Words meme

[altogetherisi]

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

I was given rahmbamarama, omnishipping, maps, Baker St and university by the lovely Lal.

1. rahmbamarama

I usually refer to this wonderful place as RBR, and I found it just when I needed it - it was just after Obama had been elected, in like late November I think, and at that point I had heard of , spoken the name of and seen a picture of Rahm Emanuel for the first time. Being a Brit, and him not having been all that involved in Obama's actual campaign I didn't know anything about him, but thought he was muy awesome. Anyway, I actually went to RBR for the first time because I am a member of the fic reccing community crack_van, and a rec for the fakenews fandom was Rahm/Anderson, and this led me to the wonder and delights of RBR. When I say I didn't leave for a couple of weeks, I am not kidding. I read the entire community, all the backposts, and had a separate tab for it which I always checked before my flist. This was now I realise, rather than golden age of RBR. I mean, its still brilliant of course, but these were the days of the discovery of yearbook and ballerina photos, that Rahm and Stephen Colbert were at Northwestern together, the emerging Blago scandal, not to mention the sheer joy of Obama actually winning the election was  in full force. Shirozora's chibis are an enduring image of this time.

I still adore RBR of course, though it isn't the LJ comm that currentl gets its own tab any longer. It will always be very special for me - it brought me the wisdom of Rahm which in turn helped me during my Cambridge interview, it was right there with me for the amazing Inauguration and is generally made up of wonderful, hilarious and really lovely people.

2. omnishipping

I only really started to use the word omnishipping in reference to myself a couple of weeks ago on reading The Demon's Lexicon - I couldn't, and still can't, pick a favourite character, a favourite ship, a favourite angle. I adore everthing, and everyone. Genuinely, I don't think there is anyone I don't like. For me this is one of the great strengths about TDL. In the epic readthrough chat, I and novembersmith in particular emerged as rather enthusiastic omnishippers, and me particularly because I actually made a chart, which looks rather like a web, of all the characters I ship and what kind of relationship I would have them have. In homage to the chat, it even includes Anzu/John Barrowman, that most epic of ships. Also, at the chat I seem to remember novembersmith and I being put forward as a ship ourselves! 

Anyway, so my direct omnishipping love and behaviour has been triggered by TDL, but actually I've been like this for at least a long while. I think because I love seeing how people and characters change and behave differentl in different situations and when around different people, and I've always adored minor characters. I've never shipped militantly, and then there are fandoms like Merlin where I am onl involved in the Merlin/Arthur side of fandom but actually also adore all combinations o Merlin, Arthur, Morgana, Gwen and Lancelot. Except maybe Merlin/Gwen, but that's just because I don't think they have enough canon basis... :P And now, I have actually spent a little bit of time figuring out all the actual canon ships, and also potential fandom ships, that are in my orginal work Imlie's Garden as well. Not ashamed! Embrace the omnishipping love! It is a way of life!

3. maps

I imagine Lal associates maps with me because we met on the way to Sarah Rees Brennan's London TDL launch and book signing, and I had the foresight to bring some maps, while she and Hannah... hadn't. I find this quite funny, because usually other people, such as tavven, bring maps rather than casting me as the somewhat organised one. And in the past I have not always got on with maps. But this was an occasion when I was going somewhere I'd never been to before, to meet people (I thought!) I'd never met before, on my own and during my exam period, and I was determined to get there and not for anthing to go hideously wrong. And it worked! 

Having mentioned maps and tavven, I feel I should mention the time a couple of months ago now when she had provided many nice readable Google maps of where we wanted to go, but somehow we managed to end up on entirely the wrong part of the map and she drove around and around a roundabout while I figured out where we actually were, which was somewhere completely not where we were meant to be. Later that same day, we drove off the edge of the maps she had brought and kept trying to get back on to them, to no avail. Also, I had an agrument with her sat nav, and won. Good times! :D

One other thing I want to say about maps; my friend C and I managed to get hold of and read an ARC of the final Artemis Fowl book last year, and in that I remember there was a blank page at the front of the book that said something like "Map to be added later" or something to that effect. This made sense at the time - there was supposed to be a map that wasn't in yet, and the gnomish language chapter titles hadn't been added yet either. Clearly, it was insinuated, this map would be added upon actual publication. A couple of months later, I picked up a proper copy of Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox in a bookshop and opened it up hoping to see what this was a map for. But, it wasn't there. I remain confused about this.

4. Baker St

Similarly to maps, when I met Lal and Hannah it was at a cafe/restaurant near Baker St in London. This was completely random - when I go to London I almost always go to Baker St and then tube wherever else I am going, and we had actually decided to meet at Old Street station, but I sent Hannah a text when I got of the coach and then for some reason I didn't get straight on a tube, I think I bought a snack and wanted to wash my hands or something, and she replied she and Lal were in a cafe together at baker St, and I was literally like "oh my god, what a coincedence I am at Baker Street right now and might not have been!" and then after a little bit of confusion I found them, and the rest as they say, is history.

I was at Baker Street just two days ago as it happens, on the way to the Leonard Cohen concert, and I glanced at the road where the cafe ws and thought "That's where we were!" and it made me happy.


5. university

I am sure, in the last year in particular, I have gone on about university far too much in this LJ. The pains and stresses and excitements of choosing courses, choosing where to apply, the actual application process, the sheer joy of receiving offers, interviewing for one of them, the difficult and sometimes heart wrenching decisions of which to pick and which to decline. I've examined views I've held all my life and questioned why I was doing this and what I wanted to get out of it and who I want to be and whose opinions I trust.

At the moment, the process is in a lull. I have picked two offers as my Firm and Insurance; because both are conditional they are dependant on my exam results, which I get on August 20th, although what I have actually done is I can't fail to meet the conditions of my Insurance offer, from Cardiff, so I know I definitely willbe going to university this autumn. I have applied for my student funding from the government, though I don't know anthing about housing until after I know where I'm going. This is a bit tricky, becase if I go to Cardiff the people that put it down as Firm will probably already have all the best housing (as is their right and priviledge) and I imagine that will be a frantic week or so. But yes. There isn't anything for me to do about it now except wait. Wherever I end up, I will have a brilliant time on a wonderful course - my Insurance is cunningly actually really good, so I won't be disappointed, and I'm sure I'll be really happy in either city. But it is kinda daunting, because wherever I end up will change my life so much, and I feel I could genuinely become a quite different person depending on where I go. So, its pretty important to me.

University and other people: my brother is currently at university - he likes it, but I want my experience to be pretty damn different from his. My friend L went to uni last year, and I've kept talkng to her but I haven't actually seen her I realised the other day, and that makes me quite sad, as well as determined to remedy this. Most of my friends will be going to university this autumn or next autumn or applying this year. I'm surprisingly ok about people moving away from ech other, except the other day when I had a minor panic about my friend N moving to Canada. I'm a little surprised about how many of my friends are staying here for uni, but that's mainly because that didn't even occur to me - I wanted to be a decent way away from my parents and really discover somewhere new, and also, I lived here all my life and there a loads of places in the UK I simply have never been to. Like Scotland. Crazy isn't it? And of course, Lal is graduating university, which seems very scary and strange to someone in my position going to all this to just get there. Its hard enough comprehending that they expect me work when I get there, rather than just sigh in relief and party for three years, but what happenes afterward isn't really something I want to think about in detail yet.

Clearly I can, and have, gone on about university extensively in this LJ. I imagine in the autumn this will continue.