Icontest challenge deadlines, Hush icons and anti-nostalgia - the college edition!

[red_satin_doll]

** starry_night just posted a tiebreaker post for Most Creative icon for slayerstillness Round 24. Voting will be up for 24 hours or until the tie is broken. And as it happens, these are two super-fantastic entries out of an amazing field of icons. THESE ICONS - THIS ROUND - GAH!  They are all, to borrow a phrase from the lovely velvetwhip, awesomesauce in a jar.  And then some. I kind of love tiebreakers. Chose between two items instead ten/twenty/thirty/howevermany? I can handle that. Most of the time. Sometimes. Sorta-kinda.

** A reminder from dragonydreams that the deadline for entries in otherworldlyric challenge 172 is midnight Friday May 23 and that she could still use some more entries in that challenge. I'm sort of surprised because I thought people would be all over the prompt song this time, until I remember that for a lot of folks it's finals time. Thank you eilowyn for reminding me that world still exists. (Now get back to the books, sweetie.)  Which means those of us who have reliable computer acces (tiny percentage of the world's population) and are not in college/sick and dying of malaria and malnutrition/hiking in the Andes/performing at Carnegie Hall/fighting in a war of independence from 50 years of oppression need to pick up the slack.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)   7) 8)

I remember that time in college, goodness: cram for the final exam for all three/five/nine/howevermany courses, plus essays and final projects no one will remember or care about once the grades are posted; running on zero sleep (what's that?) and fueled entirely on coffee, soda pop, pudding cups, crackers (fiber!) and the occasional apple or banana snuck from the caf. Sort of like Buffy in late season 7 but without the end-of-the-world stress factor. Good times.*

And when I was in college the lovely addictive drug o'distraction once known as the world wide web was unknown or unavailable to me (if to anyone at all). I had to hone my keen distractibilty and procrastination skills to a finer edge the old-fashioned way: curl up in the dusty library stacks with a pile of 20-odd books that had nothing to do with my projects but oooh, look, the history of women's underwear in Europe from the Middle Ages through the 20th century? Nifty!

For all my friends in college right now - GET SOMETHING TO EAT. TAKE A NAP OR TWO. YOU WILL DO JUST FINE. REMEMBER, THIS TOO SHALL PASS, AND THEN WE'LL PARTY.

9) 10) 11) 12)

13) 14) 15) 16)

* I actually did make it through the last days of one semester finishing a project to the ZERO moment, no sleep, on an apple and a chocolate pudding cup. Then I went to a sedate end-of-the-semester party at a classmate's very nice apartment in an old Victorian house that had been subdivided, as such things are within walking distance of any college campus. I ate a handful of triscuit crackers with cheese and grapes, drank half a glass of champagne and then ended up clutching the bathroom sink for several minutes trying not to have an epileptic seizure. It turns out that:

   epilepsy
+ anti-spasmodic medications
- sleep
- food
+ alcohol
= VERY BAD MATH

Unfortunately, math was always my weakest subject. But that's why it's called a "learning experience".

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I remember now you mentioning your professor, sorry. That was very decent of them to do that for you.

And no I had not heard of Amy's organization thanks! I'll have to follow it on Facebook! This sort of thing is desperatelyl needed - successful women mentoring young girls and other women. It seems to happen all too rarely. Maybe quietly in the "real world" among the less than rich and famous, but we need to make more noise about it.

Have you heard of Chely Wright? She's the first major country-music star to come out of the closet (in 2010) and a part of her motivation was explicitly to help kids so they didn't have to go through what she did growing up. She wanted to use her voice and her "public capital" to do the most good, like Amy is doing, and that's a fabulous thing.

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Good for Chely! I know Jennifer Knapp is actually a Christian artist who came out because she wanted the church to be more welcoming to LGBTQ people. It sounds like a similar story of wanting to come out so that others don't feel alone (like our girl Ellen Page!).

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I know Jennifer Knapp is actually a Christian artist who came out

I hadn't heard of her, thank you! That was another of Chely's goals - to make the Christian church a more welcoming place, and to fight the stereotype that people of faith can't be gay, and vice versa. I recommend watching the documentary about her coming out, if it's on Amazon Prime (I watched it on Netflix) "Wish me Away" http://www.wishmeawaydoc.com

and watch her in a Q and A at Highlands Church (in Denver, I think?) She's a marvelous speaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTk6c9tIjqc

It's also interesting because of her age, and seeing her interact with her publisher who is more of an "old school" lesbian, the friction there, and her sister Jennifer and dad are INCREDIBLE people.

(like our girl Ellen Page!).

Ellen is awesome, full stop.