mercury is in retrograde

Countdown to finals has begun!  If I disappear...I may be studying.  I was supposed to study today, but instead I kind of slept most of the day.  I think it was my punishment for too many days of not sleeping enough/trying to live off coffee and dried fruit and protein drinks. (Sadly, that was actually my attempt at finding food that was not entirely nutritionally vacuous...yeah.  I am kind of the world's worst vegetarian.)

ANYWAY.  If you are not yet Doctor Who friending at eve11's friending meme, you should go do that!  And gdgdbaby is hosting a holiday love meme.  (My thread is here.)

Survived 3/4 exams including the weeklong abstract algebra Take-Home Exam of Doom.  Am supposed to be spending the weekend cramming for my analysis midterm, but I did a couple problems yesterday and then stayed up until 1 am reading Batman & Robin, derping on Tumblr, and watching Star Trek: TNG.  Heh.  Guess I know what I'm doing today.

ANYWAY.  Why am I here and not learning about the Mean Value Theorem...I actually don't remember.  OH!  Insta-rec.  If you would like to go back to crying about the Ponds leaving, and if you would like a story that reads like a cross between circa-S5 lyrical Eleven/Amy fic and current canon, you should read no one loves you like I love you by pyrodynamo.  It is excellent.

Via elisi: it appears the recent LJ modifications may not be as disastrous as they first appeared?  As summarized here, there will be some customizability, including the ability to switch off infinite scroll (thank goodness).  Also, paid accounts aren't really going away--if you have one, you'll still have one, it looks like, and if you don't have one yet, you'll be able to just buy the features you want, instead of a bundle.  If you have a paid account when that happens, it looks like you may also get some special privileges?

So that's good.  I think?  I hope.

In other news: I am very excited to get my Yuletide assignment, I don't understand permutation groups so I expect that at least one of the proofs I wrote up for my homework makes no sense (oh well), and I have once again gotten overly ambitious with the borrowing of library books and comics. (Batgirl!  Batman!  The Great Gatsby!  Wait, what?  Who thought it was a good idea to give me library cards?) 

Oh!  And I started poking at the nearly-infinite Doctor Who backlog.  I started watching in 2010, so I've seen all of Moffat Who, somewhere between half and two thirds of RTD Who, and two Fourth Doctor serials.  But I read Classic and Multi-era fanfic sometimes, and I was on an Ace/Hex fanfic binge the other day, and I thought, hmm, maybe I should, you know, actually watch some Seven-era.  So I watched Ghost Light, and I didn't understand a lick of the plot, but it was fun and spooky and Seven was great.  He is much calmer than the Doctors I am used to, and also very scary when he wants to be.  And Ace!  She was actually less big and tough, somehow, than I expected her to be, but she seems like a good companion.  Although--were the TV acting guidelines different in the 80s?  It seemed a bit melodramatic to me.  But the school library had Remembrance of the Daleks, so that's on my desk, waiting and hoping for my legendarily poor TV attention span to return to it. :P

It is time again for that most splendid of holidays, Ada Lovelace Day!  Once a year, bloggers around the world gather to sing the praises of inspiring women in the STEM fields.  And if you are a lady-identified person in science, technology, engineering, or math, I most cordially salute you.  

I wasn't sure for a while whom or what to write about this year.  And then I thought, can we just talk for a minute about how awesome Marie Skłodowska-Curie is?  Because I know everyone has heard of her, and I know in many ways she's become not just the token lady scientist, but the token scientist, and the token chemist, and the token lots of other things.  Which in some ways is a tribute to just how amazing she was, that she as a woman scientist managed to become to many people the face of chemistry, but in other ways it makes what we know of her just a rehearsal of the facts and not really a story.

( unabashed science fangirling under the cut )

Internet has reached peak sketchiness, and I can no longer get online even with an ethernet cable.  Am currently in the basement computer lab of another dorm.  If I disappear, assume I've still no access in my room and am too busy with analysis homework to derp around in the lab anymore.  But analysis, scary though it's been, is getting better!  I got five problems done today, which is more than the past two days combined.  And I got a new library card and picked up some graphic novels--mostly Batman.  Have been managing to keep up with Pond Life, although if the internet doesn't come back that will be harder.

I wrote some fic last week before school started and it's just come out of beta (thank you, arliddian !), so I will try to post that eventually when I have time to make the changes.

Otherwise, carry on!  Have good starts to your school years, or whatever you're up to of late! :)

ETA: The internet appears to have come back on.  Fingers are crossed.

Fandom meme snerched from mfirefly10:

Have been on a Batman kick since I saw The Dark Knight Rises last week.  On shinyjenni's suggestion, I checked out Stephanie Brown's Batgirl run and I am loving it.  The trades are starting to get pricey since the whole New 52 reverted Batgirl to Barbara Gordon, but I've gotten a bunch of issues fairly cheap as digital comics and I found a good deal on the second trade online, so I ordered that today. I'm reading issue #5 right now and laughing my head off.  Steph is funny, awkward, hardworking, kindhearted, and snarky.  She's an underdog who's always full of hope--which can be a tricky thing to keep hold of in Gotham city.  Someone on Tumblr compared her to Spider-Man, and I think that's a really apt comparison--I think she might be a bit less angsty, though.  Ahh, Stephanie Brown, you rock, never change.

I also got a bunch of Batman trades from the library...I have way too many library books in general.  And then I think I might like to read Batwoman, after I'm done catching up on Stephanie Brown's run (which, sadly, wasn't all that long).  Although, keeping up with comics gets expensive kind of fast.

Does anyone have comics-related feelings to share?