LADNIP

[nenya_kanadka]

Or, Lying Around Doing Nothing In Pajamas, which is how my professional-singer brother plans to spend his post-Christmas holidays.

Did a fair bit of it myself yesterday, aided by my three main presents of Doctor Who pajamas, a Questionable Content "Baking is science for hungry people" apron, and a book from Mucca about the Mars Curiosity rover. Which I am now about a third of the way through. It is really, really fascinating, especially how the author (chief engineer for the Mars Program Office at JPL) keeps tying in what they invented and discovered and designed for Curiosity both with the previous Mars missions (Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity) and with future plans for human exploration of Mars. Which they are seriously thinking about in concrete terms, and he goes into that.

I'd just finished a biography of Sally Ride (Sally Ride: America's First Woman In Space by Lynn Sherr) so it's really cool seeing an engineering perspective on the whole thing after reading about astronauts. The Ride book was fantastic as well. I continue to be torn between being jealous of Ride for getting to be an astrophysicist, being jealous of her later college students (she sounds like such a good teacher! aaahhhh), and being sad that she didn't feel safe coming out as bi/lesbian in her lifetime. (Though her friends knew.) And besides the obvious big things like being the first woman in space (SPAAAACE!), I love so much that Ride was openly a feminist and spent the last decade or so of her life supporting STEM education for girls in practical, workable ways with Sally Ride Science. I'm just a little sad that I'm one of the girls who fell through the cracks. But, you know: bi feminist astrophysicist in space. \o/

Other reading list:

* Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer (Rob Manning & William L. Simon)
* The Siren Depths: Book 3 of the Books of the Raksura (Martha Wells)
* Parallel 59 (Eighth Doctor Adventure #30) (Natalie Dallaire & Stephen Cole) [also about space, and interrogations of naked!Eight, oh how I appreciate this canon's dedication to my kinks]
* Sister Mine (Nalo Hopkinson)
* Triptych (J. M. Frey)
* Three Parts Dead (Max Gladstone)
Recently read:
* Stranger (Rachel Manija Brown & Sherwood Smith)
* Hostage (eARC) (Rachel Manija Brown & Sherwood Smith)
* The Prosekiller Chronicles: Rise of the Spider Goddess (An Annotated Novel) (Jim C. Hines)

Also Yuletide, including ten (:D!) Imperial Radch fics, a goodly proportion of them Breq/Mercy of Kalr (♥), and half a dozen Raksura fics (which I am forbidden to read until after I finish Siren Depths, because spoilers). But did I read any of those late last night? No, no I did not; instead I fell into the Doctor Who tag on AO3, aiming for Twelve/Gomez!Master fic but falling into some Gomez!Master femslash, some Eight/male companions, some Ace/Seven (I've not even seen Seven), and various assorted other things.

Recs:
Minimum Viable Population by yonderdarling -- Twelve and the Mistress negotiate the annoying, raging attraction they have for each other. Bloody hilarious. (6169 words)

Companionship by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw -- When Rusty met Oswin, or, a few good Daleks. (373 words)

And now I shall go see about turkey leftovers.

Comments

[linaelyn]

OH, NO FRICKIN' WAY. My sister just gave me the Sally Ride book for xmas!!! Well, now I'm looking forward to it about ten million times more, knowing you enjoyed it. I mean, I was looking forward to it already, because, as you say, "bi feminist astrophysicist in space. \o/" but... man, I didn't have really high hopes.

Also, y'know what? You don't have to be one of the ones who fell through the cracks, unless you choose to do so (not that there's anything wrong with that). I cannot tell you how many women I know who --in their 40's-- who went back to school and became the scientist/engineer whom they were really meant to be. It's tough to pull off the astronaut career that way, but... I know oceanographers and exobiologists and chemical engineers and one really cool epidemiologist, all of whom spent their 20's and 30's doing stuff unrelated to STEM fields (mostly mommying, but some were laboring in liberal arts fields as well.) You're (like most of your generation) going to live to be 90, so you have time. As the tshirt says: Do what you like. Like what you do.

[nenya_kanadka]

Hah! Mucca read the Sally Ride book before me and really liked it, but I had low hopes for it myself too for some reason. But it really was a good read. The author was a friend of hers and sometimes tells anecdotes when they're topical, but doesn't insert herself into the story and isn't unprofessional about it. It comes out as a portrait of a really excellent person, who was also a severe introvert shoved into the public eye, and somehow managed to get shit done anyway. Anyhow I hope you like it but either way I'd love to hear your thoughts when you've read it!

You're right about still having time. I tell myself that too. I haven't figured out how, exactly, that could work out for me yet, but...I'm at least back in school for the first time in ten years, if not in the maths/sciences stuff that is the home of my academic heart. So, progress! Even if it just means loving the stats course and learning study skills for the more boring intermediate accounting course. :P

(And as much as spaaaaace is cool, I've neither the body [being nonathletic myopic near-deaf etc] nor the temperament for astronauting, so like 99.99% of the population I'm resigned to it being a pipe dream. But Doing Something Cool With Math...that may yet happen. Somehow.)

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything! :D I can't blame you for the earworm either, since it started up earlier in the day when someone said "I don't look good in leggings".... :P

[linaelyn]

Also, LADNIP is wonderful. I need me one of those. We call them PWDDA here: Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.