ARTICLES

DEATH NOTE fans should check out this link to my journal entry regarding Near/Nia and the effects of Albinism: [link]

Also, please see [link] for my essay on Death Note as a Gothic Detective story. The article contains entire series spoilers and can be downloaded in PDF format.

NEWS

June 16th, 2009

Update: Life has still been busy. I've started work again as a writing tutor on campus. Summer tutoring is interesting, because it's mostly ESL students wanting help learning the language. It's a very different kind of tutoring from helping an english-as-first-language student work on comma splices.

I figured out a major thing in May. I hated my thesis topic for my Master's thesis. I felt I didn't know enough about the topic yet to comfortably write 75-100 pages on it. I also wasn't meshing well with my supervisor's work ethic and style. He is a great man, but he's very much an absent minded professor. With a little long distance elbow grease (since I was on holidays in May visiting ), I managed to switch supervisors and projects. I am much happier with my new project (and my new supervisor, who I admire and respect greatly) and am looking forward to beginning research on it in earnest in the next few weeks.

My family threw a great bridal shower for me on Sunday night. I forgot how much extended family I have! My fiance and I received a lot of awesome gifts, mostly kitchen stuff, that we needed and will put to good use. We had engagement photos taken on the same day, and I can't wait to see how they turn out. Though, I made the mistake of wearing walking-not-friendly heels for the photos, and we walked a lot. I have blisters. They hurt. I won't do that again in future photo shoots of any kind. Comfortable shoes, heels or not, are my friends.

The wedding is also coming together, though I can really confirm that planning any large event, weddings included, tends to lead to family drama. I am continually having to remind myself that it will be finished in six weeks, and we will *not* have to run off and elope to avoid the stress. My fiance and I were also surprised with the news that his parents are buying us a honeymoon to Hawaii. We were going to go to Jasper initially and stay in the mountains, but who passes up a free trip to Hawaii? We'll be staying in Wakiki along the beach. We are both super excited about it. I had to go out today and get prescription sunglasses just so I have something to wear that will keep my eyes from dying from glare off the ocean. (My eyes are so light sensitive sometimes, it's ridiculous.)

I read an interesting book in April/May. It's called Emotionally Engaged, and it was written by a lady psychologist who specialises in helping engaged women who are emotionally unsure about getting married. One of the things she discusses is how marriage is a major life change, whether positive or negative, and because of that it can leave the bride unsettled about things. It made a lot of my earlier feelings make sense, in that I felt strangely unsettled about stuff, though not specifically about getting married. She was right. It is the same feeling I had when I moved away from home in September, and when I moved apartments again in January. It's the feeling you get during transitions, during change, and though it's not bad, it can cause you to feel anxiety for no particular reason. Marriage brings about many changes, one of which is a change of residence (a third move in about 10 months for me, which is a lot).

Needless to say, knowing all of this made me feel better and nearly all of my anxiety is gone, or I can categorize it and understand it better as something being caused by moving forward, not moving into a bad situation. Though it hasn't helped the fact that I am essentially half living at two apartments right now. My fiance and I have a condo, but I will not be moving in until just before the wedding. Except that I am spending lots of time there and just sleeping at my actual apartment. It's causing a strange feeling of displacement that will hopefully disappear quickly once I get settled in one specific place. I do like the new place, though. It's very homey feeling and has lots of closet space. Closet space is very important. Especially since I have this strange girly desire (I'm generally more of a tomboy myself) to buy dresses. The condo is also on the edge of the city, so I have a nice scenic drive there from the university/my current apartment. It makes me feel like we live in the country. We're in a privately owned condo complex that is essentially a tiny community of its own, where residents are screened by the landlord. We both feel very blessed to have scored this place, because it's quiet, well maintained, and reasonably priced in a city where rent prices are ridiculous right now. (We are paying $1000 per month for a 2 bedroom 850 square foot condo that is the same size as a small house. I currently pay $639 for a 450 square foot studio (essentially a bachelor) apartment, complete with ants as roommates. No comparison.)

got me watching Transformers: G1, and I am utterly convinced of two things. The first thing is that I miss 80s cartoon villains. There is something so refreshingly entertaining about Megatron and his utterly inept little band of Decepticons. The second thing is that I think if I were a cartoon Decepticon, I would be Starscream, because I, like him, utterly loathe dealing with incompetent people. I get that he's a traitor and all. But seriously, the guy that he backstabs is a cackling, maniacal, pushover that really doesn't manage to conquer much at all because his plans always fall apart. I would be trying to take over the Decepticons too if I were Starscream. Seriously, Megs. Learn to delegate authority a little bit. Your air commander is smart. He makes better plans than you. Teamwork would allow you to conquer the universe. (But of course, that would make you Autobots, wouldn't it?)

I'm hoping to go fishing on Saturday. I went fishing on my May trip and caught a fish finally. It was a tiny little sucker but it fought hard (it was called a Blue Gill). My fiance says we're going to catch Wallygators on Saturday. I'm sort of scared to know that he calls Walleye something like Wallygators. They're not large fish. I want to know why they deserve that sort of nickname. Better not be that they have large teeth. I've already seen what Jackfish do with their teeth.

On Friday and Saturday I'm also participating in the Cancer Society Relay for Life. My team had a lot of fun fundraising and we made almost $4,000 with 13 of us for cancer research! I am around the $500 mark myself, though I don't quite remember exactly how much I raised. The relay is a 7 PM to 7 AM twelve hour walkathon. I am so glad I get to sleep when I'm not walking around the track.

And yes, at this point in the journal, I am obviously suffering from insomnia even though I have to get up in 7.5 hours. I am hoping the writing center will be quiet this week because it's finals week for this section of the spring/summer classes.

Take care all. I'll respond to comments when I have time in the next little bit!

~ dhj

May 16th, 2009

A few people have been poking me, so I thought it's maybe time for me to pop up and give something resembling a hello and an explanation for my absence.

First, thanks to everyone who has been faving or commenting during this time. I actually do appreciate all of that, but I've been all but absent from DA for almost six months now, and have had sporadic absences prior to that and haven't had time to respond.

Now, for an explantion.

The short version is that I will probably not be very active on DA at this point forward, or at least for a long time. This is not because of the people on here, but because of what has been going on in my life. And it's not bad things, either, that have been happening, but big life changing events.

See, when I write fiction, specifically fanfiction, it's generally because I'm trying to sort through a large personal issue. I tend to write the same sorts of characters (conflicted, dark, anti-heroes, unsociable, logical, etc.) because they remind me of myself. And I always realise partway through a new fandom that I entered that fandom for a reason. This has happened without exception for the entire time I have written fanfiction or fanart. I have been part of many fandoms without writing anything because although I loved the fandom, I never felt a need to explore any issues. This isn't a concious thing I do either, but rather a subconcious one driven by my need to work things out. At heart I'm a logical being, and I work through issues by approaching them logically.

What happened is that this fall, I finally came to some important conclusions about things in my life. I realised important things. And then, slowly, I began to move forward. I wish I could convey over text just how far I have come in eight months from where I was before that. I know I have a long distance to go, but I now feel like a strong, confidant young woman, rather than a passive girl without any idea of where she is going.

And during this time, two people have been helping me. The first is , who hopefully understands just how much help she has really given me. If it wasn't for her mentoring me through things and helping me sound off ideas, I wouldn't be in the spot I am now. I am eternally grateful to her.

The second person is my fiance. I swore I would never date anyone again until I finished all of my schooling, because I've had bad experiences with men and I just didn't have the emotional energy to enter into a relationship. But then things changed, I grew up a little, began to see myself as a person, and I began to finally understand just what I wanted and what I was looking for. I realised that I didn't want to date because I was scared to date, and because I didn't know what I really wanted in a guy. Suddenly, I DID have the emotional energy to at least initiate a relationship.

Then, through a set of coincidences and circumstances that are frankly miraculous in nature, I met the person I am now engaged to. We met in September, were engaged in March, and we are going to be married in August. I have been blessed beyond words to have a relationship with a man who is intellectual, caring, and above all willing to talk to me about anything. There is obviously chemistry as well, but what I am SO thankful for is the level of intellectual connection we have. Many intensely emotional personal things happened with our friends in the last eight months, and because of that we have had to navigate conversations and discuss things most people do not discuss until they have dated for at least a year. All of this has happened openly, willingly, because we like to talk, we like to share, and we like to be honest.

For us, for me, our marriage in August is not about making our relationship better, but allowing us to make it *complete*. We already love each other, care for each other, and spend time together. The only thing that will change is we can do that in the same house, and without any restrictions as to how we can express that care for each other. And yet, I cannot deny that it is a huge psychological change for both of us, moving from single to engaged and then to married status. We are happy, but we are also emotionally and realistically busy.

The truth is, until all these major life changes sort themselves out, I will not be writing fiction. Not because I don't want to, but more because what drives me to write is currently gone, because I am utterly content with what I have in real life. I will return to writing someday, I'm just not sure when. And I know that when I do, I will have even more experience to bring to the writing table and my fiction will be better because of it.

I wish everyone well. I'll stop in to check comments from time to time, and I can right now because I'm on holidays from my school work briefly. But until my life becomes a bit less busy, and I figure out how fiction will fit back into my structure, I probably won't be producing much work or be on DA much at all.

Thanks all.
~ dhj

FRIENDS

<-- My sisters!



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