monster in the last year or so, though I don’t voice the “I am PERFECT! I am INVINCIBLE! You are just too blind to see yet what I’m getting at!” thoughts that float in my head sometimes during critiques. The dedication part, at least, is easy. This is what I have loved and wanted to do all my life. It is the all-consuming passion, the great yearning need that has been a part of me as long as I can remember, and that I have rediscovered in the last semester in particular. How can anyone be anything other than dedicated when the thing is the great love of your life?

Ugh. Enough trying to talk this out. I’m gonna go paint.

I have not even the vaguest idea what everyone is griping about when it comes to updating their journals. I’ve heard that the usual LJ update page now sucks rocks. I wouldn’t know, because frankly I haven’t used it in years. There are a number of clients capable of updating LJ, and I’ve been using one of those since about the second year of this journal. Honestly, I hated the web-based update thing even before LJ apparently broke it in the last round of “let’s add a bunch of bells and whistles that two people will like, many people will not care about, and everyone else will hate with the fire of a thousand suns.” When I used to use the LJ update page, I quite often lost entries and had a number of other annoyances. Haven’t had a problem once since I picked up one of the downloadable clients. I don’t recall now the name of the original downloadable client I used. I know it wasn’t written by LJ, but by a third party. It worked perfectly fine. I now use Semagic, and like it even better. I don’t think I’ve had so much as a single entry eaten by LJ since I started using it. And now, I apparently have the added advantage of not having to deal with whatever has been done to the LJ update page. Bonus.

Now if only Semagic could save me from those annoying pop-ups that happen if I accidentally move the cursor anywhere near a userpic on my friends page. THERE is an “improvement” I find I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. If there’s some way someone knows about to make LJ turn the bloody things off, some setting change I haven’t investigated or something, I’d be much obliged if you’d let me know about it.

In other news, I’m grumpy tonight. My Manx managed to push me halfway off of my bed sometime very early in the morning. I woke up with my head still on the pillow and my feet on the floor. No idea how long I’d been sleeping like that, but a while, since my back was on fire and my knees had locked up from supporting weight that should have been supported by the bed.

In other other news, my meeting with my art instructor went spectacularly. He has offered to write me a letter of recommendation if it will help me get grants or an acceptance to the Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy. He told me repeatedly that I have great talent, that he wants me to continue working in traditional art in addition to graphic design, and that I have a fantastic work ethic and dedication to art that he really likes. He also kept my entire portfolio so he could take pictures of pieces to show to future students as excellent examples of the techniques he’s teaching. He will be giving me a call sometime in the next few weeks so I can pick it up when he’s done. Most of the rest of the class, he only took a piece or two, if any at all. Dude. Blown away by that.

In other other other news, got me hooked on Lost while I was visiting him in Seattle, and now watching that show has made me start saying “Dude!” again. It took me years to break that habit, and now it’s back. Aaargh! But Sylvan only gets half the blame. I also blame for opening the gate by making me say “rad” again. Now I just need to infect them with one of my bad habits. It’d give me my vengeance, and dude, it’d be rad. :p

Edit: Never mind, I found where to turn off the stupid popup menues that have infested my friends page.

I was going to fill the subject line with them, but all of them were too weak.

Second night in a row that the son of the woman who cleans my grandmother’s house has kept me up by blasting his music loud enough to shake my walls. Calling over there does no good. He just denies that he’s the one playing the music, even though I can walk into the back yard, look over the chain link to his place, and see him and his friends having their little party, door standing wide open, music blasting. Calling the cops does no real good, even when called repeatedly. They show up, tell them to turn it down, and half an hour later – about the time I’m finally starting to fall asleep again – when he figures it’s safe, he turns it back up full blast again. It mattered less the other night, but tonight it does matter. I have finals today. I have to be up three hours from now. I’ve been dealing with this thing since midnight.

I’m usually respectful of the fact that others are trying to sleep, but I got fed up tonight. Ten minutes ago, I marched into the back yard and yelled at him. I have, at least temporarily, succeeded in getting some quiet. The fact that I was angry enough to yell at a decibel level that he could hear over the music, while I was still in my own yard, seems to have scared him. He turned it down so low I couldn’t even hear it if I pressed right up against the fence.

Let’s hear it for having been on stage, and had some minor training in opera. I can project like nobody’s business.

Now, of course, I’m too angry to get any sleep at all, my usual reaction to very strong anger. So much for getting any frigging sleep before my finals. On top of everything else that’s going on, I really did NOT need this. There’s an icon I’ve seen floating around. Some of the folks on my FL have used it. The text on it reads something like, “Dear blog, I HATE EVERYONE!” Right this moment, that sounds about right.

But at least I managed to make someone happy, despite the amount of stress and rage I’ve had going on in my personal life for the last few weeks. needed some Eeyore icons, and icons were provided. So, something positive has happened. I can still make a friend or two happy once in a while.

Twice in the last couple months, my grandmother has had mysterious fainting spells. The first time, Mom was right there, and saw her starting to go down. She managed to ease my grandmother to the floor, so she didn’t hurt herself. And then Mom called 911. By the time the paramedics arrived, my grandmother was up and about and feeling perfectly fine, and refused medical attention.

She passed out again today, and hurt her back. My mom was in her room and I was in mine, so neither of us was there to help her. She eventually got up, and told Mom about it, who told me. And Grandma is refusing to go to the doctor.

Grandma also has to take high blood pressure medication every day. She informed us today that she also takes an aspirin every day to help her heart condition, she doesn’t want to take too many medications, and stopped taking her high blood pressure medication a couple weeks ago. I’d figure that the fainting spells were related, except the first one happened weeks before she stopped taking the medication.

Just before she went to bed, she came in to announce that another of her teeth fell out while she was brushing her teeth. And she still won’t go to the dentist, even though all the work for her partial plate was done except for one final fitting.

Meanwhile, in the world of the psychotic, my cousin John has begun giving my name and snail mail address to his fellow convicts. I’ve begun to get letters. The prison is just a couple cities over, not far at all. Some of them say they will be out within the next six months. And now they know my name and where I live. Nothing has yet been threatened, but I looked up on the county court system the offense the first one – who will be out in five months – is in for. He’s in for sexual assault. I have not, of course, replied to any of these letters, and a letter has been written to John ordering him to cease and desist. Not just on my behalf. He has taken to writing the woman who does the housework for my grandmother, telling her that he thinks she’s hot and that when he gets out of jail he’s going to come by her house so they can get it on. I’m deeply disturbed that there are men, at least one of whom is in for sexual assault (and who knows what the others are in for), who know my name and where I live. I have been stressed for a week over this, which is when the first letter arrived. I’m going to go back to carrying my baseball bat with me for self-defense purposes (thanks again for that, .)

A few day after the accident I was in on Halloween, my uncle John’s new car, also a silver Chrysler 300, was parked in front of his house. A woman ran the stop sign at the end of his block, lost control of her car, and smashed into his car at such a high rate of speed that she punched it through the fence and into the front yard. His car was totalled. The woman was an unlicensed driver with no insurance. My uncle’s insurance will give him with less than half what he put down on the 300.

My mother figured out a good Christmas present for my grandmother that all three of the “children” – meaning her, my uncle John, and aunt Demon Dog – can split the cost on. It is very much to my grandmother’s taste, and would be something that would help her back. She wrote to my uncle and aunt, and my aunt had a hissy fit. She tried to take over and insist on getting something completely inappropriate and absolutely opposite to what my grandmother would like, because Aunt Demon Dog liked it better herself. She is now pissed off at my mom because Mom stood up for herself and for what she knew my grandmother would like. Aunt Demon Dog is sending snide missives about it when she bothers to reply at all. Because I’m the only one in the house who has gotten fed up with my controlling, self-centered, self-absorbed, mercenary aunt, I offered to take over the communications on this, because I wasn’t about to let her just do what she wants, but was turned down. Though in the process, Mom told me that she wishes she could be as willing as I am to be blunt, direct, confrontational, and even downright nasty and bitchy when it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. I think she was remembering when Aunt Demon Dog was visiting last, and I spent eight hours on my feet nonstop to cook her the perfect dinner, but had to go lie down for a while when it was done because my arthritis was hurting so badly. I finally felt better and came in to get something to eat, just as Aunt Demon Dog had finished her helping, and seconds, and thirds, and was reaching to take what was left so I wouldn’t have anything to eat (a common occurence when she’s visiting – I’ve come home from 12 hour days at school to find that my share of dinner is gone and my only option is to go get fast food, because that’s what’s open.) She got pissy with me for coming in so she couldn’t eat my share of dinner, and told me to go lie down again so she could have it. I told her that if I went to lie down again, it would be a very bad idea to take my food. When she asked me why, I told her that if she made me miss the one meal I’m hungry for a day even one more time, I’d kick her teeth down her throat and smile quite merrily while doing it. I was done, and I’ve been done with her attitudes and demands ever since. Mom envies that, but she stuck it out on the fight, and it’s probably for the best that she did, really. But Demon Dog will be here for her birthday, which is only a couple months away, and if she tries to browbeat my mother for standing up for this Christmas gift to my grandmother, all bets are off.

Meanwhile, because I haven’t always been entirely quiet with my outrage in the background of conversations my mother is having over the phone with Demon Dog, I’m sure she’s plotting how to show her displeasure with me in her Christmas presents. What she’ll do – because she’s done this before – is find the ugliest little 99 cent piece of crap she can, wrap it up very beautifully, and send it to me for my Christmas present with the price tag still on it. Or steal the sample bottles of shampoo and conditioner from a hotel and wrap those up to send. And I already have my reply planned if/when she does it. We have cats, a litter box, a number of gift boxes, and very nice wrapping paper, after all…

And I saw today that my grandmother smeared my uncompleted final project for my art class all to hell. I hope I can fix it and then finish it up in time for Thursday. I don’t think four big finger smears across the upper third of my picture of tile-roofed houses around a bay is going to do much for my grade on this project.

My family. Putting the fun in dysfunctional.