Sakura of DOOM

• staranise has a brief guide to telling doctors about psychological symptoms. I kind of knew how I talked about depression has changed after years of therapy and when I compare it to how CB talks about it, but this really crystallizes it.
  
• I've been having a ton of fun reading 12_12_12's posts on Avatar and Korra.
  
• skygiants has been bookblogging her read of Les Miserables, which is really fun to read, especially after seeing the movie.
  
• Captain Awkward has a really good post on depression being contagious; i.e. what happens when you're in a long-term relationship with a depressed person. The relationships in the letters are romantic, but I feel it applies to any long-term relationship. (Probably there is even more for when you are a child dealing with a depressed parent.) The comments in particular are great.
  
• laceblade is hosting a discussion on potential anime/manga panels for Wiscon. It'd be great to get input from tons of people, even if you aren't interested in Wiscon!

• Yai, Fogcon is already coming up! CB and I should be going, and I might even be staying in the hotel for a bit. Who else is coming?
  
  I should probably start organizing a dinocorn dinner/lunch, huh....


• I registered for Wiscon! You can still suggest programming, and laceblade has handily put up an entry for anime and manga programming idea generation and solidification. I feel like lots of people in my dwircle would be awesome at that, and I am all for more anime/manga programming at Wiscon, especially since last year's Ooku panel was so kickass.


• rachelmanija's Read-a-thon Day Two starts today.


• I have been terrible at keeping up with DW/LJ, much less other blogs, in the past few years, but stumbled across Moving Beyond a Politics of Solidarity Towards a Practice of Decolonization from delux_vivens.
  

  We have to be cautious to avoid replicating the state’s assimilationist model of liberal pluralism, whereby Indigenous identities are forced to fit within our existing groups and narratives. The inherent right to traditional lands and to self-determination is expressed collectively and should not be subsumed within the discourse of individual or human rights. Furthermore, it is imperative to understand being Indigenous as not just an identity but a way of life, which is intricately connected to Indigenous people’s relationship to the land and all its inhabitants. Indigenous struggle cannot simply be accommodated within other struggles; it demands solidarity on its own terms.



• I've also been so out of it that I didn't know this online journal existed, but Social Text's Speculative Life issue looks awesome. There are pieces on ability in Octavia Butler and Janelle Monae's works, two pieces on Native people in SF/F, one on radically defining "queering SF/F," and other things I suspect people would be interested in.

• glass_icarus is looking for submissions to Potluck (by 1/21)!
  

  Potluck is intended to be a carnival for multicultural and intersectional discussions of food. There are no real limits on theme; however, the focus of the carnival is on thoughts and experiences around food through various topics that you might see around the social justice blogosphere, including but not limited to food discussions intersecting with disability, gender, sexuality, fat, animal rights and of course cultural and racial issues. We welcome you to share your recipes as well as your thoughts and experiences, but we ask that you do not submit posts with recipes only.



• chromatic_podfic is holding sign ups through 1/22! Even if you don't want to commit to reading and recording something, do sign up to be a pronunciation/language beta or give authorial permission for any of your eligible fic.


• oxoniensis is looking for help for Diversity in Porn Battle XI.


• Also, I realize this is completely late, but I wanted to give a shout out to dark_agenda and Chromatic Yuletide 2010 for making my experience of Yuletide as a reader so much more pleasant for the past two years. I suspect the presence of fic with codeswitching and non-English languages is very much thanks to the Dark Agenda push, and oh people, that seriously made my Yuletide.

• stephiepenguin is hosting the 5th Asian Women Blog Carnival: who i am when i'm (not) with you. I'm still slowly making my way through entries, and maybe some day I will even manage to put something down in words!


• helptheproject bidding ends March 1! I'm offering a review of nearly anything.


• con_or_bust bidding has just begun and will go till March 13. It's an auction to send fans of color who want to go to SFF cons (primarily Wiscon, I think?); it was started last year after RaceFail when several fen of color mentioned they would love to go to Wiscon but lacked the funds. It made a huge difference in my own Wiscon experience last year; I met so many awesome people and had so many good discussions. Sadly, I won't be able to make it to Wiscon this year and meet more people =(.
  
  I'm offering a pair of handknit socks.

wintersweet

Should Vertical look into licensing some classic shoujo manga they might have an opportunity to license? @Vertical_Ed on Twitter is looking for yeas or nays (NOT recommendations, mind you) and isn't getting many yeas. I think that's because the shoujo manga fanatics are mostly over here, not on Twitter.

So either post here and I'll send him a link later or go follow Ed and @reply him with a YES on classic shoujo manga!

(Yes, you can pass this on.)

• Help send Verb Noire to WorldCon:
  

  Verb Noire needs to raise some cash to defray the expenses of WorldCon. We thought we could bridge the gap out of pocket, but money is tight and my kid's face is expensive. So, we're hoping book sales, merch sales, and anything else you guys want to suggest can make up the difference. We're already putting together the second book (an anthology of short stories) and I was vaguely contemplating some sort of naming contest, but if that's not what gets you excited then please suggest something. We really want to be there, but finding the money for attendance and such is putting a hurt on ye olde pocketbook.

  
  



• The volunteer theater program rachelmanija works at is in need of help:
  

  The organization I have volunteered with for fourteen years, The Virginia Avenue Project, is holding an auction. It's a mentoring group for kids in Los Angeles. They do amazing work, which I have personally witnessed.
  
  100% of the Project kids graduate from high school. 90% of them continue to college. 85% of them are the first in their family to do so.




• IBARW 4 is from July 27 through August 2 and we are looking for people to spread the word! Especially if you are or know a non-English blogger and/or a non-Western blogger.

• Submissions for the Asian Woman Blog Carnival are due tomorrow! As usual, I very much want to particpate, but my poor time-management and general overwhelment with school leave me with no content. Uh. Anyone have suggestions? Tell me what to write!


• rachelmanija is blogging about a lot of the fun stuff we did when I visited. Mostly we watched a lot of stuff, such as Project Runway, Ashes of Time Redux, Red Cliff pt. 1, and Vampire Knight Guilty (spoilers later on in the post). I am only sad I am not down there right now!


• From SNR: Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Women, and Inmates. I've been tryring to read more about this after Conquest; have not read this entire list yet, although the poster noted that the 2006-2008 vaccine data may not be accurate.


• I have finally done some actual reading up on Dreamwidth, anad if they can import my Memories and tags, I am totally in. I usually dislike migration and have not set up an alternate site for the LJ in the past because none of the other services seemed sustainable or had the features I liked for LJ, but after a little poking around, Dreamwidth not only seem to have many of the features I like, they improve on many things, and the structure they've set up looks sustainable and user-centric. The only thing I am sad about is that they are not planning a photo gallery feature right now, which means a huge number of my pictures will remain on LJ. Well, that, and I am not sure how their revamped Memories/tags will work (if you can't tell, I am obsessed with information organization), but I am geeky and have already created a Bugzilla account so I can give feedback.

• I got to see rilina, laurashapiro, and cofax7 over the weekend, and I sicced the Korean movie Le Grande Chef on everyone. The movie's based on the same manhwa that the kdrama Gourmet is based on, although Gourmet is much, much better. Also, less cow death! But for $3 at Blockbuster in Taiwan, I feel it provided a great deal of entertainment value. And cow-related trauma.
  
  • rilina's write up
  
  
  • laurashapiro's write up
  
  
  • rachelmanija's write up



• Redefining Depressing as Mere Sadness - I read the title of this, rolled my eyes, and groaned. But the article is actually a debunking of the myth of depression as "mere" sadness, and the practitioner/author is more worried about the undertreatment of clinical depression.



• The Bipolar Puzzle - Haven't finished reading this, and so far, the POV skews toward "OMG bipolar children are overdrugged and overdiagnosed!" despite the severity of the first case study. It seems to mostly concentrate on pediatric bipolar.