Legenda 42: Stuff worth reading
[Legenda offers a brief, non-inclusive index of stuff I noticed and enjoyed since the last episode. It doesn’t usually include materials presented on the major fansites, which I love dearly, but which are linked in the sidebar. Because I always forget or just miss stuff, please add additional pieces of interest via link in the comments.]
I’m still writing the post about the header change — at about 3,500 words. Geez. I even went out and bought a digital camera and took pictures for this post. If you knew my feelings about picture taking, you’d realize what a big deal this is for me. I apologize; the transition “back” has been rougher than anticipated. Lately it seems like everything I want to say is serious, and I fought a big episode of dysphoria this morning over it. Still not sure I won. Anyway, more very soon. I hope. Maybe I’ll split it up into pieces.
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Signed the petition yet? Why not?
One last reminder from King Richard Armitage Week 2012: The quiz may still be answered until 0:01 a.m., London Time, Sunday, September 3rd. Winner drawn from all entries decides the donation of our charity money — and we have a championship to award! Stay tuned.
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RArchive:
- Need inspiration? Check out BODYARMITAGE!
- Frenz interviews Todd Garner regarding Richard Armitage and Black Sky.
- Richard Armitage optical illusion.
- Jas’s 3-D character gallery.
- Who should attend the premiere of The Hobbit with Mr. Armitage? (OMG, not me).
- Hypothetical musing on meeting Armitage.
- Although she doesn’t say it, it was her blogiversary post — give Grati some love!
- Why Richard Armitage had to take the role of Alex Track.
- How meeting Richard Armitage caused her to transform every electronic surface she’s looking at.
- Reasons to love Lords of the North.
- It’s hard these days to decide which of GB’s cartoons I like better: all the chaRActers, or a campout, or Armitage babies. Or this one with the inflatable sheep. The comments on these posts just get more and more inventive. No make-believe inflatable water toys were harmed in the writing of this post …
- Why it’s fun to meet fellow fans.
- Second trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey expected to appear in September.
- And release date for the third Hobbit movie, now titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is announced for July 18, 2014. I can’t resist saying that Armitage could have gotten his British BA in the amount of time spent on this project. I hope he feels — educated.
Fanfic:
- GB’s “One Last Try,” chapter 3. Marian is desolate. Evidence that GB has the heart of a tale-teller, not only of artist. The language is simple but the events have a fairy tale feel.
- At Fly High!, an author interview / giveaway with Chrissie Elmore, author of a new North & South sequel. Enter till September 5th.
- Oh, to touch those lips!
- There’s a new, very explicit, unashamed Armitage RPF on tumblr starting here. Do not read this if you don’t like explicit writing about sex or RPF. Otherwise, enjoy — I did! This burst of RPF is making me really, really happy; if you want to understand why I feel this way, you can read what I said about fanfic and its meaning to me about a year ago here, a post that feels more pertinent to me than ever.
- The tumblr gang has been writing a fic called “Anon Prof. A.” for a while. Edgy. Be careful — warnings for explicit writing, RPF, and, well, potentially other stuff, too. Here’s an installment. The blog itself (home) has a bunch of explicit Armitage and Armitage-related fics.
- And this one about a late night episode popped up the other night and I felt so aligned to the things the author is expressing that I could have cried. Explicit and RPF.
OT, collateral attractions, and stuff I think about:
- Keith Allen to take drugs — on TV!
- A famous letter written by Stephen Fry to a fan, on dealing with depression.
- On the things you can take from a house, and the others that you have to leave there.
- On confronting your fears and moving forward. Cried when I read this.
- For Sherlock fans: Nerd graffitti at work.
- I’m no longer scouring the Internet for things to tempt my mother with each evening, but I’m stockpiling stuff for December. I don’t think she’d eat this, but I would. Now if only someone would make it for me!
- On friendship, and the circumstances under which it should end.
- Should professors be hot?
Me + Richard Armitage 
Another Legenda Post!! Yahooooooooooooooo!!!!!
And it’s SEPTEMBER already!!! Wow. Can’t even say how excited I am to be headed into my favorite season of the year (sorry, but I’m just not a summer kind of gal).
“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…please put a penny in the old man’s hat!” I guess there’s some movie coming out this year in the run-up to Boxing Day, huh? 😉
Sorry to hear about the morning’s dysphoria, Servetus. I suppose I am being extra cheerful here to counter some of that vibe bringing you down on your end. We’re here for you if you need us – you just say the word. There is such a huge amount to enjoy and celebrate each week (as evidenced by these Legendas) and an even greater amount to look forward to. 🙂
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hmmm …. excited for fall, are we? you are definitely energetic.
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Thank you Servetus for the stuff of the week . OMG I love the non ashamed tumblr Ladies !
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me too. the more diversity of voices, the better!
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[…] I missed a whole stack of stuff just now that I wanted to mention. I must ingest more coffee. Getting on that right now. In no particular […]
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Legenda 42, supplement « Me + Richard Armitage said this on September 1, 2012 at 6:21 pm |
Sorry about the dysphoria. There are days like that, and sometimes years like that. And sometimes “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” is no consolation whatsoever. But the evidence for joy is all around, and I wish you all the joy, comfort, and solace your heart can hold.
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Yeah, I’m actually sick of hearing that aphorism. There was an article recently in Psychology Today that demonstrated statistically that it’s false, which made me feel a whole lot better, actually.
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That makes me feel better, too. I recall when every piece of rubbish life handed out was supposed to be a “Learning Experience.” The last person who said to me, “Think of this as a Learning Experience” learned what it felt like to be knocked on his kiester.
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here’s the article. I had meant to link it in a Legenda but it slipped my mind:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-the-wild-things-are/201010/what-doesnt-kill-us
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Thanks for the link.
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hmm, that summary has a really positive spin on the actual results. the article that I read said, no, in general, being exposed to that kind of repeated near-death experience is really damanging.
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OK, this was the piece that I read originally: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201008/what-doesnt-kill-you-makes-you-weaker
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Is it just me, or is each and every week in the Armitage fandom absolutely fascinating? I really do somtimes wonder how people come up with all these different posts, inspired by just one man…
I really enjoy my weekly Legenda, as I get a chance to see just how creative and RA nuts we all are 😉
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I keep thinking, “this will be an off week,” but it kind of never is. It’s why Fanstravaganza is so much fun — it’s like an especially intense week — but even a regular week is really fun.
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Love the new Heather… 🙂
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Meant to write HEADER!! LOL Guess it has been a long week.. 🙂
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I totally get it.
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Thanks for the RPF links, serv. although I know there are differing opinions, I don’t have a problem with them. My problem has been locating them! I’m still finding the sites hard to navigate (hard=impossible) so any helpful hints would be appreciated
Oh, and I LOVE the new header too. Those eyes!!
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That’s a good question. I haven’t gotten involved in tumblr much because I find the stuff hard to navigate. Maybe some readers have some suggestions.
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Hi Servet,
Thanks for quoting my post. There are many good things in your list that I had not seen yet!
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Yes, this was a good week. As usual!
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Hey Servetus,
Thanks also for posting your OT link items.
These always make these Legendas special for me, in addition to the usual AW weekly round-up. I particularly enjoyed the link to the Stephen Fry letter. Not just because it showed how great Mr. Fry was for taking the time to respond. But because the receiver had the courage to make it public – at cost to her own privacy and at the risk of the media misrepresenting the letter (which of course they did).
It’s just another example of someone acting courageously – and by doing so, giving others a sense of hope and wonder for what is possible in life.
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I thought about the whole thing a lot — having the courage to write your crush and tell him your problems. I kind of tend to think if I have problems I am responsible for dealing with them and other people don’t necessarily want to hear about them, either. I think there’s a tendency in the media to characterize taht sort of thing as whining, which i can’t imagine it is.
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Thanks for all of the great info! I had to snicker when reading the “Should Professors be Hot” article…I don’t think I want to know where my students put me on a “hotness” scale 😮 I have enough trouble shrugging off the general negative remarks on class evals..I can’t imagine the impact of opening myself to remarks on my personal appearance! I hope you are able to tip the scale closer to Euphoria than Dysphoria soon…what would that be…Mesophoria? I wondered when all of that Classical Greek would be useful 🙂 Cheers!
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Yeah, it’s really hard to read those evals. I used to have a scheme for doing it — our campus had a “what grade do you think you are getting?” question, and I used to stack them by that criteria — I could see what the students who were getting Bs and Cs and Ds were complaining about and think about if there was a pattern, if it had legitimacy, and what I could do about it. Now I’ve gone over to reading them before I write the next syllabus rather than right after the semester, once my own injuries from the term have faded.
I am not hot and somehow I get decent to good evals anyway. However, who knows, if I were hot, what would happen? 🙂
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Back in ancient history (pre-internet, pre-social media), these evaluations were seldom used, mostly informal, sometimes supported a grant proposal for an innovative program. When a professor was hot, the opinions were not expressed in an accessible forum, but rather in private between consenting adults.
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yeah, now the evaluations of hotness even show up on the written evals. I suppose it’s a way for people to express things they wouldn’t if they had to vocalize them. And, as the article makes clear, “hot” is often an evaluation of the person’s energy rather than their objective appearance. I try not to think about it because I can’t get hotter than I am anyway — it’s not something I can change.
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The first time I heard a student express such out loud, I thought, “Huh? He just is who he is.” I guess that’s true for all of us.
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I started looking at them like ice skating scores…I throw out the highest and the lowest and look for a consensus on an issue when assessing if some element of the course needs to be tweaked. I like the idea of not pulling them out until it’s time to write a new syllabus…
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What I’ve found is that waiting obscures the specific student in my mind. Right after term when I’ve spent 15 intensive weeks with these students I can almost hear their individual voices in my head — even if, as has happened now, the university presents their verbal comments to me in a form that obliterates their handwriting. After a break of several weeks the specific personalities fade away and I can look at their comments more openly (as opposed to thinking — oh, it was that student who had such a difficult personality who is saying that) and thus consider them more objectively.
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Very true…I’ve always received typed comments and can usually identify some of the more strident critics. I teach in both traditional and non trad programs, and I generally have no trouble with the non trad comments as they tend to be more course related and constructive. It is that occasional, vehement comment from a traditional student that makes me wonder if this person was sitting in the same room with the rest of the class who seemed to *gasp* enjoy World Civ. 🙂
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I found that the sources of some of the most egregious comments were readily identifiable because of the recurring faults in usage and grammar. It made me wonder how marginally literate students had been admitted, let alone permitted to take an upper-division course.
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LOL….and is it any wonder that they didn’t like or were unsuccessful in the course if they were grossly under prepared to enroll in the first place. I’ve argued pretty loudly for prerequisites on upper division courses, so I haven’t seen it there…mostly in core classes and probably from the ones who most resent having to take such “useless” classes…haven’t quite caught on to the difference in the BA vs the vocational degree yet I guess. Here’s to a new year of trying to clarify that one. 🙂
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**raises glass**
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there’s the whole attitude, prevalent in so many places, that humanities classes don’t need prereqs in the way that the natural sciences or math do, which is serious nonsense.
I wasn’t allowed to list prereqs for the last senior research seminar I taught in my last job — the topic was a heavily theological one. I had two students who enrolled who complained to the department advisor that the material was too hard for them, who in turn chewed me out. Well, what do you expect? Research in a topic usually requires some familiarity with it.
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Even when you have the math-&-science type prerequisites, you still get students who obviously didn’t get it the first time. Do you waste two class periods reviewing a basic concept or do you leave ’em in the dust? Then there are those who haven’t a clue how to do real research, saying “In a library?” as if it’s a foreign concept. *argh* I don’t want to let any of those near a lab, except perhaps as subjects.
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I’ve started writing on the front page of my syllabus — this class requires you to write university level, expository, persuasive essays. Essay writing is not a skill taught in this class.
I mean, nobody expects the calculus professor to go over the rules for the order of operations, do they?
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Good thing to put on the front page. Students should also know how to use library resources, prepare a proper bibliography, and cite sources correctly — preferably before they’re allowed out of primary school.
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I have to admit, that I have a boss who is very sympathetic on this subject, so when I’ve asked for a prerequisite, I’ve gotten it. Not that it always does much good…as we all know, just because a student passes a class doesn’t mean they have mastered it well enough. I always wonder WHY do you want to take this upper division class that I’ve tried to warn you away from? Surely there must be something more suitable to satisfy whatever requirement that is looming.
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yeah, and then there are the well-meaning administrators who give people exemptions from rules. Last year, in this job, in my upper division research seminar, every single student had been exempted from the theory prerequisite. It was a disaster. When I asked the administrator why, she said, well, they needed to graduate. Yes. Presumably, then, they also need the prerequisite to graduate ? …
and yes. When a professor tells you you are not ready for a class, it would make sense to pay attention.
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at the same time that is a sort of hurried writing — it’s a bit like essay exams, you have to put up with the fact that many / most are poorly written. Or I do. You don’t 🙂
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Heh-heh. I be retired, gracias a Dios. But the other night I saw proof of a concept that a certain idiot boss once denied, ridiculing me for considering it. I still wanted to document it and send him the proof, even though he’s no doubt dead or a drooling fool by now.
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Hi Serv,
Thanks for the mention! I appreciate it!
And I love your new blog header. And young Prince Thorin’s eyes and brows are amazing! But those eyelashes just call out for a “butterfly kiss”. Sighhhhh!
Cheers! Grati ;->
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This is definitely the most contemplative header I’ve had. First I had Lucas peeping through the letter slot from Spooks 7.1, and then I had the John Bateman eyes from Spooks 9. This is actually a significant change for me.
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[…] posted a bunch of tumblr links to fanfic for the first time in the last Legenda, and got a comment that resonated me with about the difficulty of navigating […]
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Got Richard Armitage-related tumblr tips? « Me + Richard Armitage said this on September 6, 2012 at 10:31 pm |