Got off by a day, so let's do two. First, per gehayi: "Five characters that influenced you as a writer and/or person (explaining, of course, how and why they influenced you)"

That's a big question. Might require a whole essay. I'm going to cheat and widen this to fictional canons, because there are just way too many characters.

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: During some of the darkest, most difficult days of my life, these books helped me find an anchor. I was very sick as a teenager. It led to the panic attacks and depression that's haunted me into my adult life. I would pray and pray for wisdom, for comfort, for the certainty I'd lost somewhere along the way, and feel utterly alone in the universe. The book The Silver Chair, in particular, helped me to find my feet. At one point, Aslan says to Jill, "You would not have called to me if I had not been calling to you." That idea, that God was reaching out to me even as I felt alone and scared, helped me through the crises of my health and my faith.

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation: I was fannish about this show before I knew what being fannish was. I'm so glad there wasn't an Internet around during my teen years, because I'm sure I'd have written the worst fanfiction for it. I loved it. The creativity, the optimism ST has always been famous for, the breadth of room for imagination--I can look back now and see its flaws, but who even cares? Besides, Jean-Luc. There, you can't argue with that.

3. Highlander: My first real online fandom. Exciting days! I stepped into fanfiction and bulletin boards via this show. It was also really the first show I remember that posited this hidden world that most people never saw, something fantastic among the mundane. It's something that's continued to fascinate me, and why urban fantasy is much more attractive to me than medieval fantasy.

4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Proof that in the right hands, the craziest idea (a cute cheerleader named Buffy who slays vampires and demons) can become sublime. This show went so many places. Sometimes it succeeded, sometimes it didn't, but you can never accuse it of being safe. The best things in my life have come to me when I stopped keeping myself safe. If I ever do write that novel, I think that's the lesson I'll have to take into it.

5. The Dresden Files: I know you expected this to be Doctor Who, and it does get an honorable mention, but DF sits closer to my heart. Just like BtVS wasn't a safe show, Harry Dresden isn't a safe hero. It's another crazy setup--a noir hero in modern-day Chicago who happens to be a wizard--and the supporting cast includes everyone from a crime baron to a holy paladin. The characters get tested in absolutely every way, and sometimes they fail, but the proof of the test is that they get up afterward and keep going. That's a good lesson to impart.

Next, from athersgeo: OBAFU, my thoughts theron.

Um, it happened? It was fun to do, and a lot of people liked it, but on the whole, I'm fairly certain I'd never have finished it. Maybe that's a good thing. I'm not convinced it was ever a good idea to begin with. Those are my thoughts. Not a whole lot of them.

Had a busy weekend, so I'm catching up. Fortunately, the prompts all kind of work together.

First, per azriona, my first memory: To tell the truth, I'm not sure what this might be. My early childhood memories aren't precisely linear. I do remember protesting loudly that I didn't *want* to turn four on my fourth birthday. I also have some vague memories of the duplex my family lived in before we moved to the house that I grew up in. I remember a driveway - cracked, of course, like all good Alaskan driveways - and a metal wind-up car, the sort whose edges you could probably shave with.

Second, per kiwiria, my scariest memory: You'd think it would be the tsunami, but it isn't. That prize goes to another memory. When I was a sophomore in high school and (unbeknownst to me at the time) getting sick with Graves' Disease, I was hungry all the time. One day, I stopped at my locker between classes and dug out a piece of cold pizza I'd brought for lunch. I took a couple of bites hurriedly, and then the girl in the locker next to mine asked me a question. I started to answer her . . . and started choking. Not gagging or coughing, choking. I couldn't make a sound, couldn't breathe at all. I remember everything going all slow-motion and trying to gesture at my throat, to signal somebody that I was choking. My brother's friend (and friend's brother) Mark was nearby, since he had a class near my locker. Mark was generally not the kind of guy you wanted around during an emergency. Think Napoleon Dynamite. Seriously. Without the 'fro, but with the mouth-breathing. I remember Mark yelling something at me, and then grabbing me from behind and performing a perfect Heimlich Maneuver that he'd learned sometime in elementary school. The pizza came up, I went down, and I never rolled my eyes at Mark again. He's done rather well for himself, and neither of us has ever forgotten that day.

Third, per kiwiria, my most vivid memory: Hard to say, but I think the tsunami would have to be it. Just the whole time around it. After I returned to the US, one day, I heard a helicopter, and I had a flashback. A real, honest flashback. It was like I was in two places at once, as if my body were in Hillsboro, OR, but everything else was back in Japan. See, one of the constant sounds after the tsunami was the sound of chopper blades. There were helicopters everywhere. Military, news, medevacs. That sound brought it all back for just a moment of total disorientation. I talked about it later with my Gulf War-veteran brother-in-law, and he understood completely. He's never had the full-on hallucination flashbacks some vets do, but he knows the feeling of being *there* in all but body. I felt that strange displacement a couple of times afterward, but that first time was definitely the strongest.

"Rose and Donna, compare and contrast," requests ffutures.

My two favorite Who companions. How could I complain?

Rose and Donna are opposites in some ways. Rose was roughly half Donna's age when she met the Doctor. (Seriously, I think sometimes people forget just how young she was.) Donna was white-collar, Rose blue-collar, in American terms. Donna came from a more upscale area, though, considering where Rose was from, that's not saying much. Rose and the Doctor fell in love. Donna was visibly grossed out by the thought. Rose's relationship with Jackie was much warmer than Donna's relationship with her mum. Rose was more impulsive, Donna more measured.

In other ways, they were quite similar. Both felt stuck in their lives. Both loved the adventure and never wanted it to end. Both were quite brilliant, when they needed to be, and in a very practical way that the Doctor, er, isn't always. Both gained a great deal from their lives with the Doctor . . . and both lost, too.

I loved Rose. I know she's polarizing years down the line, but I did. She had gumption. Not always the best judgment, but who does, at nineteen? She was real, at least to me. You never forget your first Doctor, but you also never forget your first companion.

I loved Donna, too. She reminds me of myself in many ways. I could only run off to Japan and not all of space and time, but hey--we made it, sister. She's a reminder that you can always change your life, no matter where you are.

selenak asked me to talk about life in Japan today. I know I've said a lot of things over the past five-six years about my life there, so I'm going to be selective.

I think one of the most valuable takeaways from my life in Japan is that I was, for the first time in my life, a racial and religious minority there. There was no way I could hide my white skin, curly brown hair, blue eyes, facial features and body shape. Everywhere I went, I stood out, except maybe in really touristy parts. For my small town, though, I was a true anomaly. I had a hard time with the language and culture. As a Christian, I was part of an extreme minority in a largely Shinto/Buddhist culture. Even my body language was different than that of the people around me.

I'm not saying I understand what it's like to be a minority here in America, because that's something very different. As a Western woman in Japan, I was treated well. I always felt safe, and people were very helpful. Still, I was always an outsider. I never belonged. I was Other, and it could be very isolating. That and the Japanese can be condescending as hell when you attempt to speak Japanese or write it or even use freaking chopsticks. I'm sure they didn't mean to be, but it was one of the little microaggressions that really got on my nerves after a while.

The whole experience gave me an understanding of what buzzwords like "othering" actually mean. It's real. When you are othered, you're made to feel like you don't belong, even if people aren't being mean about it. It gave me a different perspective on immigrants, too. Why don't they adapt to American culture? Well, gosh, could it be that cultural norms are not always easy to pick up on? English is not easy to learn? You'll always crave the foods you grew up on, even if you do like the local foods? And you don't see that there's anything wrong with your culture, anyway, and why can't people show a little tolerance?

For someone like me, it was a real eye-opener. And I'm glad it was.

The list

Today's topic, per gehayi: Books/TV shows/movies I wanted to like, but didn't, and why.

Not a big list of these. Well, maybe in some respects. I'll often go into something with hopes, but am seldom disgruntled for long if I'm disappointed. We'll go with a small, but pertinent, sampling.

Take the Nightside series by Simon R. Green. It sounded like The Dresden Files meets Gaiman's Neverwhere. Unfortunately, Green just isn't as good at character-building as Butcher, and he's not even in the same galaxy as Gaiman when it comes to world-building. I didn't connect with the characters, and the parts that were supposed to be scary fell flat. It was disappointing.

Interstellar was another one that fell flat for me. It wasn't that I disliked it, but I didn't connect with it. Lots of pretty, lots of ideas, crazy Matt Damon, and it ended up being too much. I like Nolan, I've liked every movie of his I've seen, and I really wanted to like this one. But I'm with my brother: It was a good movie that I just didn't have any emotional connection to.

Ultimately, that's where media flies or dies with me. It can be cheesy as hell, but if something about it resonates with me, I'll like it. Or it can be a work of great art that leaves me cold.

So, this is what it looks like. You might notice that there are two dates for talking about books, so I've decided to combine those into one post on the 18th, as I'm pretty busy with the end of the term coming up here. I may have to bump the 3rd to the 5th as well, since I've got a presentation and an oral exam on the 4th.

That said, feel free to ask me more questions. I'll try to get to them in a timely manner. After the 13th, I'll be free from school for the term. Yay!

1 Books I've been reading (mermaidrain)
2
3 Stories (books/movies/TV shows/etc.) that you wanted to like but didn't...and why (gehayi)
4 Tell us about living in Japan (selenak)
5
6 What's next for Harry Dresden? (miladygrey)
7
8
9
10 Rose and Donna, compare and contrast (ffutures)
11 My first memory (azriona)
12
13 My most scary/frightening memory. (kiwiria)
14 My most vivid memory. (kiwiria)
15 Five characters that influenced you as a writer and/or person (explaining, of course, how and why they influenced you) (gehayi)
16 About OBAFU (athersgeo)
17
18 Books you've been reading lately and what you think of them (gehayi)
19
20
21
22 Something cool that you got to experience or do. (wickedwonder1)
23 books you would most recommend to friends (np_complete)
24
25 Dad
26
27
28
29
30
31

So, I've decided to do this. Ask me about anything and give me a date, and I'll talk. I've got quite a bit going on right now, with school and even a job that kinda fell into my lap, but I've only got one week of actual school in December, so why not? Anyway, ask me to talk about something. Books. I've been reading a lot lately. School. Life in general. Anything, really.

Except the Beavers and the Ducks, 'cause screw those guys.

Oh, and Christmas is already reserved: I'm going to talk about my dad.

1 Books I've been reading (mermaidrain)
2
3
4
5
6 What's next for Harry Dresden? (miladygrey)
7
8
9
10 Rose and Donna, compare and contrast (ffutures)
11 My first memory (azriona)
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25 Dad
26
27
28
29
30
31

Pick 12 characters from any fandoms and list them before you read the questions that follow.

1. Harry Dresden (Dresden Files)
2. Oberon (Iron Druid)
3. Anya (BtVS)
4. Sam Vimes (Discworld)
5. Methos (Highlander)
6. Zoe (Firefly)
7. Tenth Doctor (DW)
8. Atticus O'Sullivan (Iron Druid)
9. Gaspode (Discworld)
10. Charity Carpenter (Dresden Files)
11. Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (MCU)
12. Sherlock Holmes (ACD canon)

Now to check out those questions!

( Cut for Probable CrackCollapse )

Which is why I didn't get to the rest of the Talking Meme. However, I am planning to address the rest of the prompts. Just a bit late.

Next one on the list: English vs. Japanese, per shadowkat. Great subject!

One thing you notice right away when beginning to learn Japanese is that it has far fewer phonemes--that is, individual sounds--than English. The vowels are a, i, e, o, u, pronounced as you would in Latin. Nice, pure vowels. A better linguist than I could give you the rundown on exactly how they're pronounced, but the above description is as good as any. In contrast, English has, in practice, no fewer than fifteen vowels. That's just American English, by the way. Some of the vowels are regional, but most places use at least twelve. The Japanese consonants are k (g), s (sh, z, j), t (ch, d), n, h (b, p), m, y, r, w and ŋ (velar n, pronounced at the back of the throat, like ng). (Note: The consonants in parentheses are considered variations on the consonants they go after and are signaled with the use of diacritical marks.) The last, btw, is the only standalone consonant that does not have to be used with a vowel, and it can only come after other sounds. Each consonant must be followed by a vowel.

It's not just the phonemes, either. The entire sound structure of Japanese is different. It's what's referred to as a "rhythmic" language. Each syllable is the same length. When you hold a vowel for two beats, it's considered two syllables and can change the whole meaning of a word. Kite (come, imperative) versus kiite (listen, imperative), for instance. (And, yes, "te" is an imperative ending, among other things.) Japanese is also something of a tonal language. That is, while English has a stress structure for emphasis--convict versus convict, e.g.--Japanese has a tonal structure for emphasis. Unlike, say, Chinese, tones don't change on a single syllable. One syllable, though, can be higher or lower in pitch and change the meaning of the word. IIRC, ame with the first syllable at a higher pitch means "rain", and with the second syllable raised can mean "sky". Or a type of hard candy. In practice, the difference between stress and tone in the two languages is actually not very different, since we tend to pronounce stressed syllables at a higher pitch in English.

Grammatical structure, though, is where things really go wild. To simplify things greatly, the Japanese like Yoda talk. The verb goes at the end. Only, it's not always the verb, as we define things. You can have a full, grammatical Japanese sentence consisting only of a verb, a noun or an adjective. And they don't define those terms the way we do. "Like", for instance, is considered a verb in English. In Japanese, it's a noun. Then there are the particles, which you attach to various words in the sentence to show their relationship to each other, except that you can leave them out in some cases, and it's all still very unclear to me. And a sentence can be turned into a question if you park ka at the end and make no other changes.

Finally, there's the writing system, which is considered by some linguists to be the most complex on the planet. They have two syllabaries, hiragana for native Japanese words and katakana for borrowed words, onomatopoeia and basically whenever somebody thinks it'll look cool. Each of those has 45 characters, arguably 46 with the rarely-used wo. Then there are the Chinese characters, called kanji. Japanese uses between 1800 and 2000 of those. My Japanese professor apologized to us for that. I, in turn, apologized to her for English spelling.

There are lots of other little things I could go into, but those are the basics. Japanese is a language with a fascinating structure and history, and it's considered by the State Department to be one of the hardest languages for English-speakers to learn. I concur. But I also think that if you want to understand Japan, you need to learn at least some Japanese. The culture and the language go together. They always do. And Japan is well worth trying to understand.

Weirdly enough, this describes me pretty well: