Wednesday 14 August 2013

Medical leave a.k.a. other places to go entertain yourself (30 days of blogging day 22)

Oh my god. So today somebody stuck a drill in my mouth. Luckily, that somebody was a dentist, this is not a preamble to a story about some kind of horrible DIY accident, but it means that I am now feeling tragic and only imbibing sustenance through a straw (well, not quite, but chewing is difficult and cold ice cream is RIGHT out this evening *tragedy*). Also the new edition of Bitch Magazine came out and I spent all today doing homework for online university courses so... do I really have to blog today? Really? really? Let's call the whole thing off and come back tomorrow OK.

... no, alas, we've come too far for that. So this is still an entry, of more than one paragraph, because aching teeth and the persistent taste of blood are not a good enough reason to fail. Instead, here's the deal: I will try to make you go away by giving you links to all the things around the internet that are more interesting than being here listening to me whine about tooth pain.*

Bitch Magazine got a new issue today!: One of the best dead-tree-optimised feminist reads out there, Bitch is a "feminist response to pop culture". I'm a donor (a B-Hive member!) so I get all their exciting new stuff delivered in dead-tree-optimised PDF right to my inbox. The latest issue is "Grey" and there are some articles from it which are also up on the website.

Improve your mind, academia style: I'm currently signed up to what definitely qualifies as Too Many online university courses from both Coursera and EdX and I am enjoying all the things that have started (i.e. "The Modern and the Postmodern" and also a course on quantum mechanics which I am almost certainly going to fail). It's all free and though I am antisocial on both websites, you can also meet likeminded study people from all over the world if you choose :o

If you only follow one China blog: Make it this one. I am assuming that if you only want to follow one China blog, you can probably do without the heavy political or sociological stuff and can just skip to the fun, interesting pictures of slightly insane things that have happened in the world's biggest country. Off Beat China delivers in spades. One of the best bits of my Tumblr feed.

I would prefer to be enraged over the infuriating state of men: In that case, I recommend Mansplaining or Fat, Ugly or Slutty for some timeless examples of dudebro charm in action.

Really stupid things you can do on your iPhone: So I, er, started playing High School Story. It's like a cliched teen drama mixed with what I sort of imagine the Smurfs is about having not watched the Smurfs. Everybody has different talents that they use to work together and achieve goals and there is no in school conflict or geeky kids getting beaten up except in inter-school rivalries (which are obviously fine). I am just up to the part of the game where you start endlessly hooking people up in random bisexual combinations. My favourite students are my ginger-and-pink haired asian runner girl, and my weirdly cheesy looking blonde student government boy who literally spends all his time standing in front of the same building canvassing everyone who walks by. Is this a good use of my time? No!

Ninja Ropes? Ninja Ropes!

The best browser game you'll ever play: Is a dark room. Keep stoking that fire!

And if all that fails, you could always go back to places you already know I like, like Femusings and Twitter, both of which are conveniently linked over to the right.

That's it. Still here? Go away. Tomorrow will be more. Ow my mouth hurts. Sadface.

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*My dentist today was great tough. Really insistent that I shouldn't have to put up with any pain whatsoever whilst actually having bits of my tooth drilled out (super old filling, possibly the third repair, apparently the tooth itself doesn't... produce... minerals? So the fillings all come away horribly, blah blah how exciting my mouth is a warzone but at least they're all still there, even the wise ones, excellent). So none of this is her fault, it is the abstract fault of my mouth. Also I sort of prefer the pain and weird taste to the effects of the anaesthetic, which caused me to dribble all over myself on the way home.