Kitty Wake's blog

Optimistic disaster area

I am shit at computer games. I bought Avatar: The Burning Earth today. I saved my Pokemon game, took out the cartridge for the first time in weeks, and put in the Avatar game. And promptly proceeded to have the shit kicked out of me by two grown men with spears who were "just trying to make me go into the Avatar state". I tried to resist them, but ended up sending spinning balls of air in the opposite direction while they stabbed me in the back. Let me remind you I'm playing as a happy-go-lucky twelve-year-old who has funky tattoos and has a ten-ton flying bison with two extra legs. And some bastards are trying to kill me. Yeah, I got Aang killed. Now if I'd only been playing as Sokka, I could have thrown my specially sharpened boomerang and exacted revenge some turns later - now if only I had Sokka's aim. Or if I'd been Katara, I could have... well... given my poor aiming skills, I'd have ended up randomly icing walls and having the shit kicked out of me. Alas. I had to restart the game after about three minutes of lowering my HP into the red. Poor Aang. I'll never forget this cartoon saved to my computer, where a badly injured Pikachu is begging for mercy while a frankly psychotic-looking young boy is grinning and fiddling with his Pokedex and getting out a bunch of Pokeballs. I've gone scratched Aang up all badly. In my hands, he is bleeding heavily and begging for mercy. He's only twelve! And he's so cute and big-eyed! Maybe Sokka would look cool with a big manly facial scar on his right cheek - he'd certainly look less of a boob in his wolf-warrior getup - and Zuko, well, he's already been banged up a bit. I am dreading being able to play as Toph. Possibly because I have even worse aim than she does (at least, when it comes to the wholly airborne). And I don't want to get a tiny twelve-year-old, even one who can demonstrably kick large abouts of arse, all HPed out again.

Well, anyway. I've been carrying on with the Yoga exercises. I have made it a point to touch the floor with my toes every day. Not a big achievement, you might think. Well, I mean touch the floor while balancing on my head and arms. It's meant to be relaxing. It's terrifying. Today I ended up wedged between two walls - my bum was pressed up against one and my head against the other. My legs were sticking straight up into the air. I was stuck for five terrifying minutes, but managed to wriggle out of the position. I decided to try the child pose, which is basically a return-to-the-womb type posture. I have little or no desire to return to the womb; my legs fell asleep.

I come bearing a book! On Saturday I purchased No Plot? No Problem! - by the guy who set up NaNoWriMo. I'd love to sign up some day, if only because I've got A Novel in me somewhere - probably in my spleen or my fallopian tubes, not my heart - and it wants to come out. And it needs a deadline.

No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Chris Baty

I've not yet finished the book, but I like it already. There's a portion that asks why we give up things that we're not immediately good at, and I thought "Good point!" I've already admitted I am shit at computer games (apart from Pokemon). But I'm not going to give up on the Avatar game. I will learn to aim. By the same token, I'm also not good at yoga. But I'm not going to give up (though I will wisely moderate my attempts after twisting my wrist trying to do the arch posture); I'll take lessons. So next time I start a novel (and it will be from scratch, as long as I can come up with a decent setting and a vague idea of the plot), I'll stick with it. Even if I think it's shit after two weeks. I really want to read the rest of this book now (OK, and do revision), so I'll sign off. Also, I have to wash my hair because I'm going out for an epic bender tonight! I am so not in tune with a yoga philosophy. But one day!

(Actually, that's something else the book advises against: saying "One day I'll do XYZ". Arse. OK, I'll make a resolution. Get better at everything. Good!)

Spoilers. I know the title is weird, but I had to warn you.

It's been so long since I last updated that the system logged me out. I'd feel lazy, but I've spent the last few weeks revising and doing a piece of coursework about bioinformatics. I do wish they'd set us more coursework at uni. I'm not a masochist; I mean, I'd prefer coursework to a heavily-weighted final exam. It's more realistic, isn't it? I mean, I've worked in a research lab. If you want to know a vital piece of information - the exact structure of 5-methylcytosine, or where the gene for lactate dehydrogenase is coded for in a mouse genome - and you're actually working in a lab, you look it up, or ask someone. You don't memorise a whole load of crap that might not even be pertinent to the situation, do you? (Mind you, being given a set of clearly defined, guided questions isn't all that realistic either. But it's easier.)

Anyway. Media. Finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thank God for video uploaders on the web! Otherwise I'd have been deprived of an intelligent animated series. I've decided I love it; it's a Ten out of Ten. I like the lemur best, given that I like small fluffy creatures at the best of times. But small fluffy creatures with big green eyes and wings - hell yeah! I think I'd have an easier time concentrating on the current plotline, though, if Prince Zuko wasn't voiced by Dante Basco. Nothing wrong with that guy per se; it's that long before I'd ever heard of Avatar, I watched "But I'm A Cheerleader", and when Zuko tried to introduce himself to the Gaang (as I believe they're called) I was expecting him to say "Dolph. Homosexual varsity wrestler. How you doing?" and not "Hello. Zuko here!" Personally, I think Zuko would make a pretty good homosexual varsity wrestler, if it weren't for the fact that Toph could kick his ass. And when you don't stand a chance against a tiny blind 12-year-old, maybe it's time to reconsider. Anyway, I'm rather liking the burgeoning Zuko/Aang dynamic. The funny is only funny when the sap's got dignity, and Zuko's got plenty of that to lose when he gets covered in goo or distracted by a lively 112-year-old boy with no hair. Who can also fly. Or when he tells Aang to step back for his own safety at the beginning of the firebending lessons, which Aang dutifully does - only for Zuko to find out that he's all but lost his powers. That must be terrible. The Fire nation version of impotence. But they're so funny together!

I can now touch my toes! I know this has nothing to do with any form of media, but I can do it. Not bad, considering the tendons in the backs of my knees are wound up so tightly I couldn't actually do it for years. But I can do it now! Goodness knows why now, and not three years earlier, when I should have finished my growth spurt and my bones should have ossified for the last time. Life, I suppose. It likes playing tricks on you.

Hmm... what else? Can't write about my revision - it's hopelessly uninteresting unless you're into Drosophila development or bioinformatics, endless bioinformatics. I've almost completely withdrawn from internet life, because there's an incredible selection of idiots there if you only care to look. I'm in some sort of geek limbo. Geekier (in the good, sciency-smart way) than the average girl, but nowhere near geeky enough to own a copy of Lord of the Rings, let alone read the damn thing. I don't play role-playing games (well, apart from  Pokemon, but any game with animals that cute - and where the player character is a  cute ten-year-old - doesn't count).  I  don't do any useless geeky crap, really. I speak another language - a real language - and I can play chess. OK, I've also revealed I watch a kids' TV programme. But really, am I a geek?

Hmm... Pokemon. I've defeated the Sinnoh Elite Four and the Champion, using cunning typematching and brute force. I adore my Dialga. I've also captured the Sinnoh Legendary Psychic trio - I like Uxie the best! - and I've caught a Ditto, Mitosis (so I can have another Piplup - so cute) and Bebe gave me an Eevee, which I've named Mutable. So what should I evolve him into? I'm tending towards Vaporeon, or Umbreon.

Found a page full of yoga exercises for students. I can do... most of them. Although anything involving grabbing my feet will have to wait until my knee ligaments stretch a bit more. And although I can do the shoulder balance and the plough position while lying on my bed (well, not really lying, more posing), it's murder on my elbows if I try to do it on the floor. I need an exercise mat. The boat pose is achievable for about 0.3 seconds before my legs (which are rather muscley, from walking halfway across Germany, and are therefore heavy) come crashing to the ground, which is murder on my heels. For the same reason, you can forget the locust pose. My legs weigh a ton. Forget the arch and bow poses. My spine doesn't like bending backwards - yet. I hope to achieve them one day. Give me a million years of trying some of the less stressful poses. A lot of the poses claim to increase height. I'm almost 5'10"! I'm already tall by every country's average! The Dutch are apparently the tallest average people in the world, but even their average woman is 5'7" or so. One thing I can do is the corpse pose, which involves... well, lying flat on your back and occasionally turning this way and that. I could do it in my sleep. Given my acrobatic sleeping skills, I probably do do it in my sleep. My problem is I'm not a natural gymnast - not of the body. My mind is like quicksilver. My body will quite happily do the normal demands of life - walking, running (unless I walk round Berlin with a suitcase, which hurt my legs so much I literally couldn't move faster than a gentle amble), lifting fishtanks, putting my big toe on my forehead scar - but it will not, at this juncture, allow itself to be twisted backwards. And I can't walk on my hands. It would be a useful novelty skill, though. One day...!

Currently feeling a bit achey from working my way through the yoga positions. I've had a go at every one apart from the ones that involve putting your head between your knees, which seems to be a rather ridiculous level of suppleness. I think I'll go and exercise the mind now; Latin. Latin, with its zillion cases (German's enough trouble with four, and even then the genitive is obsolescent) and fifty ways of declining nouns. German looks positively simple now.

Zzzz...