I lust after androids

1) Recently, I got out my sewing machine and modded a t-shirt I own into something that looks cooler and fits better! Details under the ( cut )


2) I got my financial aid through for my next Open University courses!! That means in October I'll be studing Exploring the Classical World and Reading Classical Latin. Once those two are finished with, I have two more courses to do to complete my degree! Only two years to go~~ Who'd have thought I'd have made it this far?

Oh, and speaking of education, I got my NCFE Level 2 in Supporting Teaching and Learning in Schools! So that's pretty good too. And I got a Grade 2 pass in my Ancient Greek course :D


3) Today Mum and I booked our tickets and some of our hotels for cons next year! So my con schedule now looks like this:

World Fantasy Con - Brighton, Oct 31 - Nov 3 (not looking forward to this a great deal, tbh, doesn't seem like there'll be much for me to do? but we shall see!)

Eastercon - Glasgow - April 18-21 - I volunteered! And I always enjoy Eastercons, but I'm especially excited for another one in Glasgow :) We booked the Travelodge for this already, and it came out to £86 for three nights, which is really not too bad!

Nine Worlds Geekfest - London - August 8-10 - tickets are bought, I do intend to volunteer for this one! I think it's in the same hotel and location as this years, so that's convenient! I'm definitely looking forward to this one a lot! And if you're in London or nearby, you should deffo consider it! There's plenty to do!

Worldcon - London - August 14-18 - I'm so excited for this! I loved the Worldcon I went to in Glasgow, and I cannot wait to go to this one! And I volunteered for the fan stream, I think (waiting for the fan stream organiser to email me back...)

This Eastercon was an interesting experience for me, I spent a lot more time socialising than going to panels this year, which is pretty opposite to what I normally do. I also did my very first panel \o/ That was pretty exciting, if also slightly terrifying. As with all things, it wasn't quite perfect, and I'm gonna speak a little bit about that later on.

( Friday, Friday, Friday, I got down on Friday. )

I'm not sure what I did for much of Saturday morning - I think it involved a lot of sleeping and a visit to Tescos. Natch.

( Saturday, the day my brother appeared! )

So, as you might suspect, Sunday swiftly followed Saturday and with it came the excitement of being on a panel! For the very first time! In front of actual people! Gad.

( Sunday, which is a day dedicated to celebrating a zombie* by eating chocolate. )

Clearly, Monday happened.

( It wasn't, as it happens, particularly manic. )

So that was pretty much my highlights! Now for some general observations, I guess.

To me, this con was certainly fun, but a surprising amount of the programme items didn't interest me. Luckily, there are more than enough fabulous people there to talk to in the bar that this didn't feel like a genuine problem. Additionally, plenty of con reports and tweets assert that people had a wonderful time and found the programme items a lot more engaging than I did, so I think it's fair to say that this Eastercon really did have something for nearly everyone!

Apparently, I've gained enough social skills in the past year to actually manage to chat and talk to people! I was pretty surprised by this, since most of the time I spend a lot of con time trying to figure out how the hell to even say hello to someone interesting, even if I've met that person before (does anyone else feel like they're instantly forgettable? I know my hair is a bright colour, but other than that I'm pretty sure I don't leave much of an impression because I'm really boring). So it was really neat that time not spent in panels could be spent talking to aforementioned interesting people.

There was a lot of talk about panel parity this year. Partly this is great - because yes, we do need to have fewer male voices and more non-male voices heard. Partly this was a little disturbing - it's so binarist, and I don't know if anyone's addressed this? I'm pretty sure I don't need to go over how exclusionary a policy of equal male to female participants inherently is, and I hope this is something that's considered in the future. Also, there are some cases where one gender's voice should be heard without giving equal weight to another's - if I want to hear about how female writers feel in a male dominated field, I actually don't want to hear a male's opinions, because it wouldn't be about them. In general though, I am in favour of it, and overall I feel Eastercon did well in trying to ensure non-male voices were on panels.

Eastercon is still a really white, mostly middle-class or above space. This is not necessarily a criticism - it's not anyone's fault that lots of white people turn up, but it would be nice to see future Eastercons with more diversity - perhaps by reaching out to Uni's and widening their advertising pool (I don't know if that could be reasonable considering the cost of advertising though).

God damn but there are a shit ton of iPads in the hands of Eastercon goers.

I feel like this post was really text heavy, so here's a picture of Mum and me taken over the weekend:



In summary: Good Eastercon! I'm really looking forward to next year's!


_{It is actually nearly 6am and I think I've been writing this since 6pm, so I am going to stop here, even though I can think of about a thousand more things to say.}


*Is Jesus actually a zombie if we eat His flesh and he doesn't crave ours?

So from Thursday to Tuesday I was down in London attending Eastercon! \o/ I think this was actually my 7th Eastercon (depending on whether Worldcon '05 was mixed up with Eastercon '05). Damn, that is a lot of cons.

I'm gonna put it all under a cut, as I have a few pictures/tweets and this is probably going to get looooong, and this post is all about travel and shit and so is not even about the thing which is in the subject bar... Naturally.

( Thursday, with all it's travel SNAFUs and no actual con attendance. )

I am now skipping to the end of our trip, since the actual con report is going in another post, and this is just the personal travel post. (The reason I'm doing this is the con report is gonna get linked to [by me, on Twitter, not by my adoring audience, as I don't have one of those], this is not :D)

( Tuesday, where I indulged my whimsical side and we got on more trains. )

So that's that, basically, I'm home and I've had a great time!

Next up - the actual con report :D

I promise I will post about something sensible soon (like skirts, which I still have opinions on). I have thoughts and shit. I'm just really lazy about making a worthwhile post! D8

So! Not-so-worthwhile things:

I have done a mix for zombiebang, but it was really difficult to do since I haven't read the fic and also, wow, I found the cover hard to do! This was the first one, which I admit still amuses me BUT IT'S REALLY BAD, so I redid it into this one, which is a tad better. IDK, I'm just bad at this shit, I guess. Here's the tracklisting, which I did so like, half is "AIEEE ZOMBIES" and the other half is "I REALLY REALLY HATE YOU LET ME IN YOUR PANTS". I really hope it fits the fic ok, BUT I HAVE DOUBTS.

I have such a serious serious craving to write Gabe/Billviam/Travie. I really want a massive Bandom!Food Network AU, where everyone has their own show and shit, and Bill is basically Nigella Lawson, except male and svelte. I won't write it because I basically hate my writing, but I think I would pay to see others do it.

In totally other news, my body is basically falling to pieces and I am a fucking biohazardous wreck. Ugh.

I deleted my Facebook, because I was sick of looking at it and seeing "Us middle-class whiteys are so oppressed!" posts. Everyone I really care about, I have other means of communication with, so whatever. I miss having another site to check on in boredom, but I have Tumblr, which updates crazy fast, so I'm ok~

Both Evans and New Look have been majorly disappointing lately. Half their shit looks so bad, and the one thing I liked in Evans, Mum said clinged too much to my back fat, so I had to put it back before I sobbed like a fucking child in the changing rooms. IDEK what it is about changing rooms, but they put me on edge and wreck my mood.

In good news - I bought Gym Class Heroes' As Cruel As School Children, Paloma Faith's Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful, Marilyn Manson's Lest We Forget, Travie McCoy's Lazarus, The Academy Is... Fast Times At Barrington High and Florence And The Machine's Lungs. I like to think this makes my tastes ecclectic and interesting, rather than influenced solely by fanfic, nostalgia and daytime music tv. *so lame*

And that's it! I swear I will come back and be interesting at some point!

_{Oh! New LJ layout - so pretty!}