I'm actually writing this on Friday night, but I'm setting the post time for Saturday, so whatever. It counts. I had a thought, so I thought I'd think about the thought before I forgot it.
Ok, so I'm taking the ACT in two weeks (really? yikes stripes!), just so I can hopefully get a better score on the math section (the second of five, there's also English, Reading and Science sections). If I don't... I have to take Intermediate Algebra in college, which besides covering stuff I already know (having just finished my Algebra 2 book), costs money without giving me any credit. Blech. I really shouldn't be that worried, I'm pretty sure I have enough trigonometry to get a good score, but I'm the kind of person who gets nervous about it anyway. I need to work on that.
Anyway, I'm brushing up on my trigonometry for the test, since that's what I had no clue about when I first took the test. Most of my knowledge of trig comes from my Physics book, which didn't help me a whole lot with knowing when to use which, since the book told me what situations use which. Oh well. I can't remember very well what kind of trig questions are on the test, since I hadn't the foggiest idea what they were talking about every time that came up, I just picked whichever circle I liked. Oh well. So anyway, the trigonometric functions tell you the ratio of the sides of a right triangle. That doesn't seem all that useful right away, does it? Anyway, you take an angle, and you apply a function to it, which gives you the same ratio as if you'd divided the lengths of two certain sides of the triangle. So there's sine, cosine and tangent, and a few others that I have no clue about and have never heard of before. We'll skip those. I don't even remember their names. At any rate, the sine of an angle gives you the ratio between the opposite and hypotenuse sides of the angle, the cosine gives you the ratio between the adjacent and hypotenuse sides, and tangent gives you opposite and adjacent. There are only two angles in a given triangle to do this to, what with a right triangle having a right angle and all.
They used to have charts for all of this, now they use calculators. Now, the ACT says all of the math problems can be solved without use of a calculator, though it can speed things up to have one, so I won't really have to use any of these numbers in a problem -- which is really too bad because that's what I know how to do. Instead I have to remember what I just said above, which I probably won't be able to remember. I guess that's why I'm writing it down, so I can remember a little better. I'm weird like that. I really hope I do ok on my Pre-Calculus, even though right now in the middle of my winter funk I don't care about much. But as long as I do ok on my ACT I guess it doesn't matter much how I do on my Pre-Calculus... well, it does a little. It could be interesting. If I don't get myself confused I may just move on after the trig sections, instead of going back to the beginning. I just finished Algebra 2, I don't really feel like going through three quarters of that again starting next week. Is that unreasonable? I hope not, because I'm skipping to chapter 4 or 6 or something, where the trig is.
Showing posts with label Rants and Rambles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rants and Rambles. Show all posts
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
So I Miss a Few More Days
Tuesday and Wednesday I was out of town, resulting in non-blogging. I did think of something to ramble about, though: why is it that so often anticipation of an event is better/worse than the actual event?
It reminded me about some thoughts on fear I've had before. I don't think any emotion can be bad by itself, we have them for a reason. If a person is afraid of something they usually have a reason. Snakes actually pretty dangerous critters. Or if a person's hurt you, emotionally or physically, you're a little afraid of them, so you can avoid them. It's just when it gets out of control that fear is so bad. Of course, that's pretty easy to do. I have an irrational fear of spiders, which I didn't used to have. When I was little, I didn't really care. In Africa, I didn't really care. We came back, just about everyone I know is scared to death of spiders. And snakes. I still like snakes, they're awesome, but spiders freak me out a little bit any more. It's frustrating.
Anyway! I figure dread and anticipation are somewhat similar principles. When you dread something you think about it, all the ways it could go wrong, you speculate. That's not a bad thing, but only when it gets out of control. I guess this could be applied to every emotion though, even the ones like affection and the like. Of course, it's not appropriate to be totally without emotion either, it's just a moderation thing, I guess.
It reminded me about some thoughts on fear I've had before. I don't think any emotion can be bad by itself, we have them for a reason. If a person is afraid of something they usually have a reason. Snakes actually pretty dangerous critters. Or if a person's hurt you, emotionally or physically, you're a little afraid of them, so you can avoid them. It's just when it gets out of control that fear is so bad. Of course, that's pretty easy to do. I have an irrational fear of spiders, which I didn't used to have. When I was little, I didn't really care. In Africa, I didn't really care. We came back, just about everyone I know is scared to death of spiders. And snakes. I still like snakes, they're awesome, but spiders freak me out a little bit any more. It's frustrating.
Anyway! I figure dread and anticipation are somewhat similar principles. When you dread something you think about it, all the ways it could go wrong, you speculate. That's not a bad thing, but only when it gets out of control. I guess this could be applied to every emotion though, even the ones like affection and the like. Of course, it's not appropriate to be totally without emotion either, it's just a moderation thing, I guess.
Monday, January 10, 2011
A Dvorakless Post
So I was thinking last night about my learning Dorak and whether it was worth it. I mean, I'm pretty fast on Qwerty, and even if Dvorak is faster, how long would it take for me to learn it so I'm as fast as I am on Qwerty now? I think it's probably not worth the effort. Oh well. Right now I'm somewhat slower than usual, what with trying to get used to my old layout again, but it's coming back fast. Just after pauses sometimes I forget where a key is. I'll get some writing done and fix that today I think.
So, two days of typing, wasted. Così è la vita (that's "such is life" in Italian. I tend to want to say it in the French, something like "Ce'st la vie" or something, but since I'm not learning French, but rather Italian, I try to use the proper language). I did get some writing done last night, while my brothers played Minecraft. After a while I went to bed, and they stayed up all night building stuff. I imagine they're about to head to bed though. I'll probably take a closer look at what they've done when I'm listening to Emma again. I'm still in volume two, but I think I'll be finishing quite ahead of schedule, maybe enough so I can listen to Three Men in a Boat or something before I'm supposed to read Wuthering Heights. Hmm... that might be another audiobook one. When I read sometimes I can go for too much comprehension, particularly when it's a style I'm not familiar with. It makes me read really slowly, and it's not feasible that I finish hardly any of my assignments on time. Well, I'm too lazy maybe. Anyway, listening is different. Stuff blows by a little, but in general I just let it wash over me and it's not only enjoyable, but I even understand what's going on at least as well as if I read it, I think.
In other news: SNOW! There was a nice coat on the ground when I got up this morning (an actually reasonable 7:30), and it's still going at it at... 10:40 now. It buys me a day off from giving a piano lesson to a friend, therefore freeing up my afternoon for school and Minecraft and writing, perhaps a little editing. I love unexpected down-times. Well, they're annoying sometimes, when it's really really last minute, but the weather forecast had predicted this, so I kind of had two plans for today, one where I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, and end up picking up extra slack this evening regardless, and one where I'm much more relaxed, get to play in the snow, and get everything else done. Ha. We'll see how much I actually get done.
Yoiks and away!
So, two days of typing, wasted. Così è la vita (that's "such is life" in Italian. I tend to want to say it in the French, something like "Ce'st la vie" or something, but since I'm not learning French, but rather Italian, I try to use the proper language). I did get some writing done last night, while my brothers played Minecraft. After a while I went to bed, and they stayed up all night building stuff. I imagine they're about to head to bed though. I'll probably take a closer look at what they've done when I'm listening to Emma again. I'm still in volume two, but I think I'll be finishing quite ahead of schedule, maybe enough so I can listen to Three Men in a Boat or something before I'm supposed to read Wuthering Heights. Hmm... that might be another audiobook one. When I read sometimes I can go for too much comprehension, particularly when it's a style I'm not familiar with. It makes me read really slowly, and it's not feasible that I finish hardly any of my assignments on time. Well, I'm too lazy maybe. Anyway, listening is different. Stuff blows by a little, but in general I just let it wash over me and it's not only enjoyable, but I even understand what's going on at least as well as if I read it, I think.
In other news: SNOW! There was a nice coat on the ground when I got up this morning (an actually reasonable 7:30), and it's still going at it at... 10:40 now. It buys me a day off from giving a piano lesson to a friend, therefore freeing up my afternoon for school and Minecraft and writing, perhaps a little editing. I love unexpected down-times. Well, they're annoying sometimes, when it's really really last minute, but the weather forecast had predicted this, so I kind of had two plans for today, one where I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, and end up picking up extra slack this evening regardless, and one where I'm much more relaxed, get to play in the snow, and get everything else done. Ha. We'll see how much I actually get done.
Yoiks and away!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Um... Hm.
I had such a nice long post yesterday, I don't really know how I'll live up to it now. Maybe it'll help if I pause my audiobook. Ok, well... my desktop Ubuntu partition works properly now, now that I've reloaded the whole OS. At least nothing happened to Windows when I was making big changes. It's not that my stuff isn't backed up -- well, I'd lost a few weeks of work on Minecraft, but I suppose I'd get over that. Better than losing a story -- it's just that loading Windows takes FOR-EV-ER, and all in all I'd rather not have to do that again. First the OS itself. Then the drivers for every little thing. Plus all my applications and wallpapers and stuff again. Plus removing all the junkware that riddles those drivers and the OS. At least Ubuntu isn't quite so bad. I have a few apps to download, but pretty much everything I want is available from a single spot -- the Ubuntu Software Center, since I'm such a n00b.
Anyway, I feel I should spend some time on the specific torture of loading an OS. We'll skip the sinking feeling of finding out your computer is basically dead and needs to be wiped and re-installed with everything, the futile attempts to save your data, and move on the resignation and defeat as you put in that boot CD. You've probably put it in before for some attempts at system repair, but to no avail. So you go and boot from this CD, and with a tear perhaps finding its way down your cheek, you press the key telling it to format the drive and install Windows.
First you get to decide the partitioning of the drive. If you're like most people, you just let it take all the space it wants. You don't care much right now. It partitions and wipes the drive, and then moves on to asking you information about time zone and naming the computer and whatnot. Then it installs some stuff. Then another question will pop up, and it won't go anywhere until you answer it. Then it goes some more... and then more options to decide upon, so on and so forth, each of these steps taking somewhere from 10 to 45 minutes, but you can never remember which are quick and which aren't, so you have to stay by the computer, checking on it, ALL DAY until the dang thing is finally installed.
Then you look at your fresh new desktop wallpaper, and you promptly get assaulted by the update screen, particularly if we're talking about Windows. Ok, it's got a lot of updates to install, of course. Whatever. Security and whatnot first.
Speaking of... best to get rid of IE as fast as possible. You nearly retch as you open it, but only to download Firefox or Google Chrome or something else that's faster and more secure. After that's done you start downloading your favorite utilities and programs and whatnot, sure that you're never going to remember all of them. You need to download your anti-virus software again, hoping IE didn't already kill you without it. Drivers start going into drives, and you end up restarting the computer multiple times that day. If you managed to keep your files backed up, those have to go back on too.
All in all, it takes all stinking day to get a computer to at least a semblance of what it was before you wiped it. For weeks -- months even -- you'll be trying to find files and programs that you forgot to put back on there. For some reason your browser bookmarks never transfer over right, whatever you do. It's like moving into an almost-new house that looks exactly like your old one, except the paint's different. You paint the walls, get your lights back on. A few light switches got moved around, and when you're unpacking all of your stuff you'll never get it quite in the same place as before. You'll be looking for things for months until you finally get used to where things are again. By that time, you may have to move to another almost-new, empty house.
Computers fail. I love 'em.
Anyway, I feel I should spend some time on the specific torture of loading an OS. We'll skip the sinking feeling of finding out your computer is basically dead and needs to be wiped and re-installed with everything, the futile attempts to save your data, and move on the resignation and defeat as you put in that boot CD. You've probably put it in before for some attempts at system repair, but to no avail. So you go and boot from this CD, and with a tear perhaps finding its way down your cheek, you press the key telling it to format the drive and install Windows.
First you get to decide the partitioning of the drive. If you're like most people, you just let it take all the space it wants. You don't care much right now. It partitions and wipes the drive, and then moves on to asking you information about time zone and naming the computer and whatnot. Then it installs some stuff. Then another question will pop up, and it won't go anywhere until you answer it. Then it goes some more... and then more options to decide upon, so on and so forth, each of these steps taking somewhere from 10 to 45 minutes, but you can never remember which are quick and which aren't, so you have to stay by the computer, checking on it, ALL DAY until the dang thing is finally installed.
Then you look at your fresh new desktop wallpaper, and you promptly get assaulted by the update screen, particularly if we're talking about Windows. Ok, it's got a lot of updates to install, of course. Whatever. Security and whatnot first.
Speaking of... best to get rid of IE as fast as possible. You nearly retch as you open it, but only to download Firefox or Google Chrome or something else that's faster and more secure. After that's done you start downloading your favorite utilities and programs and whatnot, sure that you're never going to remember all of them. You need to download your anti-virus software again, hoping IE didn't already kill you without it. Drivers start going into drives, and you end up restarting the computer multiple times that day. If you managed to keep your files backed up, those have to go back on too.
All in all, it takes all stinking day to get a computer to at least a semblance of what it was before you wiped it. For weeks -- months even -- you'll be trying to find files and programs that you forgot to put back on there. For some reason your browser bookmarks never transfer over right, whatever you do. It's like moving into an almost-new house that looks exactly like your old one, except the paint's different. You paint the walls, get your lights back on. A few light switches got moved around, and when you're unpacking all of your stuff you'll never get it quite in the same place as before. You'll be looking for things for months until you finally get used to where things are again. By that time, you may have to move to another almost-new, empty house.
Computers fail. I love 'em.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Programming Languages
Uhm... I think I've decided to learn one. It might be fun, right? Wait, I tried this last year, for a little while. I don't think I blogged about it though. It was like a week before my Weekend of Insanity noveling bit, and I was working on learning Python. Everything was happy, until I wanted to download this program for programming called Pygame. Well, at the time (I haven't checked lately) it didn't have a good edition for the Windows I was using. It did for Ubuntu, though. Ok! I'd put Ubuntu Linux on a computer before, it was easy as pie. The thing was happy to do all the work for you. I did that, and my little netbook was on a dual-boot for a while. I started noticing, though, that the Linux portion didn't always start for me. I do a little research, and I think I find a solution. I end up accidentally wiping my hard drive, right before I had to write 30k in a weekend.
I was a little to distraught and busy to mess with Python for a while, and by the time my computer was working happily again (thanks to my awesome mother, who's now fixed at least two more computers than she's broken!), I'd totally forgotten about the thing. I only recently got reminded again, and I figure it's a good way to to get more familiar with Linux, so I'm learning to program there. Yay!
So far not much exciting stuff to report, just learning some of the basics again. Except I haven't logged on to Ubuntu in months, and now that I just updated it, it won't boot. Again. I think this is a different problem than before, though. Instead of giving me an interminable blank screen, this just boots me out to the BIOS again and again and again. Grar. I'll work on it later. Maybe. I really love the idea of Linux, it's just actually getting it to work for me isn't working out. When I do get it to work for me, I can't get it to talk to the other computers on the network, or even use a printer properly. Flash is always slow to update, so I can go forever without being able to access anything that runs with Flash. I'm probably just too much of an idiot to get it to work (anyone out there know what a "tarball" is? It seems like I need that explained to me every single time, and I still can't get one to unzip or unpack or whatever for me right).
Whatever. Latin goes fine, I wrote a little bit on my Fictionpress story yesterday, maybe I'll do some more today. I should at least upload a chapter. If I end up with 30 chapters (pretty reasonable, methinks), I need to be uploading two chapters a week to finish up on time. I'm still getting into the swing of school. Someday I'll get up early again. That'll be nice. Particularly on Mondays. Long post. Disconnected thoughts. Going away now.
I was a little to distraught and busy to mess with Python for a while, and by the time my computer was working happily again (thanks to my awesome mother, who's now fixed at least two more computers than she's broken!), I'd totally forgotten about the thing. I only recently got reminded again, and I figure it's a good way to to get more familiar with Linux, so I'm learning to program there. Yay!
So far not much exciting stuff to report, just learning some of the basics again. Except I haven't logged on to Ubuntu in months, and now that I just updated it, it won't boot. Again. I think this is a different problem than before, though. Instead of giving me an interminable blank screen, this just boots me out to the BIOS again and again and again. Grar. I'll work on it later. Maybe. I really love the idea of Linux, it's just actually getting it to work for me isn't working out. When I do get it to work for me, I can't get it to talk to the other computers on the network, or even use a printer properly. Flash is always slow to update, so I can go forever without being able to access anything that runs with Flash. I'm probably just too much of an idiot to get it to work (anyone out there know what a "tarball" is? It seems like I need that explained to me every single time, and I still can't get one to unzip or unpack or whatever for me right).
Whatever. Latin goes fine, I wrote a little bit on my Fictionpress story yesterday, maybe I'll do some more today. I should at least upload a chapter. If I end up with 30 chapters (pretty reasonable, methinks), I need to be uploading two chapters a week to finish up on time. I'm still getting into the swing of school. Someday I'll get up early again. That'll be nice. Particularly on Mondays. Long post. Disconnected thoughts. Going away now.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Tuesdays Aren't Busy
Not really, anyway. It's kind of nice. If I can still wrap up pretty much all of my school in the morning (like I did today, except for my reading assignment), then that leaves all afternoon for Minecraft and other such non-school related activities. My reading is covered too: for the next month I'm assigned Emma, by Jane Austen. She's a good writer, but I've found with most of my school books this year that good though they may be, I have a hard time reading large chunks of them at once, like I'm supposed to. I've not finished a lot of books this year just because I don't want to fall so behind. I'll just skip it, rather than read eight chapters a day. Anyway, this time I went on Librivox.org and downloaded Emma as an audiobook. I don't usually get audiobooks or podcasts listened to, since I'm usually doing something that requires though that distracts from what's going on in the story. If I'm going to have to just sit and listen, I may as well just read the book. That was before I was playing Minecraft xD now I'm listening to it while I play, since while the game can require some thought, it's not in words or anything like that, as if I was doing math or science or anything like that. I can kind of go on autopilot. If I get this book finished early, maybe I'll download one of the books I'd skipped before and see about listening to it. I gave up early on Gulliver's Travels, and although I enjoyed Three Men in a Boat, I didn't finish that one either. I mostly finished Frankenstein, and it was good, but I think I ended up skipping that last bit. I should find out how that ends, I suppose.
Unfortunately I can't play Minecraft while editing or blogging or writing. It's more a problem with not having enough fingers as my attention. Although editing and writing would be bad to do with only half my brain on them. Blogging, eh, who's gonna notice?
Unfortunately I can't play Minecraft while editing or blogging or writing. It's more a problem with not having enough fingers as my attention. Although editing and writing would be bad to do with only half my brain on them. Blogging, eh, who's gonna notice?
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Merry Christmas Eve Eve!
Surely that makes some semblance of sense. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, which is the day before Christmas, so it's Christmas Eve Eve today. Anyway, I had actual content today, at least a little bit... oh yeah! I managed to tear myself away from Minecraft enough to get my BFS goals sorted out. Here we go, in order of when they're to be accomplished.
- Participate in NaBloPoMo (January)
- Take the ACT again (February 12th)
- Finish Fictionpress story (February 25th)
- Finish Latin Course (March 11th)
- Edit Crystal Frontier (May 25th)
- Complete Italian course (March 13th - August 11th)
- Write/Translate a story in/into Ganyi. Say, at least 5,000 words? (October 31st)
- Participate in NaNoWriMo (November)
There. That gives me all of December off for relaxation and finals, since I imagine I'll be in college then. That's why the majority of these goals are before school would start. I can only cram so much into those months though, so I've got my Ganyi goal just to be finished before November. November is November, after all.
I should probably explain and quantify these goals. NaBloPoMo will be not quite daily. I'll take Sundays off, but I'll plan to post every other day of the week. The ACT is the ACT, but my goal is to get a better math score, since I now know at least something of Trigonometric Functions. That Fictionpress story just needs finishing, and I'd like it to be done by March, which is NaNoEdMo. I plan to start editing Crystal Frontier then, and I just figured I'd give myself extra time for that.
Wow, the school year's not even quite done for me yet. I'm a little tired of not finishing things, so my latin course will be done before school's out, and then I start my new Italian book, which I would like finished by the time I start college, wherever that happens to be. It probably won't start until after the 11th, right? They already start sickeningly early. Anyway! short summer for me.
My Ganyi goal may be put off for a while, and/or just take a long time. It doesn't have to be long, just 5,000 words, but it's in a different language, and one I'm making up, no less. That doesn't particularly make things easier.
November is NaNoWriMo. This is an invariable law of the universe. I will participate in NaNoWriMo, and then I will pass out, wake up, and most likely begin studying for finals. Thus the empty December.
Just because I want to rehash everything, my month-by-month schedule looks like this:
January: NaBloPoMo, Latin, Fictionpress, School
February: ACT, Latin, Fictionpress, School
March: Crystal Frontier, Latin, Italian, School
May: Crystal Frontier, Italian, School
June: Italian
July: Italian, probably at least start on the Ganyi thing
August: Italian, Ganyi, College
September: Ganyi, College, plotting?
October: Ganyi, College, Plotting
November: NaNoWriMo, College
December: Finals
Ok then! June is empty. That'll probably be when any summer noveling gets done.
Uhm, that's probably enough for now, yeah?
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Hmm... It's December...
Which means I suppose it's time to think about Big Fun Scary Goals. Unfortunately, a year is kind of a vague deadline to finish these things, so I may take a more structured approach. Brainstorming stuff, then. For today's post, we'll start with the stuff I'd like to get done:
- Work Italian into an actual conversational language for myself
- Begin work on Swahili
- Get Ganyi somewhat functional
- Finish editing Crystal Frontier
- Maybe get a little bit of a plot on paper for yet another draft of Crystal Glare?
- Participate in NaBloPoMo (I'm thinking January for this? Maybe a little modified to take Sundays off)
- Take the ACT and get a better score
- Find a college
- Start college
- Finish that one Yavn story I've been putting on Fictionpress and get the whole thing on there. That means editing the dang thing too.
- Get another summer novel written, I suppose
- Of course win NaNoWriMo.
- Wait, maybe make that help make sure my mom wins NaNoWriMo this year, whether I do or not.
- So maybe I should make that "finish NaNoWriMo in a week or two so my mom can have the rest of the month to write her brains out."
- Ouch. 50,000 words in a week.
- Oh, and I wouldn't mind actually finishing my Latin course either. It's helpful for language learning and making, I've found. Stupid cases and tenses and conjugations.
Hm, lots of bullets xD anyway, somebody remind me next week or something to get these into monthly schedules or something. I was thinking maybe finishing my Italian and Latin courses by September, and when school starts I start Swahili, under the careful tutorship of my parents and maybe a few more books. Ganyi perhaps should be put into the actionable goal of a novel or so many stories written in the language.
Speaking of! I need to do another worldbuilding novel for another country. I think it's going to be a nomadic people, and their language is gonna be an isolating one. I should learn Mandarin for research on that, I guess.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
I'm Lazy...
I've hardly started on my NaNoPrep... I did make a to do list, but now I need to actually work on the thing. I still have to clean my room thoroughly, and timeline my plot, and keep up with school, and make sure I have enough origami made for the thing... I have more, but now I've lost my to do list. I guess I should find that, huh?
I'm thinking about putting music stuff on my blog... I could probably upload little songs and compositions and stuff right to the blog. If Blogger doesn't have an easy way, it's only a Google away. But maybe that's a bad idea. Too many family members read this thing every once in a while. I'd be all embarrassed... not to mention the fact that anything I've managed to do something that doesn't sound like total and utter crud is at least prompted by a bit a friend of mine has already come up with. I need to get beyond theory, I guess. I always end up just doing boring stuff, and I can't get myself to do anything interesting. Or maybe I'm overly critical. Maybe a little bit of both. I have no problems with first drafts of novels, so why do I care about first drafts of songs? Fail.
I'm thinking about putting music stuff on my blog... I could probably upload little songs and compositions and stuff right to the blog. If Blogger doesn't have an easy way, it's only a Google away. But maybe that's a bad idea. Too many family members read this thing every once in a while. I'd be all embarrassed... not to mention the fact that anything I've managed to do something that doesn't sound like total and utter crud is at least prompted by a bit a friend of mine has already come up with. I need to get beyond theory, I guess. I always end up just doing boring stuff, and I can't get myself to do anything interesting. Or maybe I'm overly critical. Maybe a little bit of both. I have no problems with first drafts of novels, so why do I care about first drafts of songs? Fail.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Pictures, as Promised!
Can I have my kitty back now? Oh wait, she’s just still in her room, meowing to be let out.
First up, you can see my writing hat over to the right, on my Neo. It’s a $200 dollar hat! Luckily, we got a ton of fireworks with it too. A Black Cat outlet we go to has stuff like that for spending enough money at the store. Last year my brother got a hat, this year I got it, kinda randomly, I don’t even really wear hats! Anyway, I never intended it to be a writing hat. I wore it shooting fireworks and such-like, worrying a bit that I’d stop wearing it, since I don’t usually wear hats anyway. I took it out to the woods with my Neo for writing though, and since then it’s taken over the position. I forgot about it during the Weekend of Insanity, until Sunday, when it was really Go-time. My hair goes back in a ponytail, my hat goes on, and I’m in the writing zone. Kinda like Chris Baty’s viking helmet. I should try and wear this on Day One of NaNo, to help boost my 
wordcount for a good buffer. Anyway, can I move on to my bromeliad now?
This one gets to be extra expositional. I don’t know the actual species of bromeliad this is, but I can at least give an overview.
Bromeliads are plants that hang out in the understory of a rainforest. You know, the ground level. They like to be in the Tree-Fall Gaps, where a tree’s fallen over and there’s a little patch of sunlight. Their root system is pretty much used only to hang on to the tree or dirt they’re in. They don’t particularly get water or nutrients from their roots.
They form a little cup in their leaves, though (which are kind of cactus-like, by the way), and they’ll hold water in there. In fact, in a rainforest, they’ll have entire mini-ecosystems in there. Tadpoles, bugs, all sorts of stuff will hang out in that tiny pool. Anyway, it makes them really simple to water. All you have to do is make sure there’s a little water in that cup. There’s no reason to have their roots be wet or anything.
After a few years these will bloom (we don’t have any blooming right now, so the picture for this is from here). First comes up this kinda spiky cactus-y flower thing, and it’s pretty cool-looking, but then, a day or so later, these little flowers appear on the pink spiky thing! There are flowers on the flower! It’s the
best thing ever. Mine won’t be blooming for a while yet, but anyway. After they bloom, the bromeliad will start making pups. They just grow straight off the mother plant. Eventually, the mother dies, but my mom’s has given off something like 6 of them, and it bloomed last year. It might finally be done, though. I don’t know much about them.
Oh, and it should be noted that I haven’t particularly researched any of this stuff. It’s what my mom told me and what I remember from playing “Magic School Bus Explores the Rainforest.”
I had more news… oh! Yesterday was a particularly productive day. I got up early, blogged… that afternoon I went out to the woods and my treehouse to do some actual plotting. Now all I have to do is timeline it, and do some chatting with my characters if I so choose. In the evening I went to the lake with my dad, and finally accomplished what’s been my goal for two summers now. I got up on the long line barefooting! And faceplanted about six times in the process. It was a lot of fun though. Less frustrating than usual.
Today, I should make a to do list… the NaNoWriMo site relaunches tomorrow!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Grar, Again.
I hate my spiffy little netbook right now. Not only have I been unable to restore it to what it was before I put Ubuntu on there, and subsequently wiped the drive, I haven't been able to get any kind of Windows OS on it. I finally wiped the drive, because my mom and I were told that was why the restore disks we got from Gateway didn't work, but we're still getting the same error message. A Windows XP disk won't work, my mom's Vista disk is an upgrade and therefore can't be used for a clean install, my brother's Vista and 7 disks are both 64bit and therefore can't be used at all with my computer, being only compatible with 32bit.
I don't know why the XP disk won't work though, or why the recovery disks from Gateway won't. All I know is that it's driving me (and my mom) absolutely nuts. I'd be content with Ubuntu, if I could just get it to work with the printer. I hate having to email anything I find on my netbook to another computer just so I can print it. I know there's a way to set it up, and to get it to network with the Windows computers, but I'm not smart enough to know how, and at this point I just want the thing to work.
Grar.
I still haven't done any more plotting, and I haven't been able to get up early very well either. It would help if I didn't go to bed so late. The weather's been cooling off, bringing to mind memories of October, and therefore NaNoPrep. Also last year's NaNoWriMo, where I spent the first morning out in the car, with the cold, and with a cold, in the dark. I got to see some Seka though, when it got a little lighter. NaNo started on a Saturday that year, as I recall. We were in Southeast Kansas for a fun Halloween parade thing called Neewollah. It was fun, at least I got my words that day, I think.
Is it weird that I remember the Novembers because of NaNo? And that October instantly makes me think of NaNoWriMo? And that I tend to plan my entire life around November? Well, not my entire life. But even so... I'm insane, I'm sure, but it's a good insane, right?
Right?
I don't know why the XP disk won't work though, or why the recovery disks from Gateway won't. All I know is that it's driving me (and my mom) absolutely nuts. I'd be content with Ubuntu, if I could just get it to work with the printer. I hate having to email anything I find on my netbook to another computer just so I can print it. I know there's a way to set it up, and to get it to network with the Windows computers, but I'm not smart enough to know how, and at this point I just want the thing to work.
Grar.
I still haven't done any more plotting, and I haven't been able to get up early very well either. It would help if I didn't go to bed so late. The weather's been cooling off, bringing to mind memories of October, and therefore NaNoPrep. Also last year's NaNoWriMo, where I spent the first morning out in the car, with the cold, and with a cold, in the dark. I got to see some Seka though, when it got a little lighter. NaNo started on a Saturday that year, as I recall. We were in Southeast Kansas for a fun Halloween parade thing called Neewollah. It was fun, at least I got my words that day, I think.
Is it weird that I remember the Novembers because of NaNo? And that October instantly makes me think of NaNoWriMo? And that I tend to plan my entire life around November? Well, not my entire life. But even so... I'm insane, I'm sure, but it's a good insane, right?
Right?
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Maybe I Should Make a To-Do List...
To Do Today:
Eventually I managed to get up, but instead of plotting I read a book all morning, and then kinda just lay around... I dozed off eventually I think, but not for very long. It's a step better than yesterday, when I didn't even get out of bed until 10, right?
I need to finish up my plot and do some character-building exercises and worldbuilding exercises, and, and...
Make a list. That too.
I had another topic today... It involves taking a picture though, and I'm too lazy to do that today. Maybe tomorrow, then.
- Get up early -- check.
- Plot -- uh...
Eventually I managed to get up, but instead of plotting I read a book all morning, and then kinda just lay around... I dozed off eventually I think, but not for very long. It's a step better than yesterday, when I didn't even get out of bed until 10, right?
I need to finish up my plot and do some character-building exercises and worldbuilding exercises, and, and...
Make a list. That too.
I had another topic today... It involves taking a picture though, and I'm too lazy to do that today. Maybe tomorrow, then.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Languages
For lack of a better subject to blog on, I'll ramble about languages in general a bit today. Or maybe you'll get lucky and I'll find something more interesting to ramble about, change gears, and then get tired of typing and give you an extra-short post.
Or, if you're unlucky, I'll ramble about languages, think of something else to ramble about, and just add it on to the end. Hm... ideas come already. Maybe I should save a few for later. Nah.
Anyway, I was talking about languages. At the moment I've been a little obsessed with them. I have a bit of a list in my head of languages I want to learn, in approximate order. First I need to get Italian to a good spot, and finish my Latin course. I don't care a whole lot about speaking Latin, seeing as it's a dead language, but I might as well finish my course. After that... I'd like to learn Swahili, and then German, or maybe Russian. Japanese is in there somewhere too... I think farther down the list though. It may move up or down, depending. Oh! And Spanish and French are both on there somewhere. I'm already on Italian and Latin, so I might as well add a few more Romance languages into the mix. They'll be piece of cake, relatively, and they say every language you learn makes the next one easier. Maybe after Swahili I'll learn Spanish. It'd be a useful one, unlike all the others I've been learning so far.
Oh, and there's Ganyi, the language I'm currently making up personal use. That'll be an ongoing project too. So I have four Romance languages (if I include Latin), uh... whatever German and Russian are, I think they're similar-ish, an oriental language, one based off of Bantu (that'd be Swahili), and one I'm making myself. Yikes. Stripes. I hope I like linguistics.
You know, I think I might. Maybe I could major in that. Not like I know exactly what jobs are in linguistics, but does that matter? I guess it does. Usually a person picks a major on what job they want. Can I pick a job based on the major I want? Will I like that job? I bet I can find something I like in just about any field, right? Well, maybe not fashion design, but you know what I mean.
Uhm... I actually had another thing to say. Oh! I actually got up this morning and did some plotting for this November's novel. It's got an exciting, if perhaps cliche, beginning. I just need an ending. It deals with revenge, and although I try not to care about cliches, I can't quite stand to write a novel if it's not interesting. I'm trying to decide if my character goes through with her revenge or not...
Oh never mind. Resolved. Yay for writing a post over multiple hours! Uhm, whatever else I had to say, I forgot.
More plotting tomorrow!
Or, if you're unlucky, I'll ramble about languages, think of something else to ramble about, and just add it on to the end. Hm... ideas come already. Maybe I should save a few for later. Nah.
Anyway, I was talking about languages. At the moment I've been a little obsessed with them. I have a bit of a list in my head of languages I want to learn, in approximate order. First I need to get Italian to a good spot, and finish my Latin course. I don't care a whole lot about speaking Latin, seeing as it's a dead language, but I might as well finish my course. After that... I'd like to learn Swahili, and then German, or maybe Russian. Japanese is in there somewhere too... I think farther down the list though. It may move up or down, depending. Oh! And Spanish and French are both on there somewhere. I'm already on Italian and Latin, so I might as well add a few more Romance languages into the mix. They'll be piece of cake, relatively, and they say every language you learn makes the next one easier. Maybe after Swahili I'll learn Spanish. It'd be a useful one, unlike all the others I've been learning so far.
Oh, and there's Ganyi, the language I'm currently making up personal use. That'll be an ongoing project too. So I have four Romance languages (if I include Latin), uh... whatever German and Russian are, I think they're similar-ish, an oriental language, one based off of Bantu (that'd be Swahili), and one I'm making myself. Yikes. Stripes. I hope I like linguistics.
You know, I think I might. Maybe I could major in that. Not like I know exactly what jobs are in linguistics, but does that matter? I guess it does. Usually a person picks a major on what job they want. Can I pick a job based on the major I want? Will I like that job? I bet I can find something I like in just about any field, right? Well, maybe not fashion design, but you know what I mean.
Uhm... I actually had another thing to say. Oh! I actually got up this morning and did some plotting for this November's novel. It's got an exciting, if perhaps cliche, beginning. I just need an ending. It deals with revenge, and although I try not to care about cliches, I can't quite stand to write a novel if it's not interesting. I'm trying to decide if my character goes through with her revenge or not...
Oh never mind. Resolved. Yay for writing a post over multiple hours! Uhm, whatever else I had to say, I forgot.
More plotting tomorrow!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Grar.
I told Rapa I would blog if she blogged today, and she did, so now I have to. Um... I did kinda have a subject. Oh! I actually did something today. It was awesome.
Well, I did physics, math, latin and read an old poetry book (Canterbury Tales!) all this morning, and went to teach a piano lesson and study Italian in the afternoon. Busier than I'm used to being... Anyway, I'm a terrible piano teacher, and my friend and I are kinda stymied with Italian. We have a computer program we're working on, but I absolutely hate it, and I can't seem to get her to help me decide what else to study. I should just pick something and bring it over to her some week, but I hate dictating what we study, when I already spend the first part of our time giving her instructions on piano...
Anyway, I actually ordered a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" in Italian, so I'll start reading that through with the English copy, for some translation skill. I never seem to get the chance to use my Italian though. I need to just start writing someone. I used to have some pen pals that were also learning or knew Italian, but I've lost touch... Grar.
Maybe I'll start an Italian blog again. I've tried that before though, and always gave up. I keep doing things like that. Grar, again.
Uhm... I'll come up with something. Maybe I'll write a story in Italian. That means I need to plot, maybe in Italian. Ooh...
Well, I did physics, math, latin and read an old poetry book (Canterbury Tales!) all this morning, and went to teach a piano lesson and study Italian in the afternoon. Busier than I'm used to being... Anyway, I'm a terrible piano teacher, and my friend and I are kinda stymied with Italian. We have a computer program we're working on, but I absolutely hate it, and I can't seem to get her to help me decide what else to study. I should just pick something and bring it over to her some week, but I hate dictating what we study, when I already spend the first part of our time giving her instructions on piano...
Anyway, I actually ordered a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" in Italian, so I'll start reading that through with the English copy, for some translation skill. I never seem to get the chance to use my Italian though. I need to just start writing someone. I used to have some pen pals that were also learning or knew Italian, but I've lost touch... Grar.
Maybe I'll start an Italian blog again. I've tried that before though, and always gave up. I keep doing things like that. Grar, again.
Uhm... I'll come up with something. Maybe I'll write a story in Italian. That means I need to plot, maybe in Italian. Ooh...
Sunday, September 19, 2010
I Guess I Should Update About School...
And other such-like things. I started my senior year in high school this year, and I guess after that I'll have to pick somewhere to go to collage, and therefore what I want to major in, at least generally, and therefore what I want to do with my life. Crud. I hate decisions.
My problem is that I don't really want to commit to doing just one thing with my life. I like a lot of things; I don't know that I'm any good at them, but I like them none-the-less. Writing, languages, origami, music, math is pretty fun, too. I don't want to give any of them up really. I also don't know that I want to take any one of them and make it my job. They say that's the best way to ruin a hobby.
Eh, who am I kidding, I'm just afraid of decisions in general. I have to stick with something, which I've never particularly liked doing. But I'm not there yet. I just hope God will tell me what he wants me to do.
For the time being I have Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus to do this year, Physics, Latin, and my literature course is called Survey of British Literature. It includes a lot of poetry, I've found out. Already I've read "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and next up is "Canterbury Quintet." All of those are old stories in verse.
Latin's not actually going to make me a speaker of the language, but it seems to be giving me the grammar and a lot of vocabulary for learning the roots of words we use today.
What else... oh, it's my last year with my piano teacher too. As a matter of fact, she's retiring after I'm through. Sadness... she's got me on a lot of classical stuff, Invention #13, a Rachmaninoff Prelude, some other things I can't remember... oh! She wants me to learn Flight of the Bumblebee. That one scares me. All chromatic scales and stuff at ultra-high speed...
It's not too heavy of a load though, so the most important event of the year, NaNoWriMo, should still be do-able for me. I'll have to practice my piano more than sometimes, if I want my senior recital to be any good, but I always end up with plenty of time in the month anyway, when it comes down to it.
I finished a first sweep of editing a story I wrote a few summers ago. Originally it was over 100K, but I'm not sure what it is now. I'm in the middle of typing it up, and editing it again as I do. I'm not sure what exactly I want to do with it after that. Probably keep it uploaded on the web for me to forget all about, until I read it again, decide it's awful, and either trash the thing or write it all over again.
Speaking of! I realized what's wrong with my multi-NaNo story. Crystal Glare, the one I wrote first in '07, and rewrote this last NaNo, needs another rewrite. Not this NaNo, though. I think it'll be a project for later on. I'll be changing it rather drastically, actually. Maybe growing up my characters a little bit, splitting them up more. The whole thing has always been way to linear. I don't mind linear in some novels, but this thing read way too much like a video game. They knew where they needed to go, and yet I kept them all together, when they didn't really need them all? It made no sense. I'll throw in more plot and intrigue next time around. I just wish I hadn't already tried this thing twice. Oh well. This November I'll be writing about... what will I be writing about? Oh yeah! Another episode in Yavn. This one will border a bit on Sci-fi I think. I guess it's still Fantasy though, since it's not really Earth's future we're talking about. It'll probably be kinda steampunk-ish, if I ever get my plotting done. I've never been this far into the future of the land before. This should be exciting.
Yoikes and away!
My problem is that I don't really want to commit to doing just one thing with my life. I like a lot of things; I don't know that I'm any good at them, but I like them none-the-less. Writing, languages, origami, music, math is pretty fun, too. I don't want to give any of them up really. I also don't know that I want to take any one of them and make it my job. They say that's the best way to ruin a hobby.
Eh, who am I kidding, I'm just afraid of decisions in general. I have to stick with something, which I've never particularly liked doing. But I'm not there yet. I just hope God will tell me what he wants me to do.
For the time being I have Algebra 2 and Pre-Calculus to do this year, Physics, Latin, and my literature course is called Survey of British Literature. It includes a lot of poetry, I've found out. Already I've read "Beowulf" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and next up is "Canterbury Quintet." All of those are old stories in verse.
Latin's not actually going to make me a speaker of the language, but it seems to be giving me the grammar and a lot of vocabulary for learning the roots of words we use today.
What else... oh, it's my last year with my piano teacher too. As a matter of fact, she's retiring after I'm through. Sadness... she's got me on a lot of classical stuff, Invention #13, a Rachmaninoff Prelude, some other things I can't remember... oh! She wants me to learn Flight of the Bumblebee. That one scares me. All chromatic scales and stuff at ultra-high speed...
It's not too heavy of a load though, so the most important event of the year, NaNoWriMo, should still be do-able for me. I'll have to practice my piano more than sometimes, if I want my senior recital to be any good, but I always end up with plenty of time in the month anyway, when it comes down to it.
I finished a first sweep of editing a story I wrote a few summers ago. Originally it was over 100K, but I'm not sure what it is now. I'm in the middle of typing it up, and editing it again as I do. I'm not sure what exactly I want to do with it after that. Probably keep it uploaded on the web for me to forget all about, until I read it again, decide it's awful, and either trash the thing or write it all over again.
Speaking of! I realized what's wrong with my multi-NaNo story. Crystal Glare, the one I wrote first in '07, and rewrote this last NaNo, needs another rewrite. Not this NaNo, though. I think it'll be a project for later on. I'll be changing it rather drastically, actually. Maybe growing up my characters a little bit, splitting them up more. The whole thing has always been way to linear. I don't mind linear in some novels, but this thing read way too much like a video game. They knew where they needed to go, and yet I kept them all together, when they didn't really need them all? It made no sense. I'll throw in more plot and intrigue next time around. I just wish I hadn't already tried this thing twice. Oh well. This November I'll be writing about... what will I be writing about? Oh yeah! Another episode in Yavn. This one will border a bit on Sci-fi I think. I guess it's still Fantasy though, since it's not really Earth's future we're talking about. It'll probably be kinda steampunk-ish, if I ever get my plotting done. I've never been this far into the future of the land before. This should be exciting.
Yoikes and away!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
News!
I’ll just go ahead and skip the usual speech about habits and wondering where they ran off to, shall I? In fact, I’ve been getting back into the habit of getting up early in the morning. I’ve written another story this summer, a worldbuilding exploration tour of sorts, and now I’m finally editing my story from last summer. Other than that, not a whole lot’s been happening. Language making has been going well enough, I keep coming up with words and idioms, if I can remember to.
The 10th-12th of this month I’m embarking on an insane weekend writing project. There’s a contest that evidently is every Labor Day Weekend, called the 3-Day Novel Challenge. It costs money to enter, but there’s a chance of getting the story you write published. Too bad for them, I don’t particularly care about that kind of thing. A few friends and my mom and I are going to give it a shot the weekend after. There’s no official word goal, only that the story be started and completed in the same weekend, but I’m going to try for 30,000 words. Yikes. I tried to schedule my time for when to write and when to break, but I don’t know how well it’s going to work.
This should be fun.
Friday, February 5, 2010
A Summary
It's strange how I never want to sit down at the computer and blog, and yet I'm perfectly happy blogging by sending a text from my phone (like I am now. My new phone has email!).
Writing has been slow lately. I took a break in December and managed with only marginal success to work on Crystal Glare in January. I'm probably still only... Three fifths through, at most. Had I been able to stick to my schedule, I would be done by now. But since NaNo I've not really wanted to get up early. It happens a lot in winter for me.
I'm still working my way through it, I have bad days and better days, but so far none that could be acceptable during November. But maybe I can't set all year by NaNoWriMo, however much I want to. When spring comes things nay get better.
In other news, I finished my Algebra 1 book, and now I can resume Geometry. I still have no idea if I'm behind or not. I probably am. At least I've made a little progress on Italian, if only I could build my vocabulary.
And that's the news!
Writing has been slow lately. I took a break in December and managed with only marginal success to work on Crystal Glare in January. I'm probably still only... Three fifths through, at most. Had I been able to stick to my schedule, I would be done by now. But since NaNo I've not really wanted to get up early. It happens a lot in winter for me.
I'm still working my way through it, I have bad days and better days, but so far none that could be acceptable during November. But maybe I can't set all year by NaNoWriMo, however much I want to. When spring comes things nay get better.
In other news, I finished my Algebra 1 book, and now I can resume Geometry. I still have no idea if I'm behind or not. I probably am. At least I've made a little progress on Italian, if only I could build my vocabulary.
And that's the news!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Drama: A Rant
I'll have an update on my writing in a moment, but first I'm feeling rather ranty, so I'm going to have a nice little rant about drama.
I'm not talking about plays and theater and such, that's perfectly fine. I'm talking about people in life who seem to feel like it's too dull and have to go around hacking people off so that things are harder for everyone, but apparently more interesting.
I find this most at internet forums. People will bring up something about a brand they like or don't like, and then everyone loves to come and join in a big fight about what's good, what's bad, and why. And the original issue brought up was something totally stupid. And all that gets done is people look like idiots, people get mad, and a point is maybe made that's been made many times over on that very forum. Who wants all that trouble?
I guess people on the internet who are apparently anonymous, so they like to cause all sorts of grief. But what can you do with a drama-free afternoon? You can go for a swim, you can talk nicely to friends, you can write a book (or at least work on writing a book, maybe not a whole book in an afternoon...), you can enjoy the product of the brand you like, and stop caring about the brand you don't like. And I'm sure it's better for your blood pressure. It's not boring. It's infinitely more productive than getting people mad who odds are you've never met before, and you'll never meet in your life. Why bring the grief?
-ahem- Ok, now I'm done. On to the update!
I started on that Monday, as I planned, and things went well until the... 11th of August. Then I started getting behind. It took me three days (the 11th through the 13th) to write two thousand words. After that, it took me another three days to write another two thousand words. I have reasons for the second set, what with stuff going on over the weekend, but still. I wrote a few extra words today, so I'm only (only, heh) five and half kays behind now. My challenge runs through September... I can catch up, right? Right?
At any rate, I'm going to do my best not to miss any more days, and to do plenty of extra to catch up. I've never been this far behind before though... I'm just glad this didn't happen in November.
I'm not talking about plays and theater and such, that's perfectly fine. I'm talking about people in life who seem to feel like it's too dull and have to go around hacking people off so that things are harder for everyone, but apparently more interesting.
I find this most at internet forums. People will bring up something about a brand they like or don't like, and then everyone loves to come and join in a big fight about what's good, what's bad, and why. And the original issue brought up was something totally stupid. And all that gets done is people look like idiots, people get mad, and a point is maybe made that's been made many times over on that very forum. Who wants all that trouble?
I guess people on the internet who are apparently anonymous, so they like to cause all sorts of grief. But what can you do with a drama-free afternoon? You can go for a swim, you can talk nicely to friends, you can write a book (or at least work on writing a book, maybe not a whole book in an afternoon...), you can enjoy the product of the brand you like, and stop caring about the brand you don't like. And I'm sure it's better for your blood pressure. It's not boring. It's infinitely more productive than getting people mad who odds are you've never met before, and you'll never meet in your life. Why bring the grief?
-ahem- Ok, now I'm done. On to the update!
I started on that Monday, as I planned, and things went well until the... 11th of August. Then I started getting behind. It took me three days (the 11th through the 13th) to write two thousand words. After that, it took me another three days to write another two thousand words. I have reasons for the second set, what with stuff going on over the weekend, but still. I wrote a few extra words today, so I'm only (only, heh) five and half kays behind now. My challenge runs through September... I can catch up, right? Right?
At any rate, I'm going to do my best not to miss any more days, and to do plenty of extra to catch up. I've never been this far behind before though... I'm just glad this didn't happen in November.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Power Went Bye-Bye...
We had a nice storm on Monday night that knocked out the power for most people in the area. It was amazing though. We got a few limbs knocked down in our yard, but out neighbors across the street... their yard was completely torn up. So Tuesday was spent cutting and hauling trees. It was fun actually.
Over the next few days, it got noticeably less fun. It's been hot, and without power we were without AC. And more importantly, our house runs on well water, so no power means the pump on the well doesn't work, which means to water for us. We have a generator, so sometimes we'd run water, and for a lot of the rest of it we'd plug it into the fridges so the milk didn't go bad. But it wasn't very fun...
We had just borrowed another generator from some friends so we could have a few things running at once, and that night, the power came back on! Yay! It's one of those things that always happens like that... Ah well. That was the adventure for the week.
My good habits still have not returned, although I got a little plotting done on Crystal Glare. I have a general idea of the sections it's going to be in, but I have quite a few new characters to create, as well as a lot of specifics to draw in. Maybe I can do a bit of that today yet...
Over the next few days, it got noticeably less fun. It's been hot, and without power we were without AC. And more importantly, our house runs on well water, so no power means the pump on the well doesn't work, which means to water for us. We have a generator, so sometimes we'd run water, and for a lot of the rest of it we'd plug it into the fridges so the milk didn't go bad. But it wasn't very fun...
We had just borrowed another generator from some friends so we could have a few things running at once, and that night, the power came back on! Yay! It's one of those things that always happens like that... Ah well. That was the adventure for the week.
My good habits still have not returned, although I got a little plotting done on Crystal Glare. I have a general idea of the sections it's going to be in, but I have quite a few new characters to create, as well as a lot of specifics to draw in. Maybe I can do a bit of that today yet...
Monday, June 8, 2009
Once Upon a Time I Had All of These Good Habits...
I wonder where they went. I would get up, write on one of my many stories, or maybe edit one of them, and then I would write a blog post. Now look at me. When I do get up, I don't really write, and I haven't written a post from the computer since I don't even know when. So anyway, -waves- I'm still alive! Hi!
Let me see... Things have been all right I guess, recently one of my family's dogs died. He was really sick with a belly full of fluid and such, so not a great thing. We ended up putting him down on Thursday. The day before we left on a church canoe trip (which was fun by the way).
As far as writing goes, I was doing well for a while, getting up and writing on one of my stories, but I hit a little block at one point when I couldn't remember something, and then I got all thrown off. I'll have to see if I can fix that.
Right now... Since I can't be motivated or bothered to do anything actually productive, I'm loading a bunch of CDs that I pulled from my dad's collection at semi-random. To the computer, and then to the mp3 player! Woo.
I have made a little bit of progress on reworking Crystal Glare. If getting a few more thoughts about it swimming around my head can be called progress. I'm just hoping right now that the sit in my head won't kill them, and maybe it will make them better. Like fine wine. Or even cheap wine, since it probably gets better with a little age on it too.
Lemme see... I finished my beginner Italian course a little while ago, and there should be a spiffy computer one winging it's way towards my Italian partner's house right now... If it hasn't arrived already. It's not Rosetta Stone, but it's got some cool voice recognition, and it seemed to be a good course. As if I really know anything, but I need to work on something, so it might as well be this.
I'm off to try and find my good habits!
Let me see... Things have been all right I guess, recently one of my family's dogs died. He was really sick with a belly full of fluid and such, so not a great thing. We ended up putting him down on Thursday. The day before we left on a church canoe trip (which was fun by the way).
As far as writing goes, I was doing well for a while, getting up and writing on one of my stories, but I hit a little block at one point when I couldn't remember something, and then I got all thrown off. I'll have to see if I can fix that.
Right now... Since I can't be motivated or bothered to do anything actually productive, I'm loading a bunch of CDs that I pulled from my dad's collection at semi-random. To the computer, and then to the mp3 player! Woo.
I have made a little bit of progress on reworking Crystal Glare. If getting a few more thoughts about it swimming around my head can be called progress. I'm just hoping right now that the sit in my head won't kill them, and maybe it will make them better. Like fine wine. Or even cheap wine, since it probably gets better with a little age on it too.
Lemme see... I finished my beginner Italian course a little while ago, and there should be a spiffy computer one winging it's way towards my Italian partner's house right now... If it hasn't arrived already. It's not Rosetta Stone, but it's got some cool voice recognition, and it seemed to be a good course. As if I really know anything, but I need to work on something, so it might as well be this.
I'm off to try and find my good habits!
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