These are the three writeups I suggested to Lord Brawl for inclusion on the Lost Gems of Yesteryear master list. They were added and linked in his most recent daylog, so I will now do my very best to persuade you to read them, enjoy them and, one hopes, get as much out of them as I have. Two will very likely be recognized by avid noders. The third is less well known, despite being one of my personal favourites.

  1. jessicapierce's Do you remember how small your body was when you were five? is not an underlooked writeup by any stretch of the imagination. When I asked for it to be added to the master list, it had already been C!ed 28 times. Its reputation is well into the triple digits. It is easily one of the most heartwrenching and well-written pieces on E2, yet, until I submitted it for inclusion in this quest, it hadn't been C!ed in at least six months. I can't imagine what it must have been like to go through this. I don't work with kids and don't have any real contact with young children very often. I do have friends who have had experiences with parents and adults who have been abusive in one way or another. It touches me for so many reasons.

  2. kthejoker's Ghosts I have known was one of the first writeups I C!ed when I hit level 4. As some of my earlier daylogs attest, I have been deeply affected by my maternal grandmother's -- the woman who gave up her retirement home in the country so she could take care of me when my mother's maternity leave ended -- health failures and severe memory loss. I originally came across this writeup when I was writing those daylogs, during the days when we first had to move my grandmother to a nursing home after she broke her hip in a nasty fall and my grandfather just couldn't take care of her anymore. Whenever I saw her from that point on she was speaking convincingly of family and friends long dead as though they were really there. This writeup was a great comfort to me because I understand, and broke my heart because I wish I didn't.

  3. KokiriKid's girl geek has been one of my favourites for years, but it certainly needs some more recognition. The writeup describes a lady geek, someone who relates better to men than to women and eventually becomes "one of the guys," as it were. I always felt like that, particularly in high school. I liked computers and progrock; I could rattle off obscure Monty Python and The Simpsons references at any given time. I was never, in the eyes of my equally geeky friends, seen as a girl. This went on for years, and I never really realized it was happening until I read this writeup. Years later, when I started dating my boyfriend, he once called me his "geek princess" and I realized it was the first time I'd been recognized as a "girl geek" rather than one of the guys. I thought of this writeup then, of the girl geek who sits sadly in the computer lab and tries to pretend that her geek friends' inability to see her as both a girl and a geek isn't breaking her heart. There is hope.

Those were the three I chose to submit, but since other people are suggesting other lost gems for your reading pleasure, so shall I:

  1. Have you read bewilderbeast's And would you do this thing for me? Land softly, yeah, land softly? Well, you should. I would say more about it but I don't want to spoil it for you. Just go, already. Then read Panty Regents of the Planet Vajj. I believe it may well be the first (possibly only, and almost certainly the best) writeup on E2 that employs the phrase "quantum dildo."

  2. SharQ's To what degree does a journalism education benefit a career in print journalism? is an epic -- not only because it clocks in at a whopping 8,800 words, but because it argues that you don't need to go to journalism school in order to be a journalist. This was the fourth writeup I ever C!ed (the first was SharQ's similarly themed journalism, which is also worth a read). It is the ultimate node your homework writeup.

  3. There is no E2 song parody greater than "We Didn't Stir the Nodegel" by Timeshredder (and possibly by Billy Joel. A little). I was flattered to make an appearance (in the first line of the last verse, right after bewilderbeast). I had a different username then, of course, but fortunately the old one has the same number of syllables as the new one -- so up-to-date drunken renditions of the song should not be aversely affected.

  4. dannye's Queen Jane Approximately. To say anything else about it would only detract from it.

  5. Finally, Adam Walker's If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you is funny. Also funny: he and I became acquainted on E2 because we went to the same university, then were in an Elizabethan English history course together for an entire term and only realized it right before the exam. Life's strange like that.