PDA

I must say how incredibly happy it makes me to see lovely young couples in the throws of passion. But seriously, if you are in a social situation in which you would normally be talkative, energetic and entertaining/enjoyable company, you should NOT - repeat NOT - be sitting on a couch for hours with your mate trying to subtly touch and kiss one another. This is SO boring for the rest of the company and is annoying to those who are single and those not with their significant other. So please be courteous. If you must be passionate, it is encouraged in short bursts. Instead of concentrating on the soft curve of her thigh/buttocks try to make conversation, crack a joke or in general be part of the group.

Steampunk Mara Jade

Yeah, went on a bit of an insanity trip today. Sitting at my computer an hour before my Victorian Characters class, thinking, "Should I read the book that I'm really far behind in? Or should I start sketching this costume?" I, with shagrin, must confess that I chose the latter... and then took the sketch to class and kept drawing. Yeah yeah yeah... I didn't pay a lot of attention, but in my defense I had nothing to say as I hadn't read the material for the day... admittedly because I sketched instead of reading. An infinite cycle.

ANYWAY I'll stop rambling and get back to the point. The lovely, time-consuming, distracting sketch that I sketched was my inspired idea of a steampunk Mara Jade costume.

I had been thinking of making a Mara Jade costume to wear to Celebration V, and to enter the 501st Legion, but had never put the plan in motion. But in my imaginings of the costume, I collected a lot of image research that I pulled from for this design.

Well, long and short, here's the design and a few bits and bobs that will appear somewhere in it.

Steampunk

I love the idea of Steampunk, and if only I had the money I would be seriously into costuming this stuff! Victorian garb is so sexy and intricate and gorgeous! Not to mention the sci-fi aspect, which tickles my fancy to no end. I believe I have found the answer to my long-difficult query as to how-on-earth make/find steampunk objet d'art "for cheap" : How-To

By Googling "How To Steampunk" I stumbled over this site (above) and others. Woohoo! Brass goggles, here I come! Next will be a bustle made of scraps!

Blogging and language

I heard somewhere that blogging is really about a stream of consciousness. It's not meant to be a well thought out, well-structured or developed essay. It's not a novel. It's not a work of art. Hell, it's not even a fully cohesive thought if we're going for stream of consciousness. If so, then aren't we just spiraling further and further into the sespitt of modern cultural loss of intelligence? By this I refer to our current use of the English language.

Seriously, do people ever think about how disgusting their use of language is nowadays? Text messages using numbers for letters and sometimes whole words. And not to forget the complete loss of concept of capitalization (unless the author is A.) excited B.) screaming or C.) retarded). "Are you coming to the party tonight? It's going to be amazing!" becomes "r u cumin 2 da prty 2nite? its gunna b AMZING!!!!" 

Really? REALLY? Have we sunk so low? Has the English language become so abominable that we refuse to acknowledge any of its fundamental rules?

Psychologists and psychobiologists have conducted studies for years on the cognitive developmental nature of language. Language is inherent. Its nature is imbedded in our biological makeup; we as humans have innate functions to create and use language. Numerous studies of children's comprehension of their elders and their reactions to the languages they hear have concluded that language is not simply learned via mimic, but it is part of our natural processes to develop language in the first place. So what does this mean? Language is incredibly important.

And because it is important, shouldn't it be respected? And because it should be respected, shouldn't we follow the rules of this highly developed language and utilize the incredibly beautiful and complex vocabulary and syntax with which we have been gifted?

I end this pseudo-rant in the words of Henry Higgins