…So… bags packed. Chocolate taken with me. Eastercon app downloaded. Leftover food (xá xíu) handed over to the H for his bánh mì tomorrow. My plane leaves at 8:00, which gets me up at 5:15am. Arg. I’ll be off for some sleep then… A reminder that my schedule can be found here; and the author herself can be found in the bar or in the dealers’ room. I will be rooming with the awesome Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, and hope to see many of you there!…

…obably not in the way that they intended, but it doesn’t make me very optimistic about the coming years. [1] You’ll wonder about the one that made sense, aka the only leaflet the husband didn’t poke holes into as he was reading it. It’s the one from our incumbent, Sarkozy. I hate many of his measures, but I have to grant him this: he presents a coherent program, doesn’t make promises I don’t believe in for a second, and I actually trust him to do…

…actually export stuff. That wouldn’t be so bad–except that Outlook doesn’t come prepackaged with CSV export, and you have to install from the CD (which, of course, I’ve lost). I then attempted to go through Thunderbird sync–which turns out to be a buggy feature that makes the Ovi Suite crash, yay. (also, apparently Nokia stopped supporting Ovi Suite, oooh, about 4 months ago, making any kind of feature update hard. Not that it was ever anything mo…

…the history of conquest and colonization is a traumatic experience for the colonized. The Philippines went through not one, but two colonizers. I wonder how many colonizers other countries had to endure. From reading these histories, it becomes clear to me that the erasure and subjugation of existing indigenous narratives were prioritized as these were viewed as being rival to the colonizing power. Well worth reading, discussing and sharing….

…men survived easier than ships–because they had armours, because the ships had been tasked to take care of them. Dong Huong remembered arguing with Lady Meng’s Brewer–begging the ship to spare itself instead of her–and running against a wall of obstinacy, a fundamental incomprehension that ships could be more important than humans. Among the Northerners, however, everything was different. (I have no idea what I’m going to do with this, and it look…

…ors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart. I know, of course, where it started. I took you to the ship–because I had no choice, because Khi Phach was away on some merchant trip to the Twenty-Third Planet–because you were a quiet and well-behaved son, and the birth-master would have attend…

…telligent people, that is, as every people on the world should be treated historically, socially, and narratively. I think the best we can do is not underestimate the Other. *Djibril:* I think the best and maybe only way for a writer to avoid unthinkingly perpetuating problematic tropes is to think–think hard about everything you say and write. That sounds like a platitute, but I seriously believe that we can learn a lot by being self-conscious. W…

…her in the dish. (what do you mean, no? Ah yes, I didn’t actually take chemistry beyond cristallography and basic organics… Mind you, I suspect it’s fairly simple stuff as far as chemistry is concerned, which doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. Pineapple chocolate brownies is a vitally important dish, a concentrate of yumminess that dispels the gloom) 4. reflection paper on dancer’s gift sociology in life Hum, I’m afraid I can’t help you there? 5. best…

…ters in Exile”. Put it up on OWW for crits, and waiting for the inevitable complaints about density. (to be fair, it’s very very dense, and I didn’t even get to cram enough food in it [1]). *sigh* I shall now go back to my novel and browbeat it into submission. So far, it hasn’t exactly been cooperative… [1] All stories should have food. It improves the plot immeasurably. Also, it compensates for those times when I’m typing on my computer and can’…

…Via xanthalanari and j_cheney: learnt that KD Wentworth passed away from complications related to cancer and pneumonia. I… um, am pretty much speechless. She was always generous with her advice, and did a beyond-excellent job of being the first judge for Writers of the Future, as well as an awesome teacher and a great writer. Gaaah. The world sucks….