I'm in Denver! And I found a free wifi thingy! Yay! This is my celebratory icon.

• Except for one script I have to revise and another really short one I have to write all before midnight tonight, school is done for the semester. Whoo!

• Let summer vacation ensue! (Also the warms. I'm done with wintery weather now. Give me some warms.)

• I'm on my way to the east coast for a few days for a family thing. And I will briefly get to see some friends before I fly back. So that is really nice.

Yeah, that's all there is. Back to editing the aforementioned script.

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This month's post, because I always think I should.

• School is school. But it's almost done for the semester, and then I only have one left. So that's kind of neat. I think I actually wrote some good stuff this semester, so that's a bonus too. Some of that I can edit into a shape that might be useable for publishing. So I guess we'll see.

• Speaking of school, next week is kind of hectic. A bunch of things I had sort of vaguely planned for "the future" all ended up in the same week, and all next week. Yikes.

• Camp NaNoWriMo is not really happening. I got about 1200 words, and then life caught up. Even those words were really hard since I was trying to force them into third person from first. I might be able to find the time to get some more words down, but I am positive I won't meet my 15k word goal. Bleh.

• J got a nice desktop gaming computer and gave me his MacBook Pro because my MacBook was dying. It's nice having a computer that actually does what I tell it to do and with some relative quickness. Also: lighted keyboard!

Meh, life is pretty boring these days, so that's it.

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• Well, I heard back from Clarion West, and alas I was not accepted. I don't think I had any real expectations either way, but it was still a disappointment.

• Though, that makes my summer plans sort of neat. I'll be working with one of my teachers and finishing my novel (for school credit even!). Mostly because she wants to read the rest of it. Which is really encouraging.

• J bought me a yoga DVD the other day, and I did a 20 minute yoga session on it yesterday. Which left me so sore, holy crap. It was just the intro stuff! My sides, my lower abs, and the back of my thighs protest just about every movement I take. I mean, I guess that means it worked, but still. Ow. I will absolutely be doing more just as soon as I am a little let ouchie.

• I get to register for fall classes pretty soon. One of my teachers (the same one I'll be working with this summer) is teaching a lit class called (something like) "Myth, Archetype, and Fairytales" which I will absolutely be taking. Jung and Campbell! And a little bit of writing, to make it super interesting.

• I might also be working with a different teacher on another novel as an independent study next semester. Because I'd like to have a few finished things by the time I graduate in Dec. so that means I actually need to write. And why not get credit for it (especially when there aren't any other interesting classes and I need a certain number of credits)? Not yet sure what I'll work on. I suppose whether or not I want to write my current novel's sequel will depend a lot on how I feel after I've finished it this summer.

• I am planning on pounding out some words for the April session of Camp NaNoWriMo. Not a whole novel's worth, but probably the beginning of something. I have a thing I'm excited about, so I'll be working on that.

• I discovered that books that I find too boring to actually read can be listened to while I knit. So I am exactly half way through listening to The Fellowship of the Ring on audiobook. (Or at least, I'm about to start "Book Two" of it, which is right after the ringwraiths get their butts handed to them by the river.) I have the other two Lord of the Rings books for after that, and also Frank Herbert's Dune and The Mists of Avalon for when those are done. Because I need to have these things in my general knowledge, but I haven't ever been able to get through them. Audiobooks are a happy solution to this problem! I'm planning on getting some Jane Austen, too.

• J also got me the extended edition Lord of the Rings collection on blu ray, too. So my present to myself for having finished "reading" The Fellowship of the Ring will probably be to watch it in beautiful HD.

Yeah, that's it. I love this icon.

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Last night I:

• sent in my application to Clarion West;

• also sent a short story to a New Writer's contest.

So, uh... Fingers crossed and wish me luck and all that?

This entry was originally posted at DreamWidth. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

Oh my god, has it really been a month and a half since I last updated my online journals? What even, self? (Good thing that wasn't really one of my Resolutions for 2013. I would have been failing it pretty hard already.) So, lessee, what's been going on in my life lately...

• School started, and is going pretty well. Writing is happening for it, which is good in general. I'm taking Advanced Fiction, Intermediate Screenwriting, and a required class called Senior Reading which is my favorite thing ever, as it turns out.

• My screenwriting teacher wants me to write the pilot for a sitcom rather than attempt writing a feature length film script, which is ridiculous because, how do I funny? No seriously. Humor is strange to me. However, I'm shamelessly ripping off of the year that inthebookfort and I lived together, so I have some recorded quotes from there that I can use. But alas, I am not Aaron Sorkin, so who knows.

• I turned in my second story for workshop in Advanced Fiction this past Monday, and I have one more due later in the semester. And I'll have to revise one of the three for the end. The story that I turned in Monday wasn't complete, and I'm not sure I captured the tone I was going for, but at least I got out most of the story's skeleton. That might be the thing I choose to revise, depending on what the parameters of the next story are. So.

• Senior Reading is interesting because there are five of us, the seniors that are getting ready to graduate (three this May and two of us in December) and we're compiling a manuscript of our work to be published into a book by Lulu.com. We also have to do a reading in the middle of the semester (hence the name of the course) but the book is the bulk of the work right now. We have to work with a graphic designer (a student at the school who's getting credit for this just like us) on the covers and all the typesetting and all of that. It's supposed to be a crash course on how publishing (sort of) works. So that's actually pretty interesting.

Hm, other than that? What else is going on...

• Still writing. The bulk of my book for Senior Reading will be an excerpt of my current novel, which is still chugging right along. I'm actually learning things about how I like to write as I write this thing, so that's kind of cool.

• Oh, also for Senior Reading: we're supposed to do this... essay thing... where we meditate on writing? The teacher wasn't all that clear on what it was supposed to be, since we are allowed to pick the type of format it ends up in. She said that it could be a traditional essay if that's what we wanted, or it could be more like a lyric essay, or it could focus on an aspect of writing, or a specific author, or things that inspire us... Yeah, it wasn't all that clear. But since it was supposed to be (sort of) about how our inspiration works, and a lot of what inspires me is music (or otherwise not just language) I suggested that maybe I could do something on Tumblr. My teacher loved the idea, so I'm now keeping a sort of curated multimedia museum of things that inspire me and how over on Tumblr: This Commonplace Book. I think it's sort of turning out to be an Author's Blog type of thing, which is kind of an interesting thought, since I've been wondering how I was going to do that in the future. Whatever I end up doing when I am An Author might be sort of like this, I think. Anyway, feel free to check that out. I think that it's best viewed when you use the links at the bottom left, filtering it by week.

• Also, I'm applying to Clarion West this year. Neil Gaiman and Ellen Datlow will be teaching there this year, so it's sort of too good of an opportunity to pass up. Wish me luck.

And that's all there is for now!

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Since it's past midnight, it is officially the last day of 2012.

In 2012, I...:

♥ ...began dating The Boyfriend, henceforth known as J, and fell in love;
♥ ...got a fat cat named Dimitri;
♥ ...moved into an apartment with J;
♥ ...wrote a mediocre short story, 2 lousy scripts, and some awful non-fiction for school;
♥ ...started a novel that I actually think I'll finish and will be publishable;
♥ ...knit a scarf and 2 hats;
♥ ...read 63 books (possibly 64, depending on how I do with the "currently reading" list);

Which isn't bad, really. The only one of my "resolutions" from last year that I managed to accomplish is "get a boyfriend" which is sort of hilarious to me. (Though I wrote those resolutions after I met him, but before we started dating.)

• Oh, also: I saw The Hobbit! I thought it was wonderful! There were a bunch of things that actually really struck me as fantastic, but the main ones were the references to the Lord of the Rings movies. Also, I liked that it was different, since The Hobbit is a different story. I have all sorts of feelings, and I can't wait for the next movies. And all the extended edition DVDs.

I don't really have any resolutions for 2013 beyond: write (finish a first draft of this novel), love, live. And graduate. I get to finish school in December of 2013. So that's a big one.

Hopefully 2013 will be a good year. I've got my fingers crossed.

This entry was originally posted onDW. Please comment there with your journal or OpenID. [There are comments on DW.]

• I hope everyone had a good Turkey Day. I myself spent most of it with the Boyfriend and his mother, who made us a fantastic feast (and then sent most of the turkey home with us). I also got to play him at Mario Kart, where we discovered that I sort of suck at fake driving. I did improve slightly over the few races we played, though, so I suppose there's hope for me yet.

• I seem to have wrenched my neck in the night, and every time I think I've figured out where it's safe to hold my head so that I won't be in pain, the pain attacks. I would lay down and and hope that the pillow would work some sort of magic, but I actually have school work that I really need to get done before Monday. Still, ow.

• Since Turkey Day has passed, Holiday cards are now relevant. I'll be posting a call for addresses probably tomorrow. Keep an eye out, and give me your addresses so I can send you a card. :)

• I only have four more week of this semester. I am excite.

• I was very fail this NaNoWriMo and thus this year will still not be my year to win. Not entirely unexpected, but I did actually get a good novel idea out of this year, and most of the details for it. I am looking forward to writing more of it and hopefully finishing it. It's actually something that I could see being published. And with sequels! So that's sort of neat, too!

• (I ought to get a mood theme for my DW journal.)

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I haven't posted since the end of July. Which means 3 whole months have passed since the last time I posted. I haven't been totally absent though. I still read my flist and even occasionally comment on things. But apparently my life is pretty uninteresting even to me these days.

• NaNoWriMo has started. I had a plan and a whole outline for what I was going to write. Or at least a general sort of outline for how the story was going to go. But then at midnight on Nov. 1 I got all panicked and decided I didn't want to write that and I don't have a back up, so I'm trying to figure out something new to write all in the next day or so in order not to miss too many days. None of my other novels-in-progress are anywhere close to being workable for this. Which is a pain in the ass, really, since it means I have to come up with something new and fully fleshed our and soon.

• In a sort of subscript to the above, I've figured out the sort of things I want to write in general, but I don't know how I want to do them yet, so knowing that now isn't really helpful at all for NaNoWriMo. (On the plus side, I can now work on really figuring that out and maybe I'll have a start on it by the time I graduate and can start trying to publish shortly thereafter. I know there's no real reason I couldn't br trying to get published before I graduate, but that seems like too much for my brain to deal with, honestly.) Still, it's nice to have a (slightly more specific than it used to be) idea of the sort of writer I want to be.

• Also: Storying is hard.

• At the beginning of October, the Boyfriend and I moved into an apartment of our own. Which is nice because it's our space and not my mom's, and also because it's not super inconvenient to get to anything. It's nice and close to my school, to my dad, and to everything we actually need to be close to. Thus convenient.

• We also got a new bed, which has led to better sleep for the both of us, so that's awesome.

• Ugh. NaNoWriMo. I must think about that now and continue to forget that I even have an online journal.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

I don't usually do this—or do it here—but I wanted to make sure my Friends List got to see this too. So!

I am selling a butt-ton of manga. Some of it is in English, some of it is in Japanese—but either way it represents a lot of money that I spent while in high school. I'm looking to make some of that money back now—though not all of it, this stuff is used, and some of it isn't in pristine condition.

Please read the rules below so that everything can be run as smoothly as possible.

( Rules & SundriesCollapse )

And now… onto the goodies!

( English MangaCollapse )

( Japanese MangaCollapse )

Since the last time I posted, I...:

♣ ... finished Rosemary and Rue and its four sequels (A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea)—and really enjoyed them. Waiting for the next book—it comes out in September. Don't yet know what I'll be reading between now and then.
♣ ... adopted a cat. His name is Dimitri (because he's at least part Russian Blue and that was the first Russian name I thought of) and is fat and talkative and hopefully happy. (Technically this happened before the last time I posted, not since, but I didn't mention it in my last post, idk why.) He has very pretty light green (jade-colored almost) eyes. Eventually we'll get him a girlfriend and name her Anastasia—because it makes me LOL mostly.
♣ ... checked my school account and discovered that the last class without a listed teacher finally has one and that all my classes finally have their book lists on the school bookstore. None of the books look like they might cause me to drown myself in the nearest water source (the sink) so I'm tentatively hoping this semester won't either.
♣ ... stopped writing in my paper journal entirely. Bad Sky, bad!
♣ ... let my paid account here on DW expire because I am le broke. I plan on re-upping it as soon as I can, but at least the way that DW cuts back on your icons doesn't make zero sense at all LJ I'm looking at you, so that's nice.

That's about it. I'm boring these days.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• It's been about 2 months since I last posted. Jeez. Obviously it's time to update this thing.

• Though, really. Not a whole lot is going on. Life is, in general, pretty good.

• A while ago, I found out someone who used to be a very close friend of mine got engaged. Today I found out that not only did they set a date for the wedding but they've sent out invitations and I didn't get one. This makes me very sad. Even though I am still happy for them.

• I stopped reading for a while, but then I picked it back up again and I am happily working my way through Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, and it's reminding me that I really like faeries and the stories that can be told with them. I also picked up Anne Rice's The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, which I'm mostly enjoying, mostly when the author stops trying to prove that she did her Ancient Egyptian research.

• I also got a whole bunch more books that I am anxious to read. The problem with the Kindle is that my unread books take up no physical space and don't physically remind me that they are there and waiting to be read. That means I'm now free to accumulate as many unread books as I please, so long as I have the computer space to store them. I think this is probably dangerous for me.

• Speaking of Kindles though, I gave my dad a Kindle for Father's Day and he loved it. He actually said that it was the best Father's Day ever, which makes me happy because I both got him a present that he really loves and can use, and because Father's Day was spent with both my dad and the Boyfriend and my dad had a great time with the both of us.

• I really need to read more.

I don't think I have a whole lot more to say, really. My life is actually pretty good these days—but not all that interesting to read about, I suppose.

• Oh oh oh! I saw Brave! And I thought it was excellent! Not really what the previews made it look like, but then they were pretty limited if they didn't want to give away certain important parts. But I really really liked what it turned out to be. I suspect I would have really really liked what I thought it was going to be too, but alas, that's not the movie that got made.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Went and saw The Avengers yesterday. It was totally amazing. There were a few things that I thought went unexplained, and a few things I would have like done better (or not at all), but overall I was impressed with the movie, and enjoyed it thoroughly. I'd like to see it again for a more nitpicky viewing, I think, as there were several moments where I remember thinking, "Oh, that's sort of clever," and I can only remember one of them off the top of my head. So yes, another viewing might be necessary. (I don't think the Boyfriend will go again with me, though. Mayhaps my dad.)

• Actually, I can't stop thinking about The Avengers from what I like to think of as a storyteller's point-of-view, and I think there are definitely things that could have been done better. But I didn't actually notice them as I was watching, so I guess that sort of means that it doesn't really make that much of a difference.

• Avengers icons! (Though, if you're reading this on LJ, you won't be able to see it/them.)

• Things in general are ok. School ends after next Friday. I'm really looking forward to this.

• I'm very seriously thinking about how to make a presence online as a writer, and considering making a blog for this. But I keep getting held up because I feel like I still don't have an identity as a writer—in that I don't yet have a name that I want to publish under. I have some ideas, but nothing I'm satisfied with yet. Which means that I keep not writing about things that I'd like to talk about. And that in turn is making me feel like I can't write about them, like I've lost the ability. (As an aside, I've also stopped writing in my paper journal. I keep swearing to fix this, and then I don't. I don't think I've written in it for about a month.) Anyway, I'll have to keep thinking about this name thing.

• I'm excited for summer vacation, and I've a feeling it's not going to be anything like I originally planned.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Things.

Well, I suppose I could get a little more specific than that.

• Ankle is mostly better. It's still somewhat weak, but then I have weak ankles in general, and I don't see that changing anytime in the future, so it's not exactly a big change.

• I've been going to the gym (at my school) with the Boyfriend every other day (because it's pretty convenient for us to go after my early morning classes M/W/F) and I've been walking on the treadmill while he does... real workout things. (I got a new brace for my ankle which I've been sort of alternating wearing. It's a good brace, but it makes my shoes fit weird, so.) It's not so boring for me to walk since I have a Kindle, and I've discovered that it's light enough for me to hold up while I walk. It's actually a pretty productive place to read. And also I get exercise. Which I need. I was walking for just an hour each time, but today I discovered that I can walk five miles in 85 minutes (at a not terribly fast pace). This is encouraging. I think I could probably work my way up to five miles in 75 minutes, so that is my goal for the next little while.

• Today I actually went and walked with my dad, who wanted to walk a set distance, rather than a set time. Hence the shift in my routine.

• Speaking of injuries I have done to myself, though, my left knee is being all achey and bad. I thought I might have hyperextended it the first time I was on the treadmill, but I think it's more likely that the joint and muscles aren't used to the exertion. I was keeping it wrapped while I did my walking, but I think I'm going to leave it unwrapped next time and see what happens.

• I finished both of Deborah Harkness's books, but I didn't manage to make myself read anything I said I was going to read. I started both Black Heart and Storm Front (and both are good) but I wasn't hooked enough to keep going at the moment that I started them. (This happens pretty often. I tend to choose my books based on how I ~feel.) I ended up blasting through Patricia Briggs's Alpha & Omega prequel, which was short and sweet. On the other hand, Wednesday's workout reading material was another chunk of The Wolf Gift (which has finally gotten interesting!), and today's was Outlander (which I guess I'm finally getting around to). On the other hand, I did get my hands on a couple thousand books today (for my Kindle, obviously) so I have a whole bunch of things I could read, now.

• I dyed my hair black again for the first time in almost a year, and the color seems to be staying this time. Which is good, because I was afraid my hair had grown immune to black dye. The color isn't quite as vivid as I would like, so I'll likely try a different brand and all that in a couple of months when it's time to do it again, and some color still comes out every time I shower, but it seems to mostly be staying. And it's slightly ridiculous that that I am surprised and happy when hair dye does what it's supposed to do. What even.

I think there was more I was going to write about, but I've forgotten it and I'm tired. Thus, that's all for now!

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I have been telling myself that I should post here every night for at least two weeks, I swear. And then I get distracted by something, or I put it off for the night telling myself I'll do it the next night... And we all know how that goes. But now I am updating my Kindle and the Boyfriend is working out for the next hour or so, so I might as well buckle down and actually let you all know I'm alive.

• I am. For the record. Alive, that is.

• Speaking of the Boyfriend, we've basically been living together for the last three weeks (he picked me up from the airport the day I got home from NYC and spent the night and then never went home) and it's really lovely. Things are still awesome, he's still awesome and amazing, and I am still happy. So yay! (Though, I forget to do things that I usually do in the solitude of night. Which is mostly journaling stuff. I haven't written in my paper journal for weeks either.)

• Also for the record: the trip home from NYC was fraught and full of annoyances and terribleness. That is all.

• I tripped and fell down some stairs the other (last Thursday) night, and rolled my ankle in the process. It's still a bit swollen and I still can't walk around all day on it, though I don't think I've done more than pull some muscles and bruise myself. Still, it's the worst injury I've done to my ankles in a really long time, and I am deeply, deeply annoyed with myself.

• Kindle is still awesome. I read Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches, which was tons of fun, and I am currently reading an advance copy of the sequel, Shadow of Night, which is awesome. On the other hand, these books are sort of long and dense, so I am not adding a whole lot of numbers/entries to my "Books I've Read This Year" list. I've decided to be ok with this. Next up on the reading list is Holly Black's Black Heart and Jim Butcher's first Dresden Files book. I also think I ought to finish Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift, if only because I started it and I would like to be able to say that I've read an Anne Rice book that's not part of her filthy porno trilogy.

• School will be drawing to a close soon, and I register for next semester's classes tomorrow, and I am super excited because I will have an amazing schedule. Five classes, four of which only meet once a week; two classes on Monday, two classes on Tuesday, one class on Wednesday, one class on Thursday and no classes on Friday; nothing earlier than 9:15am; and three writing classes and two literature classes. It's going to be awesome. Also: three day weekends! Whoohoo!

That's really all I have to say right now. C:

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• My time in NYC is drawing to a close. I had a great time here, despite not seeing some people and only seeing others for short periods of time. This time, though, I am really looking forward to going home, as the Boyfriend is still in NM. I have actually had something to miss while I was here. It's an odd thing. But I will be happy to see him again.

• While here I have reread three of Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series (haven't finished Lady Knight again yet) and three new books (two Nora Roberts, and Patricia Brigg's newest Alpha & Omega book, Fair Game). I am feeling pretty good about the rate at which I am reading books this year. Since the beginning of 2012 I have read (including rereads) 21 books. That's a lot!

• I'm currently reading Anne Rice's newest, The Wolf Gift which is good so far. Werewolves rather than vampires, in case you couldn't tell from the title. (Also, I saw somewhere that she imagines Matt Bomer as the main character if they ever made a movie of it, and that got stuck in my head. Good times.) I haven't actually read any of Anne Rice's stuff (except the last of the Beauty Trilogy (the gay one) which is hilarious if you're considering it), not even her vampire things. I have Interview With A Vampire and Queen of the Damned, so maybe I'll give those a try after this. We shall see.

• Kindles are the best.

• Dishes, however, are not the best. And I forgot that I needed to do them before I leave, since I have no idea how the dishwasher here works. Whoops.

• No interviews were had while I was here. I am not deterred in my determination to have an internship for the summer. I don't know if I will be able to get out here again for interviews, though. I really shouldn't miss more of my M/W/F classes. (They are too early in the morning for me. I am too likely to say "Fuck it," while still mostly asleep, and then not go. WHOOPS.) Maybe I can talk the teacher into some extra credit work instead (since the stuff seems to mostly be things that I already know, so far). That would probably help moderate the damage done to my grade by missing classes.

And now it is bedtime, since I have to get up at 4am to get to my 7:30am flight. Gah.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I am in NYC! Gods, I miss this place. (This happens to me a lot: I go to a place that I love, and when I get there, I wonder why I would ever want to be any place else. When that place happens to be NYC, it doesn't worry me too much. But when it happens when I visit my grandparents in California (Los Angeles area) it worries me a little. I always forget why I want to be in NYC when I'm in Cali.)

• Today was mostly hanging out with my mom. We had brunch, then I went home while she had a meeting, then we went out for manicures and pedicures--where the girl doing my nails filed them square without asking (I prefer them a bit more rounded) and filed some of them lopsided (though it's an easy fix)--and then went out to dinner. There was shopping for a blanket for the new bed in the apartment I'm staying in somewhere in there too. (The bed is all nice looking now. I'm sort of excited to sleep in it.)

• Tomorrow, Mom and I are seeing "An Iliad", which is a reading/adaptation of, obviously, The Iliad. I am stupidly excited for this. My Classics nerd is showing. Since The Iliad was originally a poem that would have been declaimed, I think it will be really interesting to see something like how it would have been all those thousands of years ago.

• I'm also seeing War Horse with her and my cousin (on Tuesday, I think). Cousin just turned 19 and is in the middle of her first year in college, so I am excited to hear all about her experience from her. Since, you know, my experience with college has been nothing even remotely close to normal and I'll bet her's has been. Also I am excited to see War Horse and I am now glad that I never managed to see the movie of it. This way I can see the movie after the play and have the "proper" experience.

• There will also be shopping.

• Other than that, I don't have a whole lot planned. A day at the Met Museum is a must, particularly with the Steins Collection exhibit. And the new American Wing. Oh goodness, I'm getting a little excited just thinking about it!

• I will likely send out some emails (and maybe make some calls if I can find my Big Girl Panties to wear while I do it) to some literary agencies and see if I get any bites while I'm here. If not, I'll be doing phone interviews, if I get any interviews at all. (Notice the low expectations. This way, I can be pleasantly surprised.)

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Last night I dreamed that the Boyfriend and I went to an animal shelter, and I fell in love with two kitties, a brother and a sister pair who were the cuddliest things ever. Their names were Aioo (the girl kitty) and Juugo (the boy kitty). Yeah, I have no idea. They were really beautiful and cuddly and wonderful. And then I woke up and couldn't figure out where the kitties were. And then I realized that I had been dreaming. And it made me so sad.

• I leave tomorrow afternoon for NYC. (Gah, I still need to pack.) I'm sort of annoyed that I won't be haven't been able to get out all the emails and calls that I wanted to make to potential internship places and set up interviews for my time there, but there's still a possibility that I'll be able to get something in. We'll see.

• I'm trying to remind myself that this trip is also my Spring Break, though! I'm supposed to have fun! See friends! So that's what I'm going to do. It was inthebookfort's birthday a few days ago, so hopefully she and exrpan and I will have a girl's night out or something to celebrate.

• I will miss the Boyfriend while I am gone, though. Sadface. On the upside, though, he came up yesterday and is spending a few days with me before I go and then taking me to the airport tomorrow.

• I still have a paper to finish. It's about half done right now, but it's also due in 15 minutes. Even though the teacher is notorious for not giving extensions, I am hoping to beg another couple of hours from him in which to finish this damn thing. Possibly I will cry on him. Or possibly show him that I do actually have it started (since I flaked on both papers for his class last semester) and cry on him. But really, there's only so fast I can type. I need to remember this when I procrastinate on things. Note to self: I do have the brain power to construct a 6-page essay in the last hour before it's due, but I can't actually type that fast.

• This room is cold and smells like ass. Wtf.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I keep... forgetting to post. I check my flist and think, "I should update my journal," but then I think, "But what would I say?" And so I don't. That worries me a little.

• School continues apace. I'm a little behind on everything because I'm starting to realize that I'm bored with school. Obviously this means I need to figure out how to make it work for me again. I think that's going to me just putting my head down and doing the work no matter how bored I get. Not an exciting prospect.

• Slightly more exciting: I talked to the head of my department (also my Poetry teacher) and mentioned that I was worried about being able to graduate in May 2013. I'd been looking over the list of things I've taken and things I need to take, and it seemed like there were more that I needed to take than would allow me to graduate after another two semesters. This is totally unacceptable. But she was really reassuring! She said that we should talk to my new advisor (old advisor now has a different position) and that we could likely spread my previous credits out to apply better. I nearly wept with joy.

• Things with the Boyfriend are still wonderful. Wonderful enough that I sometime look around to make sure that the rest of my life isn't falling into ruin while I'm distracted. (It seems not to be.) I sort of hope this wonderfulness never goes away.

• Summer Internship applications start... now. My first deadline is tomorrow (and I am finishing up my cover letter before I go to sleep tonight) with Penguin Group. After that, most things need to go out by the end of March. I'm applying to pretty much every major publishing house in NYC that has a fantasy division, and about two dozen literary agencies. I just need something for this summer so that I can a) be in NYC for an extended period of time and b) have it for my resume when I apply for internships the summer after I graduate which will hopefully help me get a job.

• Apparently when I get down, I start looking for apartments in NYC. This doesn't actually help. Note to self.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Happy Valentine's Day, all! I hope you are all having a good day, regardless of your relationship status.

• I am a hell of a lot more chipper this year than I was last year (or the year before), the cause of which should be obvious. Though, really, today was just a normal Tuesday for me. The Boyfriend and I celebrated our Valentine's Day this past Saturday with a nice romantic dinner date and then coming home to pomegranate wine and chocolate covered strawberries made by yours truly. :) It was lovely.

• Having just gotten my butt in gear, the sign ups for fantasybigbang will go live tomorrow. This year there's also a DW mirrow comm: fantasybigbang. We're going to see how it works, mostly. lady_mab thinks it will work (and might get us more participants), so we'll see. Fingers crossed.

• Speaking of getting my ass in gear, I'm finally doing things. I'm going to try to get my car fixed before my Spring Break (second week of March), I'm going to be applying for internships soon so I sent an email to the head of my program asking for a meeting to Talk About Things, and I emailed my advisor for my Independent Study (finally) about actually starting. Halle-fucking-luja.

• This last one means that I will also (finally) be finishing a goddamned story. The first one I'm working on is a story based on a song by the Oysterband called "No Reason to Cry" (which is also what I'm currently calling the story, because it doesn't have a proper title). I ought to be finally writing a bunch of short stories that I've had sort of sitting around—some of them are fully outlined!—but haven't actually written. I'm sort of excited for that aspect of this experiment.

• Other than that, school is still school. I'm close enough to being done that I'm just putting my head down and ignoring things that drive me crazy. (Or at least, I am just ranting about them to the Boyfriend and my mom and my paper journal so that I can get it off my chest.) Anyway. School is happening. That's about all there is to it.

That's also all there is to this entry. Time to finish my sammich (and beer) and finish my work for tomorrow.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

It's been a while since I posted anything of substance, so here we go!

• First, I bought myself some paid account time on DW and now I have icons! This is delightful! (Despite the fact that still most of my posting (which mostly consists of comments) is over at LJ.) I am very pleased, and have even changed some of them around. Delightful, I tell you. Obviously, for those of you reading this on LJ, it likely won't matter. But the fact that I have them on DW just makes me happy. So. It's the little things in life, clearly.

• Right. Next. I am officially dating someone*. We met on Christmas Eve when we were sitting next to each other on a plane. We spend the weekends together mostly since he lives an hour away. It's lovely, he's wonderful, I'm happy.

• We're doing a Valentine's Day thing next weekend. And by "thing" I mean, "I've been tasked with picking out a restaurant and I have no idea what I want, so I haven't picked anything yet." I know tons of restaurants in NYC because I eat out so often there, but I don't actually eat out that often here in Santa Fe. Not really. More research must be done.

* I'll have to figure out how I want to refer to him here, if I decide I want to.

• Moving along. School. It's going well so far. My Gothic Lit class and my Poetry class are by far my most interesting classes. I volunteered to go in the first group of workshops for my Poetry class, and while I'm not nervous, I sort of hate my poem. I have a paper coming up in my Gothic Lit class, and I suspect I'll be writing on the Poe stories we read, since we won't have read anything else that actually will hold my interest. I suspect I'll be writing my final paper on Dracula because, um, yes.

• My Religion & Image class makes me mentally slam my head against a wall for an hour three days a week. I'd forgotten what talking about literature with teenagers who aren't into it is like. Let me give you an example:

This morning a girl said something like, "It's definitely a dream," about one of Kafka's stories (A Country Doctor for those interested or those who might be familiar with it), and when I asked her why she said "definitely" she explained how the whole sequence would never happen "in real life" and I just... couldn't look at her and say, "You haven't read much Kafka, have you?" So, I just tried to explain—without being snarky, not sure if I succeeded, but really I was just trying to show her that there's no "definitely" about anything—that it really didn't seem to out of character in the surreality of the story. I got a blank (and possibly slightly annoyed) look in return.

My Paradise Lost class is only slightly better. We talk about the book a bit more, but we also go around the room and read long passages of it aloud and the teacher goes, "See how this is an example of something I told you would be in here?" Less slamming my head against a wall, more internally crying.

• I am already behind on my IS. I am likely going to write two short stories this week (nothing super polished, just first drafts) in order to catch up. Oof.

• My Kindle is my current favorite thing. Well, my Kindle and the application calibre. I've been adding books to both like crazy, and reading almost as much. Though, I am having trouble sticking with one book and finishing it. (Except for the one I'll talk about in a minute.) I suspect this is because I keep getting new books and having "new toy syndrome" as applied to books. (I dub this, "new book syndrome.") Still, I am reading books and having fun with gadgets. The Boyfriend is pretty much convinced that he wants a Kindle now. Which I consider a victory. And I am finding that it's nice to be able to carry a ton of books with me wherever I go, and that reading on the Kindle can sometimes be nicer than reading from an actual book. I like having the actual book, but sometimes the slim little gadget it nicer to practical application.

• The only book I've finished (that's not a reread) in a while on my Kindle was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. If you haven't read this book already, read it. Go out, buy it, read it right now. There are so many amazing things about this book, I literally had to put it down at times and hyperventilate over how I will never write something this amazing. Or at least, how I'll never write this book because someone else already wrote it. (Other books that inspire this feeling: Steven Brust's To Reign in Hell and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens. Probably there are others, but those are the two I can recall off the top of my head.) Of course, I am happy with the things I am working on as books that will likely sell if I can get them into some sort of publishable shape (and, you know, written) but sometimes I just think, "Why couldn't I have written this?" Seriously amazing, if you haven't read it yet, do it asap.

Note to exrpan: Consider reading this for your Independent Study with David. No, seriously.

• Other than DW/LJ, I've been slacking off on my other online hideouts. I haven't really used Twitter or Tumblr in a while. I've sort of lost interest, even though I don't want to have lost interest. It's an odd conundrum. I haven't even really been reading fic. It's not that I am losing interest in my fandoms—because, if my reaction to the Avengers trailer during the Super Bowl is in any indication, I'm definitely not—I just have other things that I am thinking about at the moment. Hm. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to fandom things in not too long.

And that's it, folks!

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Today is my LJ's anniversary. It's been nine years since I made this account on the computer in my high school's library. Nine long years.

• Tomorrow my paid account will expire. And I won't renew it. (Though, actually, it has expired since I began this post a few hours ago. Well before it actually becomes "tomorrow" in my time zone.)

• I'll likely soon (as in: when I have money again) buy myself a paid account on DW, because I need my icons.

• That's pretty much the extent of this post.

• ETA: Um, wtf, LJ? My only active icons are the 15 ones that I uploaded first? It used to be (you know, back when LJ wasn't run by idiots) that you got the 15 most recently used icons. But apparently not. Likely once I have my paid account on DW, I'll re-upload 15 favorites, or 15 current fandoms.

• On this day of all days, I am reminded that once upon a time, LJ was a company that was run in a coherent and reasonable fashion. Once upon a time. And we've all been (t)here too long to just up and abandon it.

• The internet is a strange place.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• First week of classes down, 15 more to go.

• This semester, I am taking two lit classes, a religion class and one writing class. I am also doing a writing intensive Independent Study, the paperwork for which I handed in on Thursday, so it's official! All these things put me at 18 credits, which is the most I can take without paying extra for the extra credits (which I did last semester). And I still feel like I am going to have more free time on my hands than I know what to do with. St. John's ruined me for normal school. What even.

• Lit Class #1: Milton and Paradise Lost. Technically a religion class, but I convinced them to let me take it as a lit class. Because I wanted to, and nothing else that wouldn't make me miserable would fit into my schedule. Actually, this should be an interesting class. There were only 6 people in it the first class, but then two more people showed up for the second class. Which was actually a little disappointing. I felt like the teacher felt like he had to lecture more, and we didn't really get to talk as much. I actually knitted the whole of the second class, and still managed to participate more than anyone else. I hope it gets better, because I really want to like this class.

• Lit Class #2: Gothic Literature. This class is definitely going to be fun, no matter that there are 25 people in it, which is huge for this school. Actually, it's huge for any of the schools I've been to for a class that's not a lecture class. I think the teacher ended up talking a lot the first couple of days because we hadn't really read anything yet and thus didn't really have anything to talk about. He sort of got us talking about what Gothic is, though, and that was interesting.

• Religion Class: Religion & Image. This class may actually make me want to kill people. I don't think people realize how hard it is to define something like "art" and my teacher has spent the last two classes trying to get them to understand, but every time they take a stand on something, I just want to be like, "If that works for you. But what if it doesn't work for me? What then?" And I just got blank looks the first few times, so I stopped. I want this class to get better (we're reading Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Camus's The Fall which is totally interesting given the subject for which they were selected) so I have my fingers crossed.

• Writing Class: Techniques of Poetry. Um. This class. Is amazing. Which has everything to do with the teacher. It's the head of my department, who apparently doesn't teach that often, so I am totally lucky to have gotten her. She's really passionate about poetry, and her passion is so obvious and she wants to make us all passionate about it too. Even those of us who are prose writers. She even made a point at the beginning of the class to talk about how learning poetry is likely to make a writer's prose better in several ways. Which I totally agree with. Also, she swears a lot and is totally adorable and I think wants to like... feed us all. I am in love with the class, even if poetry isn't really my thing.

• Independent Study: apparently now titled "Short Story Writing" because my new advisor kept harping on it having a title and how it needed one that would be approved by the faculty and she wouldn't let me title it so she called up the department head. It... was the weirdest thing. But whatever. I'm going to finish a goddamn story this weekend and email it to my advisor on Monday and hopefully meet with her two Fridays after that—which is approximately two weeks, during which I will write another story. Which I will pass to her when we meet for her to read during the next two weeks. And so on and so forth for the rest of the semester. I just want to produce some things. I need to write.

So yeah. That was my week and will be my semester.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I'm home in Santa Fe. This should be surprising to no one.

• School started today! I am... mostly hopeful about the classes that I had. I have a relatively light schedule (more time for writing!) and today was only two classes. Two lit classes, but still. Ugh, I still have none of my books, except the free ones that I was able to get on Amazon on my Kindle. My teacher—who actually asked in class, "So, who else got a Kindle for Christmas?"—says that most of them can be found for free online, so I'll look into that more. At the very least, the first book I need should be, since, um, it was published in the 1700s and thus is very much in the public domain.

• After school, I went to our post box and picked up mail, which contained lots of presents for me. :) It was late birthday things—things that my mom ordered for me that didn't come in time—but they were more like, "Congrats on starting school again!" presents. My Kindle has a shiny new skin on it, and my mom got me a giant bottle of my favorite perfume, Comme des Garçons! (Wouldn't it be cool if you could smell things over the internet...) Also some knitting needles that my mom and I discovered are the best (though, she got me the regular ones, not the lace ones, which I think are even better).

• Speaking of, I've been getting more into knitting these days. I'm trying finding projects for yarn that's in my stash, and it's been fun! Of course, I'll actually have to start those projects soon. I did swatch a bit for an afghan I want (desperately) to make. But I'll actually have to get yarn to make that one, since I have only one ball each of the two colors I need, but I already cast on for it and have knit a few rows. I'll need to get more yarn before long, though. (Ugh, and I just remembered about dye lots. Hopefully they will match well enough that I don't try to kill myself by ripping it all out and starting over.)

• I got snowed in yesterday! Luckily, I wasn't planning on leaving.

• Got most of my Independent Study paperwork done. The head of my department thinks I am a little crazy for attempting 8 short stories in a semester. I... was way more confident before she stared at me in astonishment. I mean, I am defining short story as 5-20 pages (or 2k to 10k words, I guess?) and this does not seem strange to me. Challenging, yes. Impossible or stupidly difficult, no. I'm not expecting these stories to be masterful works of literature. And likely all of them will be first (or second) drafts—in that the way I write things tends to be more like transcribing something I've already composed in my head—so... I totally think it's possible. Give me encouragement, guys.

• I need to write the first story sometime this week, actually, and email it to my advisor so she can read it for our first meeting. Which... will be at some... time. Uh.

• I also resolved to finish one fic that I started last year every month. I haven't really worked on anything except the secret_mutant fic that I didn't get in on time. Likely... I will try to finish that one for this month and then post it to the comm, because I want the person I was assigned to have it. They will probably find it as hilarious as I do. (Lookit me, being all cryptic. :p)

Yeah, I'm done now.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• My time in NYC draws to a close. I leave tomorrow morning (not too terribly early, thank heavens) having spent a fantastic couple of weeks here in the city I still long to call home. It's still my intention to come back here as soon as I can. I miss the bustle and the anonymity, the subways and the streets, my friends, the shopping, the culture. I've always felt like NYC got into my bloodstream quickly when I moved here before high school, and I get myself through my time in Santa Fe by reminding myself that every day there is another day closer to being back here. I miss it I miss it I miss it.

• That being said, I enjoyed my time. While here I:

♥ saw inthebookfort, exrpan, oduinn, lskull86 and his girlfriend, a friend from SJC also on vacation and my ex boyfriend;
♥ went to a burlesque circus show for New Year's Eve Eve;
♥ saw Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Shame, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and A Dangerous Method;
♥ went to the Metropolitan Museum on an evening when they're open late;
♥ walked more than I have in months in Santa Fe;
♥ done a couple hours of research on summer internships here in the city in my field and noted application deadlines and phone numbers for those I will need to call;
♥ started the research for claiming my Birthright trip to Israel.

• I'm hoping to be back for Spring Break, if only because I might need to be here so that I can do some interviews for internships. I think I have a good chance of getting some of the more minor internships, but of course I want the bigger ones. I want the one at Penguin Group. Or Scholastic. Fingers crossed!

• I really need to write my first story for my Independent Study tomorrow or the next day. Airplane writing!

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

Hello, 2012! 2011 was quite a year, wasn't it?

♠ got my second tattoo
♠ completed 2 fics and
♠ made two fanmixes
♠ wrote a short original story
♠ started a dozen fics that still need to be finished
♠ finished my sophomore year at St. John's College and transferred to SFUAD as a Creative Writing major

Likely that last one is the most important, or at least the most major in terms of changes. It's not a lot, really (though I suspect that there are some more things that I am forgetting) but I have fairly high hopes for 2012.

I don't usually have real set resolutions, but I usually have some things that I try to focus on to get better at. I didn't post my "resolutions" for last year here and I don't have my paper journal with me and I don't remember what they were, so I don't know how I did with them. I suspect not all that well. But this year! This year will be better. I just have this feeling.

♠ Write more original things. My independent study will require me to write 8 short stories, and I have a couple other projects in the works, including a thing with girasola.
♠ Finish some of the fics I started during 2011.
♠ Find a job or something to make some money.
♠ Maintain good grades.
♠ Have some meaningful relationships, like friends or a boyfriend or something.
♠ Travel, if I can. Maybe Israel in the summer. I still want to get to the UK, too.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I am in NYC! The flight between Michigan and NYC was quick and painless (except for being at 7:05am which necessitated getting up at 4:30am), but I read on my Kindle the whole way (which made the 2+ hour trip seem much shorter). I'm not sure how I ever traveled without this thing before. Kiiiiiindle. Love.

• lskull86 picked me up from the airport and took me to Brooklyn for a bagel. This sounds way less complicated than it actually turned out to be. He happens to live in the neighborhood we went to high school in, and we walked around and I looked at all the changes. (I also poked my head into St. Mark's Comics and was totally unsurprised to find people I knew still working there.) Anyway, so long as we were walking around Brooklyn and then bagel place we'd frequented in high school was in decline (apparently), we walked halfway to where I used to live to go to the place that I remembered had the best bagels ever. (They still do.) And then since we were already almost there, we walked past the house that I used to live in. It was neat to see the old neighborhood. Brooklyn Heights will always hold a dear place in my heart, even though I like Manhattan better these days.

• While hanging out with lskull86 I went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was a lot of fun. I was a little disappointed with how much Josh Holloway was in it (I always want more of him, he's awesome) but I was absolutely happy with the movie. It was an excellent action flick. (Except for the scene in the super tall building. Heights freak me out.)

• There is no food in the apartment I'm staying in. Like... no food. I am hoping that my mother will be gifting me with some funds so that I don't starve. I used the last little bit of my money to get myself a late lunch--sandwich and a giant red velvet cupcake to go. A late birthday cake for myself, since I didn't get cake this year.

• There is a Magnolia Bakery a few blocks from this apartment, too. I don't think I ever knew that, but I am totally going to hit them up. Magnolia Bakery has the best cupcakes in the world, guys. No joke. Alas, that's not where my dessert cupcake came from (though what I ate of it was still excellent).

• Tomorrow night I am going to a New Year's Eve Eve party. The Moonlight Circus is a Dances of Vice party. I've wanted to go to one of their parties for a long time, but I always seem to miss them. So I am excited to be able to go to this one! And only $30 for a ticket. I'm wearing the sparkly blue dress that I wore for my bat mitzvah. Yeah. I know. Ten years later I actually still fit in it, since it's just a stretchy sheath. It was a modified prom dress that we got back then, so my mom just made the straps longer and now it fits again. Magic! I'm not actually going to this party with anyone I know, so hopefully I will meet some new people.

• I am also going to a party for New Year's Eve out on Long Island with lskull86 and some other friends. I'm excited. Parties in Santa Fe aren't nearly as much fun. I suspect this party will actually be more fun than the one tomorrow, in the sense that it will have lots of nerdy people, some of whom I might have met when I attended I-Con a couple years ago. So that will be interesting!

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• HAPPY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY CHANNUKAH! HAPPY YULE! HAPPY WHATEVER-IT-IS-YOU CELEBRATE!

• So, I sort of made out like a bandit this morning. I was (apparently) collecting presents for all of Christmas, Channukah and my birthday, so there were more than I was expecting. And apparently some are still in the mail. Anyway, my haul was:

- Kindle (keyboard) & lighted leather cover
- 3 pairs of Victoria's Secret pajamas (cotton, flannel and silk)
- SLIPPERS
- a new wallet
- and a floppy hat my mom knitted me that is the best and I am totes adorable in

• Also an Amazon gift card from my grandparents for my birthday. Which I immediately used to buy books for my Kindle.

• I met a bunch of people for dinner tonight and was pleasantly surprised when alcohol (in the form of a Merlot and then a red table wine that was delicious) were involved. Also delicious food. Including asparagus, which is one of my favorite things ever. Yumyumyum.

That is... really all there is to say about my Christmas, I think.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• I've been holding off on posting until my LJ had imported itself onto DW, but that seems to be a process that will take a really long time. So, I'm just going to hope that the entries will all sort themselves out even with this one being posted. I am not leaving LJ completely, but I am going to try and post on DW from now on and let it crosspost. I won't stop checking my LJ Flist, so I'll likely still comment there. Comment on whichever of my journals you feel like. LJ is retarded in terms of how they treat their customers, so whatever.

• In case you are feeling sad that you don't have a DW account, apparently they have free account creation until the end of the year, so take advantage of that. (I'm looking at you girasola.)

• Onto more important matters: I am once again at the ABQ airport waiting until my flight boards. I am going to Michigan! It's going to be super cold! And I decided to bring only my leather jacket and not my big winter coat! I... might have made a tactical error there. But I am hoping there won't be a whole lot of tramping about outside, so maybe I will be safe. If I am required to be outside for more than I like, I will supplement it with hot chocolate.

• After Michigan I am going to NYC. I am excited, and I expect there will be lots of ~longing feelings. I miss NYC so so so much.

• Oh yeah. I had a birthday. I am 23 now. :) (I didn't post on my birthday because I was hoping that the DW importer would be faster than it was.) I feel no different, no older, and certainly no wiser. But I am that much closer to being graduated and thus out of this place, so I guess the marker is important as a way of passing time.

I don't think I actually have more to say than that.

This entry was originally posted at sky.dw.org. Comment here or there. [There are comments on DW.]

• Tomorrow is the last day of the semester. Because I decided to be lazy today, I have two papers to write tomorrow. I suspect that one of them will be less than stunning and the other will likely get me at least a B, though it won't be great work. I am ok with this, as my grades are pretty good regardless.

• I was snowed in on Wednesday, and I was snowed in today. My neighbor who usually plows our roads didn't think anyone was actually living in this house, so he didn't plow me out. I was surprised to hear this since I see him walking his dog all the time and always wave to him. But! Now he knows I'm here and that he should rescue me from the snows, so all is well.

• Ironically, I got snowed in and was unable to go have snow tires put on my car. Since I was plowed out a couple hours ago, I am going in tomorrow morning for the tires. Hopefully there will be less slipping when driving up my driveway in the snow. Of all the things that are on my "Do Not Do" list, slipping off the semi cliff that is my driveway is pretty high up there.

• I am knitting a sweater. I think this is the biggest project I've ever taken on. Also, I am entirely improvising this pattern, so hopefully when I'm done I'll actually have something that functions and looks like a sweater. So far it's going well, though. I'm almost through the second skein of yarn, though that really only means that I have about 8 inches of the body from the bottom hem up. Since I want it to be a long-ish sweater and that means I need at least a foot of body before I do any shaping, that means I'm not terribly far along. But it looks like a lot so I am happy.

• This entry is sort of pointless already.

• My birthday is exactly a week from today. I'll be 23. Not a landmark or anything, and I'm not really "excited" or anything, but I might actually get to spend it with friends, so that might be nice. It'll be whoever is still in town, I think. But that will be better than spending it alone. The last two birthdays have been remarkably uninteresting. 21 I spent with my father, watching Studio 60 and not drinking the scotch were were going to drink. 22 I worked the whole day and then went to dinner with my mom, and then... Actually, I can't remember if I did anything after dinner. If I did, apparently it wasn't memorable. I'm thinking dinner with friends would be a nice birthday, so we'll see who's in town.

• I'm also leaving in a little over a week. Vacation for almost three weeks. I am excited for Christmas and New Year's and seeing friends and being in NYC. Even though I generally don't like the cold, I actually think I prefer winter in New York to summer. Summer is too hot and muggy. Winter comes with beautiful holiday windows dressings, lights, and fun. I will have missed the Union Square Holiday Market which is one of my favorite things about NYC in the winter, but at least friends will be there.

I'm mailing out holiday cards in the morning. I'll add any addresses I get between now and then, but after that, no more cards!
Request one here!

• I am writing this on one of the computers in the "Creative Writing Computer Lab" which I feel is really just a closet that they cleaned out, carpeted, and put some desks and computers in. I am not complaining as it means closer access to a fast printer than the library, but I still feel like I am in a closet when I am in this room. (Also, only some of the tabs on this Internet Explorer window are green. But not all of them. I. What?)

• The paperwork for an Independent Study is really strange. There is the "Independent Study Plan"—but it includes a space for the "class number." It doesn't have a class number because it isn't a normal class! Then you also have to fill out a "Course Change" form, which, what? This form also asks for the CRN, but it also asks for the building it's in and the pre-requisites. There is a ticky box at the bottom that says Independent Study. I feel like I should just put my name on the form and tick that box and hand it in with nothing else filled out because this is a silly form. You also have to fill out an "Add/Drop" form, which... sort of makes sense. I don't know how to put "Independent Study" into all their neat little categories, though.

• I am trying to finish my mix for the xmenbigbang which is supposed to be posted tomorrow. I might actually have to finish it tomorrow and hope that my partners are ok not posting at the crack of dawn. (Somehow, I suspect they will be fine with this plan.)

• Today is actually the first day I have been to school all week, due to some stomach bug... thing. And the inability to sleep for more than 1.5 hours at a time at night. I am getting annoyed with the lack of sleep, which I suspect is only making my stomach more upset with my body. In the last, oh lets say four and a half days, I have eaten:

- four pieces of toast
- 3 bites of cream of wheat
- 2 bites of mac 'n cheese
- three chicken potstickers (when I thought I was feeling better enough to do so—hint: I wasn't actually well enough to do so)
- about 6 bites of beans and rice
- a handful of almond M&Ms (scattered over two days)
- and a few bites of coffee cake this morning.

This is not a lot of food, guys. It's like no one told my body that winter isn't the right time to stop being able to eat. I feel like I don't have enough body fat to keep me warm to begin with. I wouldn't be here today either except that it was (supposed to be) the last day of my Bible class, and I have a meeting with a teacher that I postponed from Tuesday because I wasn't feeling well. People keep looking at me and saying, "So, feeling better?" Not so much, no. Sorry.

• Last night while trying to sleep, I was thinking about my writing process and about my NaNoWriMo novel (which needs a better name than "NaNoWriMo Novel 2011" or "Faerie Thing" but I can't think of anything) and I [a] bemoaned the fact that there is no way to make a computer more like a notebook and that I had to actually type things instead of having an intern to abuse, and [b] came up with two or three scenes that need to go in the novel to make things cohere a bit better than they do right now. (Though, right now it's hardly coherent at all, since it's sort of just random puzzle piece scenes.) This is just another way of saying that I am still working on this story, I suppose.

• Augh, someone make my body function like a normal thing.

• I am supposedly going to pick out snow tires today. I postponed from yesterday because I wanted my dad to come along because I know next to nothing about cars in general. But he was feeling poorly, so it might happen today. A car is a strange thing to own. I obviously need to live in a place where I can just take the subway everywhere. I am including in this category New York and London and excluding everything else because I can. (I would likely also be happy anywhere there was a bus system that wasn't total shit. I suppose this expands the category somewhat, but I'm just going to ignore that for a bit.)

• With the semester almost over, it actually makes graduation look like a reasonable, and not too far off, goal. This is sort of incredible to me. I would just like to get a degree and get out of this town. There are a lot of things to like about Santa Fe (#1 and #2 are my dad and green chile, possibly not in that order) but I can't be here for the rest of my life. I need the city and my friends and real bookstores and stores/bars that are open later than 1am.

• Also I need money. I ought to look into that, so that when moving out of this place actually becomes an option I actually have a way of doing it. Hm.

• Oh, NYC people, I am also looking into summer internships there, so I might be around over the summer. Fingers crossed for that. (That is a whole lot more paperwork, isn't it? Real colleges are baffling.) Obviusly I am looking at something in the publishing industry, but if you hear of anything that you think might interest me, pass it along. The worst that can happen is I'll say I'm not interested.

Ugh, class is approaching and I feel terrible.

Don't forget to request a holiday card!

I keep opening the "post an entry" window and then not posting.

• Thanksgiving happened. Also, it was stressful and I got no sleep. Not exactly the vacation I was looking for, but it was nice all the same. Got to see family, hung out with lskull86 a little, and got some beautiful lace yarn which I will eventually find a pattern that I like enough to use. For those who were confused by my Twitter posts, I flew into NYC on Thursday, drove out to Massachusetts on Friday, had Thanksgiving on Saturday (because that's how my family does it), drove back to NYC on Sunday with Aaron, and then flew home at an obscenely early hour of the morning on Monday. Quick vacation.

• School is progressing. I have papers that I need to write for four classes, and a portfolio to turn in for the fifth. I'm pretty sure it's all doable.

• I convinced my Fiction teacher to do an Independent Study with me. One where I will write a short story (as defined by 5k-20k words, I guess) every two weeks. This seems manageable. I am going through all my works-in-progress and my various idea and picking out the ones that are viable and trying to formulate the ones that were tenuous at best. Hopefully I will have 8 concrete story ideas before the start of next semester.

• I really out to be reading a chapter in my religious ethics textbook, but it's only 10 pages long, so I am putting it off in favor of finally updating this thing with real content and drinking pomegranate limeade from Trader Joe's.

• NaNoWriMo happened pretty much as it ever does for me. I wrote about 6500 words on my novel and 3500 words of a short story, and then gave up on returning to the novel because I have no idea what needs to happen. However, this is the first NaNoWriMo novel that I think actually has potential beyond just churning out a wordcount. (The one that I got the farthest into is 13k words, about 10k of which is smut. Granted, it's mostly all plot related, but still.) I actually feel like this is a novel I want to continue thinking about and working on. Of course, I have plenty of novel ideas that have the same sort of potential, but I'm not sure that I've actually started writing any of the others. (No idea why, except that I didn't really write anything between graduating high school and recently. God, that's five years. I hate that.) This novel is interesting enough that I will likely have to do more research and more meta-research and then more figuring out how the plot is supposed to go. I'm actually looking forward to that!

• I need to finish reading this fic for xmenbigbang and make my damn mix and cover. I suspect that they wanted to get all the posting done before Christmas, but it actually would have been easier to do this afterwards.

• Oh oh oh. Remember how I mentioned that I wanted a Kindle and how I told my godfather that that was what I wanted for Christmas? I got an email from my mom on the day when the Kindle Fire started shipping asking me, "Is this the Kindle you wanted?" with the Kindle Fire ad in it. When I answered no, my mom responded, "Oh, well, you can tell me which one, or just go into my Amazon account and put it in my basket so I can get it." YAY KINDLE. I am not even bringing any books with me on my Christmas trip. Since I am flying on Christmas Eve, I will actually be getting the Kindle the first morning of my vacation. I am excited.

• I am also excited to be spending Christmas in Michigan, no matter how cold it supposedly gets out there. I will wear lots of warm clothes, or just not leave the house much. There will be snow, and wood fires, and a dog, and a Christmas tree, and everything. Oh, and also a menorah, lest I forget that I am actually Jewish.

• Speaking of vacation though, I will be in NYC from Dec. 28 through Jan. 12. I have no plans as of yet, so anyone who wants to try to make plans with me should feel free to do so. (exrpan, you still have to tell me if I'm going to overlap with whatever you have planned for your holiday. Fingers crossed!) I would like to do something for New Year's, though I doubt that I will go to the ball-dropping thingy (because no) or a big huge party or anything. No plans yet, but hopefully it will be something festive and inauspicious.

Ok, this entry is likely long enough now.

Don't forget to request a holiday card!

I'ts holiday card time!

I want to send you a holiday card! Give me your address, so I can. :)

Comments are, of course, screened.

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• Yesterday, I registered for classes for next semester. I am so so so excited. I have 8am classes every morning again, but if I could do it this semester, I can do it next semester and then never get out of bed before 10am ever again. I am taking:

- Religion & Image (fulfills my last of the "liberal arts" core requirements) MWF 8-9:05am
- Milton & Paradise Lost (originally a Religious Studies class, but I convinced them to let me take it as a Lit class :D) TR 8-9:40am
- Gothic Lit: 19th c. British/American Literature (which I thought had Jane Eyre on the reading list, but I was mistaken, alas, but does have Dracula) TR 10-11:45am
- Techiniques of Creative Writing: Poetry (with the current Chair of the Creative Writing department) W 2:15-5:15pm
- Independent Study (hopefully with my Fiction teacher from this semester, but we're working on it, and hopefully on some sort of fantasy something) TBA

I wonder if, some other semester, someone would be interested in doing an Austen/Brontë IS with me... Or maybe a Young Adult one... Hmm.

• Yesterday I also picked my mom up from the airport and brought her home. She's here til Saturday. But her birthday is Friday, so we're spending that time together and it will be good. :)

• I think between yesterday and today I've only added another 1k words to my NaNoWriMo. /o\ I am so far behind. I think I'll write some tonight, so hopefully that's not all I've got in me for today. Hopefully I'll be able to do some catching up this weekend after my mom leaves. I don't really have any big assignments for next week that I know of yet* so I will have time. I have several scenes in my head that just need to be written down, though. I likely have about 10k words worth of things in my head, and then I will have to actually find a plot. Because, yeah, so far I have no plot. Whoops.

* Actually, I have to finish my Peter Pan short story and a non-fiction piece for my writing classes next week. Hm.

• I actually wrote this post yesterday and thought I posted it already, and I was getting all sad that no one was commenting on my classes for next semester. Then I opened my MacBook and discovered the post page still sitting open. What even.

• I accidentally slept for 3 hours just now. I was laying on my bed (reading the free Kindle copy of Jane Eyre actually) and then my mom was asking me if I wanted some pasta for dinner. Whoops. I should have been writing in that time. Definitely going to write in just a little bit.

• Speaking of Kindles, actually: I'm spending Christmas with my mom and her guy-person (who I've dubbed my godfather, since that's an easy relation) and he asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I told him, "Actually, since you ask, I want a Kindle." He mentioned that since I also have a birthday in close proximity to Christmas, that a Kindle might be in my future. I am a little giddy with glee. My Gram usually gets me a gift certificate to Amazon for my birthday, so if I get a Kindle and a gift certificate, I'll be able to stock my Kindle with all my favorite books. :) Anyway, fingers crossed, because that would be amazing.

I think that's it for now. I use the word "actually" a lot.

• NaNoWriMo has started (obviously) and I am writing. Slowly, but surely. I am several thousand words behind (at 3026 currently, when today's goal is 6666) so I don't know if I can catch up. I think if there were a couple nights when I wrote 2k words I would be able to, but I haven't yet managed that. We'll see.

• Unfortunately, I don't have an antagonist for my novel yet and, as girasola pointed out, having one might come in handy. I have a small conflict that I am going to use, and I shoehorned a character in to do so, but it's not going to be enough for the thing as a whole. It really is only going to affect the two of the main characters. So I am pondering this.

• I am also pondering how my main main character meets two of the other four main characters. Two I have down (or have planned in my head) but the other two are a little more nebulous. To be fair, so are those characters, so maybe if I had a firmer grasp of who they were, I would be able to figure out how to have everyone get to know each other properly.

• Wow, trying to talk about this without revealing anything about the story is hard.

• I am worried about other writing during NaNoWriMo. As a student getting a degree in Creative Writing, I have to actually do some writing for my classes. I have 2 papers to write during the month of November, not to mention the Peter Pan story I am working on which I still want to use for my workshop day in one of my classes. And I have to write a creative non-fiction piece (which will likely have some of my thoughts on Fantasy in it, so it won't be entirely disconnected from the things I love). That's a lot of words that don't go towards my novel. And it would obviously be cheating to count them as such. So. I feel like there's only so much writing I can do, and that writing things not for NaNoWriMo will distract me and make my wordcount drop. :/ Maybe I will just have to buck up and do them both. Like a reasonable and normal person would.

• I don't really read when I am writing. It's weird. Not out of any design, but because I am putting all my energy into either writing or thinking about my writing and thus don't even consider picking up a book (or reading fic). I really ought to see about changing that somewhat for this NaNoWriMo as there are no movies that I own (except maybe A Midsummer Night's Dream or the Lord of the Rings movies) that are inspiring for the particular thing I'm writing. I ought to read bit and pieces of things that are related to my topic. girasola once pointed out that my research methods were kind of meta, and yeah, that might be true. But they're also entertaining.

• Unrelated to NaNoWriMo: I'm going to see In Time with a friend tonight. It has lots of awesome people in it, so hopefully it will be at least entertaining.

That's all.

See, sometimes I can update this thing with less than a month between posts.

• The Writing Buddies feature on the NaNoWriMo site is running now. :) If you're doing NaNoWrimo, you should definitely add me as a buddy. If we were buddies in the past, their update got rid of everything, so you'll have to add me again.

• I've been thinking about getting a Kindle for a long time at this point, but with the release of all the new Kindles, I am seriously considering it now. I can't decide which one I want, though. Except the Kindle Fire. Pretty sure I don't want that one. I'm not ready for a tablet in my life. An eReader will be enough. Last time I was in NYC I played around with the Nook Touch at a B&N (with the touch e-ink) and it was surprisingly interesting. Which gives me hope for the Kindle Touch. But I sort of want the one with the physical keyboard and in black. :/ And I can't decide if I want 3G wireless or not, or if I would find it to be necessary. Anyway, I'm thinking about it, and thinking about asking for whichever I decide is the one I want for my birthday this year.

• I've also been thinking about getting an iPhone. I mean, I was so against them because their touch technology tended to not register my touch bout 50% of the time. But I haven't had problems with that in a while. And now that you can get the phone on Verizon, it might even work at my house. I don't go up for an upgrade for another 10 months, but I am thinking about it. I do like my BlackBerry, but the iPhone can just do a whole lot more. There are tons of apps that aren't available on BlackBerrys, or aren't available on my version. (Like the Kindle app. My BlackBerry is the single version that doesn't have a Kindle app. What even.) I have 10 months to think about it and talk it over with my mom (who pays the Verizon bill) so it'll be a while before anything changes if it does.

• Went to the first of two Halloween parties last night. I went as a pirate. I was going for pirate captain, but since I didn't have a hat and I didn't wear either of my pirate-y coats (neither matched the costume all that well), I settled for First Mate. :) It's likely a costume I will reprise, since it's all stuff that I took out of my closet and just wore in a unique combination with a few safety-pin alterations. There were pictures being taken all night, but I have no idea if any were taken of me that were good. The second party is tonight, and tonight's costume is Captain Jacqueline Harkness. Which is mostly just jeans and boots, my military-esque dress worn as a coat, and my really fake Torchwood ID. Still it amuses me, and it's a comfortable costume. There might be pictures, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

• Before the party tonight, I am taking my dad to a screening of the New York Metroploitan Opera's Don Giovanni for his birthday. Should be good. Don Giovanni is always entertaining, and I am curious to see how they stage it for this production. Fingers crossed for good singing.

• My bookshelf depresses me. I need to read more. So many books I haven't read yet.

• Writing continues apace. Wrote a large chunk of Game of Thrones fanfic (specifically show-canon) in my last class on Thursday. And a chunk of my original thing, which I think I need to finish by the end of next week so I can give it a once over before handing it in for my class. I think I will be plotting my NaNoWriMo novel tomorrow. I might write up outlines for all the novels I am considering and see which one I like best once I have a better idea of what each one is about. (Also, I need to update my NaNoWriMo icons for 2011.)

• Speaking of classes, I had a meeting with my advisor last week, and my schedule is... not at all hammered down. The classes I can take are sort of limited, and then they all conflict with each other time-wise. So my advisor sent an email to the head of my department (who likes me, yay!) and hopefully she'll be able to open up some new sections or move some times around. We'll see. I really really need to be taking five classes again, so hopefully things can be worked out. Registration is in a week. Really really would like to not be totally shafted for classes that I need. (Though, I suspect that because I am not a freshman and because the head of my department likes me, she would try to squeeze me into classes that were technically closed if I had to go that route.)

Whoops, time to go.

• Oh jeez, it's been be a really long time since I wrote here. Mostly that's due to midterm papers. When I have pressing things to do for school, I tend to not let myself do things. (I mean, I still read fic online, but I don't write mine. And I don't get online to talk to people, but I do check email constantly.) I do still see/talk to friends who reach out to me, but I tend not to reach out because I'm technically "not supposed to." Or whatever. Anyway, I sort of became a hermit for a bit. (And I didn't manage to get one paper done, and my teacher told me not to turn it in anymore, since we're past the grading deadline. Which means that my grade for that class got dragged way the hell down, so I'm freaking out about how to pick it up again and maintaining my GPA for my scholarship and oh crap I made myself nauseated again.)

• Other than that last one, I got all A's in my midterm grades. Because I am awesome.

• Speaking of papers, I wrote a paper on Montaigne's essay "On the Cannibals" for my ethics class. I actually thought this one wasn't as good as the really-terribly-awful Machiavelli paper—certainly less organized, as I had less of an idea what I was talking about while I was writing it—but... I got another 25 out of 25 points on it. I should get my first paper for my Bible class (same teacher as Ethics) on Thursday, so we'll see what I get on that. Apparently this teacher really likes me.

• That last bit I actually know for a fact because, through a series of strange events, I ran into the Chair of the Creative Writing department at one of my other teachers' book launch, and she knew who I was because apparently my Ethics and Bible teacher was "raving" about me. Her word, not mine. I was assured that they were all good things, though.

• This encounter also led her to telling me that we should meet so that she could see about getting me out of taking some of the beginning writing classes. I gather she'd read my file, since I didn't actually tell her all that much about my writing experiences before she said that it sounded like I had sort of gone backwards. It would be nice if she could actually get me out of being stuck in the future with some of the people I'm stuck with now, but if not I will have at least cultivated a sort of relationship with her. I'm hoping she can also pull some strings to get me into her Poetry class next semester. (Apparently we have to take a Techniques class for the three main specializations, regardless of what we decide to specialize in.) She's not only smart, but really fun about being smart (if that makes sense) so fingers crossed for at least getting her as a teacher.

• I have a meeting with her and my academic advisor tomorrow.

• Moving right along from school things... The weekend of the 15th I was in a minor collision in my car. By which I mean, I had pulled in behind a guy in a truck at the gate for my dad's community, and instead of opening the gate he started backing up. I didn't realize he couldn't see me, so I thought, "Oh, I'll just get out of your way, dude," but he came straight back into me. I wasn't injured or anything, and only the passenger side rear door of my car was damaged. And, because it was clearly the guy's fault, his insurance is paying to replace my door. I'm taking it in tomorrow, they'll give me a rental for a few days, and then my car will have a door (and a window) that functions properly. Thank god, because we're supposed to get snow tomorrow night, and the window in that door no longer closes all the way, which makes my car awfully cold in the morning even without the possibility of snow.

• This does not solve the issue of my car's engine. But that will have to come a little later when I have the money.

• Speaking of, though, I worked a bunch this past weekend and make some money, all of which will likely be held in reserve for taking my car to the mechanic. I haven't done it yet because I don't want to take it and then not have the money to pay him when he's done. Hopefully I will be able to get this done in the next week or so. Fingers crossed.

• So, now that I'm actually in school for writing, I'm actually writing again. Not a whole lot, but some. I've actually started writing a story I've had notes for (and the first few sentences) since high school. It's a gender-swapped Peter Pan story, sort of. (All the credit for reminding me that I had it in my wip folder goes to olukemi and she knows why. :>) I'm really enjoying it so far, and I'm trying to finish it for when my turn to be workshopped rolls around in my Fiction class. (I can't remember when that is, now, but I have it written down somewhere.) I'd also like to finish it before NaNoWriMo, since I will be putting all my writing during the month of November towards that.

• So yeah, NaNoWriMo. I will be once again attempting to beat my odds. (Those odds being that I am 0 for 4 at this point.) I... don't yet know what I'm going to write. I'm thinking I might try this thing that girasola and I have been planning for years but never really get around to writing. Of all the things in my WIP folder, it has had the most plotting and planning done on it. On the other hand, as it's not entirely mine, I'm not sure I want to just go ahead and write it. Part of the fun of it would likely be writing it with her. My other options are entirely unplanned and unplotted as of yet, but I could change that. I don't know right now. But, in case anyone cares, you can follow my progress on my NaNoWriMo profile. (And until they fix the writing buddies option, that's all you can do.)

• I have been feeling lonely lately, even before I shut myself in my house and pretended to write papers for two weeks. I miss girasola and exrpan, who are not only my missing best friends, but have fabulous lives in NYC (no matter how much they complain). Not the least because I haven't been online in weeks. But also because I am just sort of feeling like I will never be able to get back to NYC, like I had my chance and I blew it. This is partially because looking at the prices for apartments in NYC is super depressing and also because there are things I am considering once I graduate (fingers crossed fingers crossed fingers crossed) that aren't in NYC. It makes my stomach go all noodly when I think about it. Ugh. Anyway, I miss you guys. ♥

• I am currently eating pasta with pesto that I not only made, but made with basil I grew. It's super delicious. (Even though it's throwing off my allowed meals for the day and not helping me lose the weight I gained while my Gram was here.)

• Oh yeah! My Gram came to visit. The same weekend that I got into the accident, actually. It was really nice. My dad and I cooked for her. Things that we got the recipes for from her years ago and used to make more often but haven't in years. Like the family spaghetti sauce. And blintzes. And baked macaroni and cheese. And frito pies with avocado. It was ridiculous how much amazing food we had, that was all cooked by me and my dad. Gram also took my dad and I out for a minorly expensive dinner at a fancy place that he and I like a lot. (It's where I took him for Father's Day this year.) Anyway, I swear I gained at least five pounds. Which means fitting in my jeans is getting problematic again. Whoops. Still, it was really nice to see Gram. We watched The Princess Bride one day, which she hadn't seen and I didn't know that my dad had. (He is a big squooshy softie, apparently. No, actually, it probably has more to do with Mandy Patinkin than anything else.) It was really nice.

• For those interested, the Big Session Festival is back. It went away for a little bit, but with the release of the Oysterband's new album with June Tabor (I suspect), it's back for this coming summer. I was looking at how much money I would need to save to be able to go, and holy crap. The tickets for the festival are actually reasonably priced, but airfares to England (as always) are frighteningly high. I think the chances of me being able to make it out there next summer are slim. Maybe I'll see if my mom will match whatever I can save... Chances are still slim, but at least she'll be proud that I'm making an effort, so it's not a terrible idea to ask, I suppose. Anyway, for those who are thinking about next summer's vacation and who happen to like the Oysterband (or celtic folk music in general) should definitely consider going.

• Wrote another X-Men: First Class fic last week. Or, I finished writing it last week. As it's been revealed, I'll likely post it here soon. Though, I want to change the ending a bit. So you can expect that soonish, I think. There may be some other fics coming before the end of the year, too. I'd like to actually finish some of the things I've started. Since I think I actually have a dozen fics in progress at the moment.

Oh jeez. This entry is really freaking long. I need to stop writing it now, regardless of whether I have more things to say. And I have to go write some poems for class tomorrow, so.

• Once again Delicious has fucked up. Idk what's actually going on business-wise (I gather someone bought the site and wanted to put their own stamp on it) but I imported all my Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks and then deleted my Delicious account. Both as a way of saying, "Fuck you, please die in a fire," to the people who fucked up the website, and also to remove the temptation to keep bookmarking there. I'll have to take some time to get to know Google bookmarks (which needs a shorter and catchier name) and to edit all my bookmarks to make them readable again, but then hopefully everything will be fine again. For a while.

• School is still going well. I wrote the worst paper on Machiavelli for my Ethics class... and got 25 out of 25 points on it. The only comments from the teacher were that it was well constructed and well thought out. Which... is sort of hilarious actually. I mean, if I had handed in that paper at SJC, my teachers would likely have given it back and been like, "You're joking, right?" Apparently the bullshitting skills I learned in high school will serve me well here. Anyway, I seem to be getting good grades. Here's hoping that continues.

• I have a meeting with my Academic Advisor and the guy in charge of Study Abroad in 25 minutes. I am looking forward to that, but a little worried that the deadline for applications for next semester (Spring semester, which is sometimes deceptive, as it actually includes a whole lot of winter) are due October 1st. Which is impossible for me to meet. On the other hand, spending a fall semester (which, again, is deceptive as it usually includes a fair chunk of summer) in Barcelona might be awesome. Then I could always take a few weeks before the term begins and do some exploring in Europe. Though, really, I could also just take weekend trips to Paris/Berlin/Nice/Madrid/other places in Europe when I'm there for school. But that's sort of exciting.

• I've also been notified by Hillel and some other Jewish Youth organization that I might be eligible for a Birth Right trip to Israel. While that's not exactly the safest place on the planet right now... not a whole lot of places on the planet right now are totally "safe" anyway. I'm definitely going to sign up to be selected, but I want to wait for a summer trip. I don't want to miss school. I gather that the trips are fairly short (10 days, someone told me) but you can extend your trip once the group breaks up. So I could do some exploring of that region too. (Egypt, Turkey, Greece, &c.) Fingers crossed for that, as it's possible I could age-out (apparently). Hopefully I am still young enough that I have a little time for this.

• My first real workshop is tomorrow. I am somewhat anxious. I submitted a story that I'd already written (at my first Alpha, I think) but that I've been wanting to revise pretty much since the moment I finished writing it but never really knew what to do with it. Actually, about two days before I handed it out to the class I realized what I wanted to do with it, but I am hoping that I will still get some good things from having people look at it. (I don't think this piece ever got workshopped at Alpha, so.) I am excited but also nervous. Eeeeee.

• Rosh Hashana starts tomorrow evening, and I have already informed my teachers that I will be out of class for Thursday day. Yes, I could technically make it to class if I really wanted to, but it's a holiday. And I suspect that I will be exhausted, as I am also taking my mother to the airport at 6:30am. I am very much looking forward to the singing, even though the director (I think) wants me to sit in the most visible place of the entire choir seating. I expect I will be bright pink and shaking for all of our songs.

• Still working on fic things. Not making much progress because it makes me cranky that they aren't doing what I want, but. Technically, still working.

• A friend of mine -- or, rather, someone I thought was a friend -- is being passive aggressive, and lying to me (I think) and talking about my behind my back (or so I've been told). Which is upsetting. I knew she was a compulsive liar and that she had trouble keeping anything confidential (and by trouble I mean that it never happened) but I overlooked that for the majority of our friendship because there are a lot of things I actually like about her. I think I'm going to give up. I've done my part. I've made the effort, and if she's not going to, I don't think it's fair to myself to keep trying. Which... is rather sad.

And now my meeting is in 10 minutes, so I think it's time to wrap up this post.

Goodness, it's been a while since I posted about my life, hasn't it?

• I've started school! So far, so good. My Bible and Ethics classes are very basic. I should have pushed to have my seminars from St. John's cover the things they're covering, but I was too hesitant. Still, they allow me to sort of ease into "real college" I guess. (I had to take a test last Friday! I... didn't even remember how to do that. I only got 65% on it, too. I will do better next time.) Anyway, I'm hoping those two will be easy A's. My writing classes (two of them, each is only one class per week) were really awful the first class, and then got better for the second one. Should be interesting. I think I can something out of them, even if the rest of my classmates are awful. Then there's my lit class, which is pretty neat. The teacher is a young British guy. At least listening to him is fun.

• My cat has been missing for three days. Unfortunately, I saw a coyote eating the grapes from our grape vines the night before last. Which, by the way, is three feet from my front door. I don't have a whole lot of hope for finding her, not when coyotes are venturing that close. But I am going to go to the animal shelter today and I will do all the things with her microchip. But I am sad. I don't think I'm going to get another cat while I'm living in this place. The house isn't really the sort that can keep an animal in, and this is not the first, second or even third cat we've lost up here. So I'll just have to wait until I'm living somewhere else.

• I got sick on Friday. I'm still sick today, but not nearly as bad as I was. Saturday was my bad day, but luckily, I stayed home and rested and pretty much didn't leave bed. I was hoping to beat it by today, but if I keep up my regimen of warm liquids, cold meds and lots of blowing my nose, I should be all right. It needs to be gone in two weeks.

• Two weeks will be Rosh Hashana, which normally I am not into. But this year I joined my old Temple's choir, so I will be singing for the High Holy Days, which includes Rosh Hashana. I am quite enjoying the singing, despite my stage fright, but I'm just not auditioning for any of the solos, so I ought to be fine within the group. A lot of the songs are familiar from when a) my dad was in the choir and b) from going to services even when he wasn't. Some of the songs bring back strong aural memories of the man who used to do the music for our Temple before he left—which, I realized years later, precipitated my loss of faith and interest in Judaism. (I don't know that I am up for explaining this, so please take it at face value.) Anyway, singing again is nice. I would like to maybe find a voice teacher for my own enjoyment. I'll ask our director about it.

• In case you missed it, I posted a fic! (I guess it's more like a ficlet, as it's just over 1k words.) It's Just Darkness I'm Living In, X-Men: First Class, PG-13 with mentions of domestic abuse. It was intended to be Erik/Charles, but. Um. That ended up not being the focus of the story. There is a second one coming (which is turning out to be twice as long as I anticipated) and will have smut in it. So. Keep an eye out.

• I got woken up by policemen again over the weekend (luckily, even though it was early, I just went back to sleep). It seems to have something to do with the rain? Idk. That's what they thought. Either way, my mom or I will call the phone company and ask them what's up. Because it would suck to be the person living in the house that's calling wolf, so to speak. If something happens to me, it would be awesome if they were happy to come help. (Speaking of, I ought to start putting together my Emergency Kit. Hm.)

Can't think of anything else right now. I have some stories to read over for workshops this week.