Fanart, Fanfiction and Fangirling

I haven't posted anything about my holidays yet. Shame on me.

( Holiday report - With pictures! )

Merry Christmas! I survived the usual intense eating and I'm finally ready to post the Christmas cards I sent my LJ friends. Oh, btw, schwimmerin.livejournal.com, I got your card on the 23th, thank you! I don't know if you got mine before flying back home, but this year's card isn't very Christmassy, I wanted to be original but I don't know if it worked.

Anyway, here are the cards:


Clic for a bigger version

Bigger individual pictures under the cut.

( Christmas cards )

Anyway, I hope everyone liked their cards, I loved yours and had a lot of fun drawing them, these were pretty much the only drawings I did this year. That will have to change next year.

Okay, I've come to the conclusion that, to avoid getting mad every single day at work, I'll just have to assume that everyone is an idiot. Everyone. The latest example: students who enroll for a school year or semester in the USA need to send us a copy of their immunisation history, we translate it and forward it to our American partner. Said American partner informed us that some schools may want to see a paper copy of the certificate, so students should bring a copy with them. So I sent an email saying "Please bring a copy of your updated immunisation history with you." My boss made me add "Please bring a copy with you in the USA, do not send it us." I thought she was exaggerating.

Today I receive a reply from one of the students: "Here is my certificate, it's attached."

If you heard a thud a couple of hours ago, it was my head hitting the desk.

So, yeah, I'll just laugh about this. And look at the pretty new pics of Scott out and about in LA looking adorable with a bit of white in his beard.

( Two pictures here )

Elections are over. We don't have a clear majority and forming a government will be nearly impossible. Millions of people still voted for you-know-who after everything he's done. Still a few hours before we find out who the new local governor in my region (Lombardy) will be.

I'll just ignore everything and distract myself with this pretty picture:

( H50 Ohana behind the cut )

I wanted to draw some Christmas fanart but I've been terribly busy and not really inspired. I'm working on something right now, but it's not Christmas related, so I'll post it when it's done, maybe on Boxing Day.

But I do have some Christmassy fanart! The card I sent to schwimmerin, it arrived on the other side of the Atlantic safe and sound and before the 25th!

( Farin wishes everyone a very rock'n'roll Xmas! )

And here's our new Christmas decoration, an adorable owl family we got at the arts and crafts fair a couple of weeks ago (the silver snowflake was not included):

( Hoot! )

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh. My. God. I'm going back to my old school to talk about our exchange program next week, so I had a look at their website. First of all: they recently moved to a new address after a push and pull that lasted for more than 15 years (there were rumours about moving when I was still in school). But on the site there are 3 different addresses listed: the new one and the old ones, and it's not clear whether they have already moved or are planning to. I see they are still as disorganised as ever. They also have a page with little video interviews with ex students and they interviewed 3 of my classmates! I was laughing so hard. Of course our resident diva is platinum blonde now.

And while we're talking about schools, I've just called my old Berlin school to ask about the exchange program in Germany. I hadn't spoken German is such a long time, I was all nervous. But that's a nice coincidence, as I wrote an email in German just a couple of hours ago. And to Farin no less! Thanks for the heads-up, Jenny! :D Less than two weeks till the concert in Friedrichshafen!

I'm feeling fangirly today. So let me add two H50 pics. The second one is the screencap of a tweet by Lenkov and a little spoilery, you've been warned.

( This way )

Guess what I did yesterday!



No, I didn't set stuff on fire, I was there to take pictures for the newspaper. The issue was pretty much ready and we were just about to go home, when we got a phone call telling us there was a thick column of smoke coming from the direction of the local mall. We couldn't see it from our windows, so I went down in the street and saw it. I left my colleague in the office to deal with phone calls (local police, fire brigade etc), hopped into my car and went. My dad called me and said the smoke was coming from the local power plant, but as I was getting closer I realised it couldn't be there: I'd have to turn left to go to the power plant, whereas the column of smoke was on the right. So it must have been somewhere in the "industrial district". Turns out I was right: there was a fire in a warehouse, the street officially belongs to the town nearby, but it's just a few meters away from where our town starts.

So, yeah, instead of going to the gym, I spent my evening dealing with this. Every radio station and information website was talking about it and it even ended up on national TV. But I got really mad at something I read on the website of "Corriere della Sera", which is supposed to be the most important Italian newspaper. Because the warehouse belonged to Chinese people, they instantly assumed there was something illegal going on. An article on their website said "About 10 Chinese people ran away. Surely they were trying to escape from the police because their business was not legal and probably their passports weren't valid either." Excuse me? I would run away too if the building I'm in was on fire! WTF? Someone should remind this "journalist" that, while some Chinese businesses are indeed far from legal, so are a lot of Italian ones. And that they could be sued for implying something like that. I write for a small local newspaper, but everyone is very professional and we're always extremely careful about what we write and how we write it. This is just one of the many reasons why I despise most Italian journalists.

Okay, this? Is the most adorable thing I've seen all week:

( Don't worry, no spoilers )

I'm not very active on LJ these days, I mostly don't feel like getting online when I get home in the evening, so I just sneak in at work when there's nothing to do. And I never mentioned how last week's concert went. I'll just say this: not only did my friend win 2 tickets, we had free parking, a private area that we shared with 4 other people (a bit too far away from the stage for my liking but, hey, free tickets, right?) and access to a bar with free drinks and a small buffet. I could get used to that. :)

I found a hibiscus flower that matched my shirt today! It was lying in the grass and I had no idea where it came from, there are a couple of hibiscus plants on the same street, but not there and not of that colour. Anyway, of course I put it in my hair:

( Pretty flower )

And I went about my business doing the shopping and everything with this huge flower on my head for the rest of the day. :)

Ready to go and see "The Exorcist" on stage at the Geffen Playhouse. But not before I show you this:


Source: http://instagram.com/p/N6xdB0vB8w/

Scott looks so tiny when he's all snuggled up against standing next to Alex. :3