Neurotic Minds Make Lists

 10 Things I Did In 2010 That I Will Continue To Do In 2011:

1.    Write

I didn’t write nearly as much as I would have liked to in 2010. I blame my soul-sucking job on this, as one cannot write when one is constantly trying to fight for one’s soul.

I will endeavour, however, to improve my writing and to continue to be true to my (sometimes ridiculous) visions.

2.    Tweet

Twitter makes me happy. I do not apologize for that.

3.    Watch Star Trek obsessively

I must prepared for the moment when Vulcans make First Contact (as I am hoping they will do sooner than expected).

4.    Read slash fic in all its incarnations

I am a gay man in a woman’s body.

5.    Eat things that are good for me and not just “good”

This is all part of taking care of myself in the greater scheme of things. There’s nothing wrong with indulging occasionally, but pumping crap into my body doesn’t make any sense either.

6.    Exercise regularly

Endorphins are good for you.

7.    Have random conversations about things like cannibalism with my best friends

I love my friends. Hypothesizing with them – even if it’s just swooning over the latest episode of Vampire Diaries – is one of life’s true pleasures. I flove them. I will nurture our relationships at all costs.

8.    Listen to good music

This includes expanding my horizons and going to live concerts. Tickets for Kings of Leon have already been purchased.

9.    Wear whatever I want, whether it’s age appropriate or not.

I don’t care if I’m turning 25. Hello Kitty t-shirts are awesome.

10.          Be myself.

Because myself is awesome, and I don’t give myself credit for that as often as I should.

5 Things I Did In 2010 That I Will NOT Continue To Do In 2011:

1.    Delude myself into thinking I know anything about boys

Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.

2.    Spend time with people out of a warped sense of obligation

It’s okay to let people go when you know you’ve outgrown them.

3.    Read too few “real” books

Fic is amazing and all, but you can’t have RL conversations about it and not look like a bit of a flake. Also, there’s so much good stuff out there, I would be doing myself a disservice to ignore it.

4.    Not take good enough care of myself

Your body is a temple and all that jazz.

5.    Let my job get the better of me

I spent too much time being depressed by my job this year. I will work hard to make sure I get offered a secondment to the U.S. next year, but I’ll know when to say “no”.

The 3 Most Important Things I Will Do In 2011:

1.    Find out that I have passed my qualifying exam and that 4 years of studying and 2 years of practical training have not gone to waste.

2.    Get selected to go on secondment to the U.S. for 6 months.

3.    Be happy.

Why I Write

I'm an auditor. The reason I became an auditor is mostly linked to the fact that I wasn't exactly well informed as to what auditors actually do. But that's beside the point. My point being that being an auditor is an extremely unfulfilling, ungrateful, unrewarding job. Not in the sense that my employer doesn't appreciate the fact that I slave away for them (although that's also debatable), more in the sense that my clients would rather not have me there (awesome feeling to have every single working day, btw).

Last year I worked at a university, teaching and mentoring and pep talking and motivating and guiding. There was at least one moment of every day, no matter how small, when I felt like I made some small positive difference in someone else's life. Had it not been for my year in academia I would never even have known what I'd be missing. But I do miss it. I constantly crave the knowledge that I have directly influenced someone's life/day/unconscious moment for the better.

So that's why I write. Obviously it's very self-serving as well. It's a creative outlet for me to keep me from either going postal on my co-workers or inflicting self harm to myself on particularly rancid days, but also a tiny little way for me to impact on someone else's life. Even if I can just make one person smile, or roll their eyes, or swoon, or make them think of a situation from a different angle, I know I've done well.

End ramble for the day.

Genislash and why I have not studied in three days

Sometimes you discover things that you are convinced you were meant to discover. I felt like this when I read the Twilight books for the first time, and even more so when I discovered fan fiction, because it all sat very comfortably for me.

When I discovered slash, my entire world exploded. It was slashfic and Queer as Folk and homoeroticizing every male relationship I could get my hands on.

Then I stumbled upon this Kirk/Spock slash and my world exploded once more.

See, I've always been an epic geek in normal person terms and an average geek in real geek terms. Meaning I love Star Wars and Star Trek (of which I have watched most of the series) but it's never been anything that overpowered my existence (altough the last season or two of Voyager was earth shattering, I have to admit). Meaning I can appreciate appreciate warp theory and often dream of being born a couple of hundred years into the future, because I would've kicked ass in Starfleet.

Meaning that when I read this Kirk/Spock slash, I had to go digging deeper. And what I found was the beginning. The alpha. I found genislash.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly thorough article on the origins of slashfic, including references to some of the earliest known Kirk/Spock fan fiction stories, as well as fanzines and general awesomery.

I have read more fic in these last three days than I have in the rest of this year combined. I think what I find so attractive about the Trek fandom is the fact that tey have to be so much more creative with their story telling, because they will get slaughtered if they stray from the core character traits too much. So, in order to not be a 100k cliche, the author actually has to think about the universe they're writing in, create new characters and scenarios and back stories and it's just wonderful to read. You can tell there's a lot of love behind the writing. This is srs bsns writing. I kinda love it.

So, in conclusion, I have been completely enamored these last few days and ignoring the ugly/epic/mostimporantthingever exam that awaits me in little over a week (Sidebar: I discovered Twific while studying for my first ugly/epic/mostimporantthingever exam, so I'm seeing a kind of pattern here). I've been hoping that immersion therapy might work, but alas, I'm not getting this out of my system. I even wrote fic within fic, so it's obviously a desperate situation. In one last ditch effort to expel this constant urge, I will attempt to write heavily angsty Trek fic tonight. It probably won't work, but a girl can try. Otherwise I'll have to go cold turkey, and I can predict that it will be a pathetic sight to behold.

And that's all. Why I chose to write this down, I do not know.