Livejournal is a mess. A seriously fucking mess.

And it looks awful. As people are saying, you wanting to look like facebook? Never a good thing. Or sign.

Also, I passed my last exam! Yaay.

... but I so fail at this "study" thing.

I'm watching and re-watching the Blood-C opening though.



Man, CLAMP. I miss you.

I hate TV tropes so much.

I should be studying with all my being, but look at me.

Also.

( Spoilers for the end of XXXholic, Rou, etc. )

Seriously, I have been reading the Puella Magi Madoka Magica wiki (beware spoilers, this is a show you don't want spoiled) as if I have nothing else to do. Also the TV Tropes page about this series.

So I wrote an entry I will never post because reading everyone's posts about this actually marred my original thoughts.

Also, I NEED to study.

I PASSED! Whew!

And so sorry, I swear tomorrow I will take care of everything I have to take care, I'm just to dead right now.

Just to say I'm kinda out these days due to finals, but just PM me if you need anything, I will be paying more attention to my mail than my reading list due to lack of time! :)

This woman apparently has had the ILLUMINATING and UNIQUE thought that POLITICALLY CORRECT BULLSHIT has gone out of hand. She will START A REVOLUTION against the corrupted blogging system. (That will end in her maintaining her right to say... racist jokes, I guess.)

Uhm. These (white, cis, able-boded, etc., etc., because I just love to say it - and even if I don't say it, it won't make it less true) people and their revolutionary epiphanies.

ETA: Also, people, I have to study so I won't be here much. Not that I was being uber-active these days, but just to be safe.

But damn if I can like this manga again. At least for one chapter.

( Reborn 319 has my girl looking awesome )

Because my Biochemistry final is the 20th and it's about time I make myself away from the computer.

So I'm not going to be here much these days (or I hope so).

I have disappeared, I know. I know I owe so much, I will try to put myself to date the days to come. Today I had my last Biochemistry II partial test, then will come some other things; like oral expositions and stuff, then the end of the semester. Then the finals. I hope to have more free time.

Now, Claymore.

( Claymore 109. MOST AWESOME CHAPTER IN A WHILE. AND I KNOW I ALWAYS SAY THAT. )

Claymore is so awesome. As always.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, etrangere! I hope you have a great day, you really deserved it, hon.

In other news, do you know how many points I did at my yesterday's exam? 0. Nothing, nada. I don't think I ever made 0% in an exam before. They were two exercises that were worth 25% of this partial test, but still, pretty sad (and I don't think I did that good in the 75% theoretic test also).

Muy feliz cumpleaños. Lynx! Espero que hayas tenido un excelente día, mi vida es medio caótica, mañana tengo un examen a primera hora y por eso esto llega medio tarde y es breve, pero en serio te deseo lo mejor, y que las pases maravillosamente!

Ah, Tsubasa, hon, I miss you. What happened to us? Ah, yeah. You ended. Damn you. *goes to look for fanfic* (Mako, este es tu post para exponer todas las teorías raras que tengas al respecto. Vos que le das a lo del pensamiento lateral.)

I was also re-reading Watchmen.

I also have an exam that I'm totally ignoring.

Well, exams are over. Of the twenty people who took this Biochemistry final, only 6 passed. I was one of the six thankfully (and with a good note!). But the new semester starts in like... 10 days.

Anyway, I'm dead tired also. Maybe I will be more active in some days, and will start catching up. I missed you, guys.

Today was my exam, and... it went surprisingly good. You know. For someone who was... not distracted at all during study-time.

But this wasn't a final-final because, simplifying, when you don't take one of the partial exams, you have to recover it as a final at the end of the semester. That's what I did. The "final for real" comes in two weeks.

I love you all, I will be... hiatusing. But you know how that goes.

(I swear I will answer comments later when I have more energy.)

I drank a cup of coffee (I never drink coffee) because I wanted to be awake to study all night and else, but now I'm chipper, can't stop having fandom theories about shonen manga of arguable quality, and want to write Suzuki Adelheid/Enma Kozato fanfic exploring their relationship: her as a cool, calmed and emotional superior warrior, and his bodyguard.

If only I could write in English and not, like, have an exam in ten days.

Also, people. I'm very disappointed. In you.

You had to remind me to write about football while I was free, and now I see Eto'o half-naked and flirting with Sulley Muntari, and think, "oh shut, right." And I think other things also. Not related to football. But it's all your fault.

Via jhameia:

End Discrimination Against Transgender Women – The Marla Bendini Incident.

Marla Bendini, a transgender woman and an established artist and pole dancer was thrown out of a popular nightspot on Clarke Quay, Singapore, even though she was part of a group engaged to perform at the club. To add insult to injury, she was insulted by the club’s management. Her distress was visible and it was also witnessed by her fellow pole dancers.

[...] As Founding Working Group member of the Asia-Pacific Transgender Network, I will investigate incidents of abuse against transgender women in Singapore and the region. If the incidents are proven to be true, we will pursue further action against the organisation involved.

If you support the right of transgender women to be treated with respect and dignity, be a fan of our facegroup page here.

And Monica Roberts at Transgriot has received an email press release from Leona Lo:

A group of transgender women in Singapore have rallied to issue a joint call to Clarke Quay night spot operators to stop discriminating against transgender women. The latest incident involving a transgender patron has sparked outrage among the long-suffering community, drawn close to 500 supporters on Facebook, and sparked the launch of a first-ever anti-discrimination campaign entitled "Sisters in Solidarity" (SIS).

The SIS campaign will be launched on Wednesday, 5 May 10, at 2 pm at Post Museum on Rowell Road. Ms Marla Bendini Junior Ong, a Singapore transgender woman will be present to share her experiences at Clarke Quay witnessed by her dance instructor who will also be present. Trish, a transgender pioneer, will speak up for the first time about her personal experience with workplace discrimination. The campaign will include a series of education activities throughout the year.

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I don't think I will be around much this week, I got two exams next week, Monday and Tuesday, one of them is Biochemistry and I have to take the two no matter what. Just letting know the people I mod stuff with. (Sorry, the_future_modernes, I don't think you will have a lot of problems for just a weekend at politics, right? Just to be safe.)

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My two months LJ paid-account expired today, and I'm really grateful to the anonymous who gave it to me, I really enjoyed it. I also think the only thing I will really miss is the option of editing comments. I'm not such a sucker for icons, personalizations and stuff. I think I got to 25 icons, and not even used much of the other options. Yeah, I'm a free-account person.

So, uhm, Claymore has been removed from OneManga.

Man, this was exactly what I was fearing, it was Claymore the first thing that went to my mind with this Shueisha thing. Because Claymore doesn't have the western fanbase Naruto/Bleach/Reborn/Whatever has. And it's my baby. Damn it.

(I hope it comes back soon, damn you USA's publishers who, you know, got my money in the past. But not anymore. Because I don't have it anyway, but whatever. The point is: if I had it, I wouldn't give it to them.)

Look at me, I have a test eight in the morning.

Ni siquiera me agrada el tipo, pero hoy te lo ponen hasta en la sopa. Y okay, me reí.

Aseguran que Chuck Norris maneja a Messi.

"Es un jugador de Play Station", fueron las palabras que pronunció el técnico francés Arsene Wenger al término del partido que disputó el Arsenal ante el Barcelona con respecto a la actuación que brindó el argentino Lionel Messi, quien marcó los cuatro goles de los catalanes.

Aprovechando los comentarios de Arsene y el "Día de Chuck Norris" en la red, un usuario de Facebook decidió crear el grupo "Chuck Norris es el que maneja a Messi desde su casa con el mando de la Play".

Explicaría muchas cosas.

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I went to the doctor. I have a colonoscopy on schedule next Wednesday because it was the obvious thing to do, nothing more. But let's not talk about that. I mean it.

My exam today went fantastic.

... is "Drop It Like It's Hot." Which is an awesome section, I'm not going to deny that.

Reclaiming UGLY:

Let’s think about this logically: what does me or you being beautiful do to improve the lives of others? Nothing, really. Certainly it does not do as much as passion, or kindness, or empathy, or bravery… these are the attributes that change the world… not beauty. And, even better, these are the attributes that have nothing to do with genetics. We can CHOOSE to go out of our way to be kind, to be brave, to passionately chase dreams, to harness our talents to change the world. At any moment, each and every one of us has the power to be a strong, compassionate, brave, and make a difference in the world.

You can’t wake up one morning and just decide to change your apperance to fit whatever mold beautiful takes on in your society (at least, not without a lot of money and pain)… either you fit the mold of beautiful or you don’t. We all know this and yet, we all seem to spend so much more time obsessing over beauty than we do over all of those other wonderful and useful qualities.

[...] Even the concept of “inner beauty” bothers me to a degree. Why not inner strength? Inner kindness? Inner AWESOMENESS? Why does it always come down to beauty?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am NOT trying to belittle the struggles of those who wrestle with body image issues. How could I be, when I am just as entrenched in this as anyone else? All I am trying to do is shed some light, shake things up, and get us to question just WHY it is that we feel so much pressure to look a certain way; to be beautiful.

Instead of trying to change perceptions of beauty, maybe we should just run with it… embrace the title of ugly and use it to force others to see the value in the rest of us; our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams… because at the end of the day, that’s where the real value lies.

Crazy

One thing these people are not: crazy.

I am crazy. I have mental illnesses. I am insane. I am loony. Sometimes, I may even be bat shit crazy.

I am not these people.

My identity is not an appropriate analogy to use to describe these people. They are hateful, horrible, terrifying, reprehensible, bigoted, scary, extremists. Some of them may well have mental illnesses. But you can’t tell that just by looking at someone. And even if they do, it’s not an appropriate epithet to use as an insult; believe it or not, people can have mental illnesses and also have political beliefs. Differing political beliefs and, yes, differences in beliefs about appropriate methods of political expression, are not rooted in mental illness.

[...] When I see people using my identity as a slur; when I see people referring to other people or things which they don’t like with words like crazy, insane, lunacy, insanity, loony, I am reminded of how unsafe the world is for people like me. How people who claim to care about social justice, who claim that being silent is part of the problem, are happily to carelessly erase me when it suits their needs. It’s a thread which runs almost continually through social justice activism. Activism is convenient as long as it does not involve any personal sacrifice or self examination, does not require the actual acknowledgment of other human beings. As soon as it does, there will be excuses, excuses, excuses.

LINKAGE: Veiling and "Save the Muslim Girl!"

Just about every book in this genre features such an image on its cover. These are familiar metaphors for how the Muslim girl’s life will be presented within the novel. The way the girls’ mouths are covered reinforces existing ideas about their silence and suggests that we in the West (conceptualized as “free” and “liberated”) need to help unveil and “give” them voice. The images also invite ideas about girlhood innocence and vulnerability, and invite Western readers to protect, save, and speak for these oppressed girls.

[...] To give you a sense of the range of meaning of the veil, consider for instance that in Turkey—a predominantly Muslim country—the veil (or “religious dress”) is outlawed in public spaces as a means to underline the government’s commitments to Kemalism, a “modern,” secularist stance. In response and as a sign of resistance, some women, especially young university students and those in urban areas, consider the veil to be a marker of protest against government regulation of their bodies and the artificial division of “modern” versus “faithful.” Similar acts of resistance are taken up by feminists in Egypt who wear the veil as a conscious act of resistance against Western imperialism. As another example, before 9/11, the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan (RAWA) documented the Taliban’s crimes against girls and women by hiding video cameras under their burqas and transformed the burqa from simply a marker of oppression to a tool of resistance.

-- Özlem Sensoy and Elizabeth Marshall, excerpts from "Save The Muslim Girl!," a series on Muslimah Media Watch on Muslim girls in contemporary young adult fiction.

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I haven't opened a book this Eastern break (is there an equivalent in English for "Semana Santa"?). I have an exam the 7th, then the 12, then the 13. I have a long homework to hand in on Monday. What did I do these past four days? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I so deserve the guilt.