Hello, my lovelies!

It’s early morning, and the sky is grey. There’s a bit of drizzle. But we had 23°C yesterday, and it’s going to be the same today. Yes, it’s getting warmer again, and summer is finally here. About time, too. I hear ya! Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share.

If we were having coffee today, I’d offer you a cuppa of freshly brewed Guatemalan coffee or apple tea, and I’d invite you to take a seat in the armchair. I was going to move this outdoors to the verandah, but the drizzle got in the way. I’d hoped that last night’s rain storm had cleared the way for blue skies and sun, but the bit of thunder we had early this morning was not enough. I don’t know about you, but I like soaking up all the sun I can get. I can’t wait to move my studies outside again!

The weather’s been changing from 33°C to 9°C and back up to 23°C, and it was getting too sticky. I can smell it’s going to thunder again today, and it’s gonna be a big one.  Maybe this is weird, I don’t know, but I can smell thunderstorms coming. And snow. To me, the smell is like a metallic petrichor mixed with something I can’t quite place and the sky gets a sort of green tint to it when I look at clouds. I just know, and been able to predict them all my life.  And no, not like this:

If we were having coffee today, you’d no doubt see that I am in a much better mood than I was the last few weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still stressed out, but this little bit of sunshine over the last week has helped tremendously. And here people think I’m joking when I suggest moving to the centre of Australia’s Outback …

ROW80 came to an end this week, and I can’t believe the second round of 2015 is already over. Where did the time go? But I achieved most of what I set out to do, so that’s something positive I can be happy about.

My weekly goals are also looking good. I still need to complete some things for university, and I probably won’t have time to do any template designing, but I’m well on the way and a lot more motivated than I’ve been in weeks. Last night was the deadline for the Rise of Superheroes in Pop Culture course by the Smithsonian Institute over on edX. It was taught by none others than comic industry legends Michael Uslan and Stan Lee and as a final project, we had to plan a few comic panels ourselves. I can’t draw. At all. So I ended up describing my panels because I don’t even do stick figures. Give me any other way to be creative in. But drawing I epically suck at.

Would you like to hear about my characters and story? Of course, you do. I’ll just refresh our drinks.

A while back, I saw a Pinterest pin from Tumblr with a plot idea:

 

That sounded like a fun prompt, though I decided to ignore the plot twist at the end.

So my heroine is called Roxanna, and she’s a sophomore at Columbia University. She is black and curvy, because I wanted her to be an actual role model for those girls who are not perfect or who feel left out of mainstream media. Her dorm-mate is Moira, an Australian-born redhead. Their personalities are inspired by the goddesses Diana and Eris, respectively.  Their alter egos are Soul (Roxy) and Óreida (Moira). Soul is telepathic, especially when it comes to women and children as victims of crimes, she’s super strong and very agile (think Buffy strong with super fast reflexes). Óreiða is Icelandic for “Chaos” and she is basically a criminal mastermind who likes to cause trouble through mind control. They are both reincarnations of the goddesses. When Christianity replaced Roman mythologies, the gods took human form to keep their ways alive. The humans they chose were not Roman, but rather slaves and merchants, in the hopes of spreading their power beyond the reaches of the Roman Empire as these people would try and get back to their homelands – they called themselves the Senzadaqui (Italian approximation of “Not From Here” – hence a black girl and an Australian redhead belonging to the same pantheon).The humans are mortal, but the gods’ spirits enter children of two Senzadaqui on their 15th birthday.

I had to create a whole origin story from Roman times to their individual backstories. The scene I wrote for assessment was Soul saving a woman from an attack Óreida had ordered. Óreida steps in and they finally see each other’s alter ego. Without realising it, each had learned the other’s weaknesses (mainly allergies that dull their powers), which Soul takes advantage of.

It was hard writing the pivotal scene from scratch without properly building up to it. It’s also been the first time I dabbled in writing anything based in Roman mythology, but I really like the concept and had so many ideas for the backstory, I’m seriously considering turning this into a novel. Depending on my workload, in November, I might turn this into my NaNoWriMo project for this year. And no, I won’t be joining the July Camp NaNoWriMo next week –  too much going on as it is without throwing a novel on top of it all.

Earlier this week, I spoke to two girls I went to school with. We spoke about our studies and I explained what I do, what my grades are and how I look at supplement courses for more research inspiration and what I’m currently researching further – and both of them, independently, suggested that I should consider doing a PhD once I’m done with this M.A. They both recently got their own PhDs (one I knew about, the other I didn’t). Now, I’m the girl who had enough of grammar school and couldn’t wait to get away. When I got my B.A,. I said I never wanted to write an (undergrad) dissertation again. Here I am getting my Master’s, and seeing as I like research and knowledge – and I’m far better at academics than working my current, mind-numbingly dull job – I am seriously considering staying in academia a while longer. It can’t hurt to at least research it all a little to know that – provided I keep my current average grade and can raise the funds – those options would be available. So I’ve done a quick search of the sort of subjects I could go into with my current set of knowledge. As I said to my friends, I need actually to finish this M.A. first before I can consider anything else. But the one thing I do know for sure is that I’d do another course only if it’s on campus. No more of this online learning malarky. Plus, campus-based learning/research would provide distance from hovering relatives.

It’s all theoretical, of course, but it’s nice to be considered good enough by two people who have just gone through the entire process, so that’s been a confidence boost and is serving as motivation to keep my grades the way they are.
If we were having coffee tday, we’d also take a moment to celebrate Pride. I am straight, but I have a lot of friends who are LGBTQ+ and I’ve always felt that love is love, no matter what. Yesterday’s US Supreme Court ruling was a massive achievement for the entire community and its supporters. I just hope that Germany will soon follow suit. Currently, same-sex couples can enter civil partnerships over here, which gives them the same responsibilities as hetero couples, but still not the same rights. I sincerely hope that all the countries in which same-sex marriage is now legal will set a good example, so that eventually, we can drop the “same-sex” and just call it marriage, because that’s what it is and how it should be. But for now, at least in the US

#LoveWins

and I couldn’t be happier about that.

If we were having coffee today, I’d tell you that I have a series of college prep & studying / studying abroad posts planned for July. I’m also working on more book related posts, but so far that’s all behind the scenes here at Study.Read.Write.

From now on, I will also serve as a reviewer of advanced copies. That’s the kick up the backside I needed to read more and not put it off all the time. I just received the first book, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, which I will be reading  and reviewing shortly.
If we were having coffee today, I’d apologize for rambling on. I hope this made up for the post I missed two weeks ago and the sort of miserable one from last week.

If you’d like to stay a while, feel free to grab a refill, or you could head off to Part Time Monster and go crazy on the Linky visiting the other Weekend Coffee Sharers or find us via the #WeekendCoffeeShare tag.

Thank you for having coffee with me.

Same time, next week?

By the way: it just cleared up again. Blue skies, a few clouds, sunshine, and 25°C… I might move this outside after all!