Rejected! Aw-right!

Got some mail yesterday. It was nothing important, just, y'know, a letter from Challenging Destiny.

Instead was a form letter, but in a very interesting format.

The beginning of the form said that my story was rejected, and that the Editor-in-Chief reads all the stories himself, but due to the number he receives, he cannot always read the entire thing. There was a list of options below that that said: "How Much I Read Of Your Story", and the square for "The Entire Story" was checked off. Despite the rejection, this was good news.
It meant he'd read the entire story of "My Brother's Own Words".

It also meant that he'd had a desire to read it all the way to end, which says something positive about my writing.

Below that was a list of reasons why he didn't choose my story. The option for "You have some interesting ideas, but it just didn't 'do it' for me" was checked off. An ambiguous reason, to be sure, but look at the options that were not checked off:

-I couldn't buy the premise. (Which meant he did buy my premise! About a boy who's mother is a parrot!)
-There wasn't enough "meat" on the story - too thin (Which meant my pacing was good, and that I spread it out well!)
-Too many syntax errors (credit my mother's editing skills for the reason that wasn't checked off)
-Story has nothing new to tell (I'm creative! He thinks I'm creative! Wheeee!)
There were others, but I cannot remember them all, except for the fact that their lack of being checked-off made me feel very proud of myself.
But best of all, at the very bottom of the page in loopy handwriting, was the message ", your story is well written. I encourage you to send me another." He wants me to send MORE! He didn't write "Maybe you should try gardening" or something of that sort. He likes the style I write in, to the point where he is willing to seriously consider more of my work. I can't wait to send something else.

And on top of that, I have yet to receive a positive/negative response from CICACA Magazine, so there's still hope coming in the mail.

And that, my dear readers, is why this was the best form rejection letter I've ever received.

Finished! Another step up the ladder towards completion...

I've finished my second draft of my novel, finally. I chopped down the page number from 330 t0 278 (single-space 12 font), but upped the number of chapters from 16 to 19. I think I fleshed the characters out more, although in some cases it was most difficult. A few of the "how-to-write" books I've read discredit the notion that an author's characters can run away with the plot without the author's expression permission, calling it "twee" or "artsy-fartsy" and "how an author excuses bad characterization". That's not for me, I'm afraid. I like it when my characters branch off in directions I didn't expect. Here's how some of my characters fared during the 2nd draft revision:

-Kisaino (the Shining Empress character): She was the easiest to work with. In the novel, she is spoiled, foolish, selfish and headstrong, but as a character, she is the most obedient. She does exactly what I want her to do, and so she changed very little during the revision. I think it's because there is a lot of my personality put into her.

-Wild Bird (the female warrior character:) I changed her name from the tongue-twisting Torijiyu (which I got from looking up the words "Bird" and "Free" in my Japanese-English Dictionary), to Wild Bird. I eliminated chunks of her backstory, because I felt it would be better to introduce her past in bits and pieces to keep people reading. She was a little difficult - I wanted her to treat men with distrust, but it evolved into a deep-seated and irrational hatred of everything with a penis. Well, that wouldn't work, so I made her more restrained in the revision. She won't hesitate to punch Yang in the nuts when he makes a smartass remark, but now it's more due to the fact that they're always together, and know each other to a certain extent. She is now much less likely to knee a complete stranger in the nuts. She'll keep her prejudices to herself, and try to bury it beneath her sense of Dancer (warrior) honour.

-Yang (the outcast barbarian character): I tried to make him humourous in the first draft, and gave him chapters of tragic backstory and a vendetta to boot. That didn't work at all - it made him very dark, doubtful, and depressing, and even hateful at times. I wanted him to be cheerfully disturbed - not violently insane. So, in the seconddraft, he uses his humour to hide his sadness, and hides his barbarian heritage. His real name is Yang-Mah, but after getting permanently banned from the barbarian lands, he tries to throw his heritage away and try to live as a "civilised foreigner". He's also terrified of being alone and forgotten. He's still followed by the ghost of Kaede-Rih, his dead gal pal, and he still has a mission to kill the Emperor of Souka (whom he blames for his crappy life), but he's less determined to win as is he is to simply try, and is mostly convinced that he will be killed in the attempt anyway. This gives him a dark, sarcastic humour.
Plus, he's also somewhat lecherous.

-Clever Child (the child prodigy): I keep forgetting to put her in, because she keeps slipping into the background. Her original name was Lei-Lei, but with her Soukan heritage, I decided that each Soukan name would mean something, so she became known as Clever Child instead. She was not much changed, mostly because she insists on slipping below the radar. Her character in the novel is supposed to be loud, prideful, and bossy, but as a character, she's really shy and doesn't like to be included in scenes. Maybe it's because I turned her into a battered child in the revision.

-Shouji (the mysterious boy): my favourite character, I modelled him on the actors I tend to like - that is, he is thin, sensitive, and shy (or as my parents like to say, "wimpy and weaselly"). While he is very submissive and obedient in the first novel, in the sequel I'll reveal his dark secret, and that he forced himself to adopt a shy and frightened personality in order to keep attention off of himself. But he's still sensitive, but he'll grow a bit of a spine in the second novel. For now, he remains a timid character.

-Kiboshei (the bad-boy brother): Okay, first of all, I'm making it MUCH less obvious that he's evil. In the first draft, I had all these scenes with him that were basically "Ha, ha, ha, here is my master evil plan! Look at how evil I am! And nobody knows but me! Ha ha ha!" or "Look what the good guys have done now! Drat! I'll do this instead! This is the revision of my master evil plan!" In the 2nd draft, I've eliminated those self-indulgent scenes - the reader will find out gradually the extend of his bad-ass-ness.

-Tando (the wise mage): I made him less perfect. He was a wise guru in the first draft, but in the second, he is still good-intentioned, but a great deal more manipulative and power hungry.

-Koriyasu (the mistress of the mage-school): I turned her from hard-assed to Racist and Abusive. She doesn't just make her bad students work, she beats the crap out of them. And, with the foreign Clever Child, I made her positively sadistic. Outside of the mage-school, she does have her positive political uses, but I'm still thinking up ways for her to receive her proper come-uppance.

There are other stages I must go through, however, before I can fully complete my work. My family members will read it, and I'll post a few chapters on my Fantasy Writers Forum, and I'll write more short stories to get some writer's cred for myself so that I can get an agent to help with my novel. So there is still a lot to do, but I'm one step closer.

I'm learning Japanese, oh yes, I'm learning Japanese, I really think so!

はじめまして。AnimeJune　です。　どうぞ　よろしく。
"Hajimemashite. Animejune desu. Doozo yoroshiku."
"How do you do? I'm AnimeJune. Nice to meet you!"

Japanese is now my favourite class. I don't know exactly what it is, but I'm pretty sure that a mixture of my constant watching of anime, my experience in linguistics, my knowledge of French, and my superior ear for sound and music have made it remarkably easy and fun to learn Japanese.

Plus, the textbook has been enormously helpful in getting me to recognize different symbols of hiragana, although when I read it directly from the page (instead of translating it phonetically into English, and then reading it, as I tend to do when I'm studying at home), I can be rather slow, and have to go over it several times.

Some sad news, however: I have (temporarily, at least) given up going to BAKA meetings. I know that many of my friends are there, but with my workload, I don't think I can spare the Monday evenings, especially when I have a film lab that lasts until 5. In all likelihood, I will have time to return to BAKA in the second semester, when I don't have a lab.

I'm still writing for the Gateway, although I've started forgetting deadlines and turning in shoddy material last-minute, I'm afraid. I'll have to work harder on that.

And...on top of all that, I've now joined the Mixed Chorus, as a Soprano 2, which means I sing the high parts when it's only Soprano, but when there's a harmony, I sing below. It seems really fun, even though I've been miserable during the last couple of meetings. I have managed to make a few friends and not piss everybody off with my constant whining and complaining. It's pretty hard to keep up with the music, but everyone I've come in contact with who's had any sort of connection with the club assures me that it gets better with time. So I'm going to stick with it.

Better news - my novel is going swimmingly. I've written far more than I used to during the summer. I think a structured lifestyle of University makes me want to write more than when I have all this time on hands during the summer. I've already finished 4 chapters of my second draft, and I'm started to wade into the better parts of the latter half of my novel, the better parts that I don't have to re-write so extensively. I'm going to have my mother read it before I go to my third (and hopefully final) draft, though.

Another Year of University...

I have now started my second year of University!

For my re-emergence into social youth culture, my family and I went shopping for clothes. Sad to say, the majority of shopping trips made with my parents have ended badly. Before I was self-conscious about what I wear (which is to say, while I was still in elementary school), I frustrated my mother with an impressive display of complete apathy when it came to clothing. "Does this look good?" my mother would ask. "I don't care. Get it if you want." I would say. At that point, I was going through my "stubborn individual" phase, in which I could go around wearing a paper bag and would be as happy as a clam. During this phase, I wore mostly sweatpants and patterned turtlenecks.

Needless to say, after junior high (during which I particapated in gym classes in said turtlenecks and sweatpants) I grew to appreciate the simplicity and cultural-friendliness of bluejeans. And Gap. During this phase, the stress of shopping drew mainly from my mother's disapproval of what I wanted to wear. I would choose something I saw the popular girls wear, or something I saw on TV, or something that was just so pink and frilly and skintight that it had to look good on me, only to have my mother insist that the popular girls were thin and flat-chested, so that their clothes would never look good translated onto my voluptuous figure, because they either showed too much of the bra it was absolutely necessary for me to wear, or they made my breasts look even more exaggeratingly large than they already were, or they were extremely unflattering to my round belly. She was right 80% of the time, which was why, even through the fiction between us, I usually went with her choices.

This time, however, went so smoothly as to suggest the aid of divine intervention. While the fiendish fad of low-rise jeans and low-rise trousers in general is still alive and well, this year the majority of teenage girls and style-makers suddenly cued on to the fact that round bellies (not fatness, mind, but bellies less than flat) + tight, low-rise jeans = the "muffin top" effect, namely, the flesh of the belly bulges unflatteringly over the waist of the pants. To compensate, the style this year included long tanks and t-shirts, tunics really, that descend half-way past the rear end and completely cover the belly, and short jackets and shoulder-sweaters (that cover the shoulders and can be knotted just below the busom -- a look, I might add, that is much more flattering on proud-chested women then on the skinnier, flatter girls). Due to my slight incompetence in laundry skills, most, if not all of my shirts from the year before shrunk to the point where they could not cover my round belly, giving me no little embarassment. The mix-and-match quality of the sweaters, tanks, and tee-shirts not only gave me endless combinations, but also made it possible to redeem the shrunk sweaters and jackets, because the layering effect of short shirt over long shirt is very "in" this year.

With the once-in-a-lifetime miracle of a fall style that actually flattered my own figure, the shopping trip went rather well, and we all left with our tempers intact.

The first days of University went well. I wandered the Club Fair with the intension of acquiring a few pens and a bushelful of free candy (see post "Whoring for Candy", and imagine that situation, but even more intense), and ended up signing up for a Sorority house tour (where you gett a free tour of all four sorority houses, to see which one you'd like to join, with free food included), and arranging an audition to join the University's Mixed Chorus (where you got a sweatshirt! With the name of the university club on it, and your position in the choir! Like an athlete!). I have the feeling that I'm going to be hopelessly busy this year.

My Japanese class was a little intimidating, but became much more fun and easy once I read the textbook, which offered a useful trick to remembering which syllable was attached to which Hiragana symbol. Film studies was a bore and an enormous disappointment--from the way the teacher described it, it seemed to be very political, with very little actually having to do with film. My English seemed interesting - it's Victorian Literature, so I get to read my favourites Jane Eyre and David Copperfield over again.

I made lots of friends in Classics, and Symbolic Logic seems harmless. I have the feeling it's going to be a very hard year, in which I will have to go without a great deal of TV. A shame, really.

Also, today I was offered a coupon for the new Coca-Cola energy drink called Full Throttle. I got a can and took a few gulps - it tasted like lemon-flavoured window cleaner. Reading the can, I noticed they had a different list for the Non-Medicinal Ingredients (sugar water with some citrus flavouring) and Medicinal Ingredients (a wack of caffeine and riboflavin, and some other "medicines" I couldn't pronounce). They also had things on the can that said Adult Dosage: No more than one (1) can a day, taken as needed and Consult your health professional before drinking if you take these medications... They didn't have any warning about Consult your health professional before drinking if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, but I think they are only one lawsuit away from putting that on anyway.

So, basically, they're being remarkably open about marketing a caffeinated drink like a drug. Caffeine is a drug, but you don't see warnings like that on bottles of Barq's. I didn't finish the can. I took one more gulp (just to experiment and see what would happen) and left the can on an empty table.

Nothing happened after that - except for the Student's Union. They've now acquired pink elephants and dead presidents to wander the Student's Union Building, throwing leprecaun gold at all the good little boys and girls. I caught a few coins, but now I can't find them, and my head feels funny.

Trying Again...(and again)

I have finally worked off the laziness to send my short story "My Brother's Own Words" to not one, but two fiction magazines--CICADA Magazine (the older version of CRICKET Magazine), and Challenging Destiny (a Canadian science fiction and fantasy magazine that is no longer in print -- it has its issues on the Internet now).

So this might give me an extra chance at publication, or I'll get twice the rejection. We'll just have to see.

By the way, I saw Brothers Grimm and Red Eye in the past few days. Grimm was just awful - the sets were lush, and the special effects weren't bad, but the acting and characters were just horrific. Painful to watch. Red Eye was highly entertaining, and not just because the delicious Cillian Murphy was a total bad-ass in it, even after he gets stabbed in the windpipe with a pen.
By the way, the bloggers at salvesanctamaria.blogspot.com believe that I hate Christ and am drunk on the blood of Saints! Seeing as this comes from a cult of rabidly Anti-Semitic, pope-hating, "truth Catholic" fundamentalists, this must mean that I am on the right religious path.
Praise Jesus!

A Fine Summer Of Movies

Well, that's it, dear readers. I've completed my last shift at the movie theatre!

It was a good job. It didn't pay very well, but I had a good time and made lots of friends.
It didn't hate theatre customers as much as I hated the customers at McDonald's. I think part of that was because they were going to movies, something that I loved doing, and so I could relate to them more than a couple of truckers who want the onions on their Big Macs sliced extra thin.
There were a few idiots, of course. Later on, I will make a post about my pet peeves about theatre customers, but for now, this is a special review post. With every paycheque from the theatre, handed out every two weeks, was an employee pass for a free movie with a friend. That, along with the passes I won from the Butter Contest, allowed me to see more movies this summer than three summers combined. Allow me to list and briefly review them for your reading pleasure: (in no particular order)

1. Batman Begins
Starring: Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy.
Review: This is my pick for Best Action/Drama film of the summer. I actually got to see it twice - once with a friend of mine from the Anime club, and the other time with my sister and her friend-who-is-a-boy-but-might-as-well-be-her-boyfriend-for-all-the-time-they-spend-together. It was brilliantly done - it was intelligent, and layered, and intricate, with some excellent special effects as well, and it all made a very convincing story about how the Batman came to be. It is now on my list as one of My Favourite Superhero Movies of all Time, next to Spider-Man 1 and 2, and Unbreakable. It even had a little humour - the scene where Bruce Wayne buys an entire hotel on a whim, so that his girlfriends can swim in the pool, is very entertaining. Christian Bale was excellent, I loved his Batman voice, and Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow was, as the internet fangirls like to say, TEH HAWTNESS (very good looking).

2. Stealth
Starring: Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx.
Review: I saw this with my dad, who loves military and army movies, particularly ones about army equipment, like tanks and boats and subs, and airplanes. In this one, it's about a trio of stealth fighter pilots assigned to kick terrorist ass who have to put up with a robot-controlled airplane who becomes dangerously self-aware after being struck by lightning. You can tell the robot becomes self-aware, because he starts playing rock music really loud in his cockpit, and by showing attitude towards authority figures. I was a Teenage Robot Stealth Pilot might have been a better title. It was entertaining enough, but highly unrealistic. Jessica Biel's character's shot from her plane after a mission in Russia and just happens to land in North Korea? And the pilots swerve all around the world and only have to refuel once? Please. At least they kept the sex scenes out of it.

3. War of the Worlds
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto.
Review: This was an extremely entertaining movie to watch on the big screen with surround sound. The explosions, the approach of the aliens, the overturning cars and vaporizing humans - it was breathtaking, and made me feel very involved. Considering the sort of deus ex machina way the aliens are defeated - in the film, and apparently the novel as well - to my thinking, it was very appropriate to have the main characters be normal, middle-class people with no ties whatsoever to any authority figures who might have more information about why the aliens are indulging in endless slaughter - questions are not answered, but the audience no longer really expects them too. Tom Cruise was very convincing as a sleazy dad suddenly forced to become very, very responsible, and Dakota Fanning was flawless, as usual. Something has to be wrong with that kid. At her age, she can't really rely on Method. However, I'm not sure that the movie might be so entertaining when translated to the smaller screen of DVD.

4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christopher Lee, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy.
Review: This was an excellent, and to my mind, superior adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel. However, while they're both based on the same written work, and while they both more or less cover the same events (one of the kids being shrunk by a television, another turning into a blueberry, etc.), they are different enough in tone, theme, and style that you could watch both and not feel like you're watching the same thing, just with different people in it. The Gene Wilder version focused more on the contest itself - the movie ends with Charlie and Willy in the glass elevator, after Charlie's already won. Also, Gene's Wonka performed like an inscrutable, all-wise God-like character who was entirely in control of the entire situation. However, in Tim Burton's Wonka, the focus is not so much on the contest as on Willy Wonka himself, a man Johnny Depp interprets as, rather, a highly unstable, antisocial, fragile genius balanced on the cusp of sanity. The story does not end in the glass elevator, instead it continues onward as Charlie helps the damaged chocolatier to find some sort of redemption. In this version, meanwhile, the Oompa-Loompas are all played by the same seemingly inexhaustible actor (Indian performer Deep Roy), multiplied a hundred times by movie magic. On top of all that, while the Oompa-Loompas do sing, they perform toe-tapping, darkly humourous numbers composed by Danny Elfman (the music man behind The Nightmare Before Christmas's "What's This?").

5. The Island
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou.
Review: It had an entertaining premise, but was a little too long for my taste, and was a bit inconsistant. Basically, Ewan and Scarlett play Lincoln Six-Echo and Jordan Two-Delta, clones raised in a sparkly-white, meticulously-organized commune, believing themselves and the other clones to be the only survivors of a vast, world-wide plague. Lotteries are held every once in a while to determine which lucky survivor is shipped off to 'The Island', a place they believe to be the world's last uncontaminated area where they can begin to repopulate the world. Of course, the riskily curious Lincoln eventually discovers that lotteries are only held when a wealthy sponser on the outside needs an extra heart, liver, or child carrier. The film consists of an odd tone formed out of dark action bits and ethical arguments (is it right to grow humans only as spare parts?) crudely stirred with off-key moments of childish humour (the clones are left completely oblivious to sex and pop culture - Scarlett's character, after escaping with Lincoln, enters a bar, is offered a beer 'straight up', and looks towards the ceiling - ha ha.) In the end, it was pretty campy - who knows, it might be considered a cult hit later on.

6. Sky High
Starring: Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Dave Foley.
Review: As one of the only recent movies aimed at younger audiences that doesn't indulge in fart and poo humour, it already ranks as one of the better films just for that fact alone. It's no Incredibles, but it is still wholesome, occasionally clever, and entertaining. Sky High is, just so you know, a floating, secret high school exclusively for the progeny of famous superheros. Will Stronghold is the son of the super-strong Commander (Russell) and the flight-capable Jetstream (Preston), but on his first day is labeled a Sidekick when he is initially unable to prove he has any powers at all. It's all very campy and wink-wink nudge-nudge, and all of the various tropes of teen-school movies are paraded for show (the bully with a past, the lifelong friend who discovers she's fallen in love with the boy she's grown up with, the trauma-drama-rama of cafeteria seating, impromptu parties and high school dances), but the super-hero aspect does manage to spin a bit of the dust off some of these old hats.

7. Wedding Crashers
Starring: Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken.
Review: A raunchy sex-comedy, it came with a lot of hype, but was somewhat disappointing. Owen and Vince play John and Jeremy, two divorce mediators who consider wedding season better than Christmas, resorting to a bag full of clever tricks to scheme their way into every wedding they can (regardless of religion or race - a montage at the start of the movie shows them crashing Jewish, Indian, and Chinese weddings with flawless charm). They find a hitch in their well-worn routine when John falls for the sister of the bride (Rachel McAdams) at the wedding of the daughter of the Secretary of the Treasury (Walken), and Jeremy finds that bedding the bride's other sister has some dangerous side effects. There are plenty of funny bits, and Owen and Vince provide a consistant screen chemistry, but the movie could have dealt with some serious editing. There are dozens of loose ends, and many scenes that make no sense at all (one in particular - where the Secretary's unfaithful wife played by Jane Seymore forces John to grope her breasts, only to call him a pervert and perform no other lines - is an especial head-scratcher).

8. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Starring: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd.
Review: As this season's other sex comedy, this was the funniest film I saw all year. I kid you not. Wedding Crashers desperately wishes in its shallow, resentful little heart that it could be as funny, as dirty, and as sweet as Virgin. Crashers had a 14A rating, Virgin got slapped with 18A, mainly for some clips from porn, and a scene where an Indian man describes some truly obscene sex terms. Other than that...Andy (a brilliant Steve Carell) is a sweet-natured but desperately antisocial virgin who works at an electronics store. During a poker game with his co-workers, it becomes hilariously apparent that Andy has never experienced the female body (the giveaway was when he described touching a breast as "like holding a bag of sand"), and his co-workers immediately make it their solemn duty to get him laid. What sounds like a one-note premise expands into a hilarious study of sex itself. While Andy's inexperience is the focus, it also deals with the way sex has affected the people around him, from his over-solicitous boss (Jane Lynch), to the salesman David (Paul Rudd) who remains obsessed with a brief affair he had two years ago.

Despite the sexual plotline, the movie never gives in totally to hedonism. While his friends encourage him to have sex with whomever he can, however he can, as soon as he possibly can, Andy holds out for a special lady (Catherine Keener), and in the end he finds himself paid in full for that investment. This, along with Batman, was my favourite movie of the summer.

Dangerous Nuts

I finally got off my lazy ass and went to my allergy doctor's appointment. For a few years now, certain nuts (cashews, pistachios, hazelnuts, and pecans) have made my throat feel all swelled-up and awful, and have given me nausea. No shortness of breath or hives or anything--thank God--but allergies all the same. This worried my parents. They can start out with small reactions, they warned me, But often they can escalate into fatal ones. So I went to the doctor.
While saying that it was astounding that a person with food allergies was not subject to hay fever (yay me!), he actually asked me what I'd like to be tested for. I chose nuts, shellfish (allergy-foods that I don't have very often), but I forgot to get tested for bee stings.

Anyhoo, they put drops of the nut-allergy- and seafood-allergy-proteins on my skin, wrote the names of the foods in pen beneath them, and then the nurse pricked the drops (and my skin) with a sharp little needle. With my arms itching furiously, I went to lie down.

When the doctor came to check on me, peanuts and almonds (as I have always suspected) ellicited little to no reaction, along with most seafoods (I'm mildly allergic to shrimp, to my horror). However, the cashew drop caused a hive the size of a strawberry to develop, and pistachio only slightly smaller. The doctor said that judging by the severity of the reaction, cashews and pistachios were fatal to me, and that I needed an epipen. Fatal. As in, if I ate them, I would choke on my own blood and die.

I'd eaten cashews and pistachios before. Not recently. I'd eaten pistachios once when I was little, but felt sick eating them (go figure), and never touched it since. Cashews I once had in a bowl of mixed nuts, and let me tell you, that made for a very unpleasant Christmas party. I went to a mall after the appointment (although shopping for clothes was now out of the question with hives up and down my arms), looked into the window of a Ben&Jerry's, and saw my favourite icecream flavour sitting next to a tub of pistachio ice cream. It was like I was no longer looking at food, but a man with a gun. Sure, it wasn't pointed at me, but it was still a present and lethal threat.

Hazelnuts got the third-largest reaction, although it was still small in comparison to the pistachio reaction, so mum's banned Nutella from the house. I had reactions to brazilian nuts and pecans, but not to walnuts or coconuts. So I still can't eat snowballs, and Mum's told the relatives who like to make snowballs to have Mum and Dad eat at THEIR house, instead of here. Mum and Dad have decided to have an allergy-free zone. No one is to bring any of those nuts into the house. At all.

Now, on to other news--I've given my two weeks notice to my job, which, if I'm lucky, will leave me with an empty two weeks to have fun and to write before I have to go back to University. I've made a fair amount of money, or at least more so than McDonald's, but now that the end is coming, I'm horribly impatient, to the point where I'm tempted to call in sick before every shift. Not that I do so (I tried it, when I was actually, really sick, and was forced to come in anyways because we had two preview screenings and it was raining outside--a sure sign people will come to movies).

Also, I'm now addicted to Shojo Beat, a manga periodical, much like the girl's version of Shonen Jump. I'd bought issues #1 and #2 at Animethon, and soon subscribed, but found out that issue #3 is now out, and, frightened that my subscription might start after #3, I've gone out to find it. So far, nobody has it. Shonen Jump is everywhere from Chapters to Comic King, but Shojo Beat is not. It's a new magazine (started in July), so the bookstores that carry Shonen Jump either haven't yet subscribed to Shojo Beat, or have sold out. Gah! If I don't get #3 I'm missing out on the stories!

I've mentioned several times, to you readers, just how much of a waste of money I consider manga to be. I've said that it's expensive (15$-20$ a book), and it doesn't take that long to read. Well, you have no idea how interesting and economical Shojo Beat can be. Every month, I'll get a thick volume that contains one chapter from 6 different mangas. They all started at the same time, and every month they show the next chapter. I like all the mangas in Shojo Beat right now (especially Absolute Boyfriend), and, at 8$ a volume (shelf price), it's a great deal less expensive than a book, even though you're getting the same amount of material.

When I go to the University today to transfer onto the LRT to get to my job, first I'm going to check out the convenience stores at the University, just to make sure they have (or don't have) it.

Rejected!

Fantasy & Science Fiction mailed back my manuscript yesterday, undamaged, unmarked, and unaccepted. They sent a slip from the Associate Editor who said that he passed on my story, because it didn't catch his interest. It didn't look like a form letter - it was printed, but they mentioned the actual title of my story. But maybe they just do that with all lousy stories.
My mother is so proud. "You've received your first rejection slip! You're a professional writer now!" She's also adviced me to keep a file of all my rejections, and I think it's a good idea. It'll be hilarious to flaunt them when I actually get published and establish some "writer's cred".
The good news is, I've already found two potential magazines to send "My Brother's Own Words" to instead, and I'm saving on paper because F&SF sent it back in pristine condition. Also, I'm already working on a new short story, tentatively titled "Career Day". "The Screaming Chicken Wing" is on hiatus, I ran out of steam on that one, and I figured it'd be better to actually write something (even something new) then spend hours looking a screen and having nothing come out.

Doogie Howser, Animethon, and a Lack of General Supervision

Apologies for the lack of updates, dear readers!

As you can probably tell, my writing has become horribly slack. I haven't had any time at all to write, or at least, I've convinced myself that I haven't had any time to write. Still no word from Fantasy and Science Fiction, I'm working on three short stories, one of which is actually getting written ("Get Them While They're Spicy-Hot!" is the tentative title), with the other two in the Idea Phase ("Magic Doesn't Grow On Trees" and "Daughter of the Moon's Companion").
I've begun to have serious thoughts about giving up on my novel, The Shining Empress. After reading books like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel, I've managed to convince myself that I've done so many things wrong with Empress that there is simply no hope of rewriting the whole thing. Of course, by then, I get the little voice in my head that says "What?! You're going to give up on your novel again? How are you going to write good novels if you can't finish bad ones?" Then, of course, there is another little voice in my head that says, "Well, you've already finished the first draft! That's an accomplishment! Don't throw it away, just stick it in a drawer and forget about it until you're ready to fix it again."

On the other hand, everytime I actually set down to write Empress, I can't help but believe that what I've written is brilliant, and that (at the very least) I have to finish my second draft and have my mother read it before I make any more novels. But I'm getting impatient. There are so many more ideas for novels waiting in the wings, but that I haven't been going very far on, due to the fact that I haven't finished working on Empress. I think I'm still going to work on the second draft, which may take a while with all my procrastinating.

In other news, a celebrity visited the theatre a few weeks ago. Our Canadian city was holding a Big Important Event, and several stars who happened to be working on films in our province at the time all decided to come and have a look-see. Well, one of them came to our theatre (on a night when I wasn't working. Damn!) and went to see Batman Begins. My manager recalled him as familiar from the get go, but couldn't remember his name. Suddenly, he did recognize the man, but all he could think of was Doogie Howser! Yes! Neil Patrick Harris (also of Undercover Brother and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series fame) came to visit our theatre, and complain about how our sound sucked! Of course, the manager couldn't say anything, because all he remembered was Doogie, and he was sure he would get punched in the mouth if he called Mr. Harris by a name he hadn't adopted since 1993.

Moving on, Animethon 12 was...well, alright. I didn't get to see much anime this time, actually, because I spent a great deal of time waiting in line for large events like the Anime Music Video Contest, and the Cosplay. As a result of that waiting, I got good seats for everything, but the events themselves were rather boring. The AMVs did not get a good crop this year, not enough that was interesting, and too many "sentimental" videos done to gooey Top 40 soft-rock. The only one that was really funny was a video called "The Importance of Scenery" by Doki Doki productions that made use of The Arrogant Worm's song "Rocks and Trees" ("we've got rocks and trees and trees and rocks, and rocks and trees....and water....").

Cosplay was a drag (literally in some cases) as well. Not a lot that was particularly impressive. According to a friend of mine who was working at the Artist's Alley, the very last cosplayer (who had an astounding costume that had to be helped onto the stage by a large number of volunteers) found out belatedly that she, as a member of the staff, wasn't supposed to be cosplaying, at least not to win. She was never told, and neither was the new cosplay director, so no one was really at fault, but the girl admitted to me in the line the next day that she was disappointed, because she's a very competitive cosplayer who never wears the same costume twice and never does the same skit twice, and she hadn't wanted to waste it on a competition she wasn't supposed to win.

I did, however, spend the vast, vast majority of my money, something I was not trying to do but ended up doing anyways. The good news is, I didn't waste the money on a series I'd never seen on a whim, or buy crappy merchandise like Hello Kitty make-up mirrors and FullMetal Alchemist stuffed dolls.

Moving onward again (I should update more often), my parents and Sister #2 are gone for the week, relaxing in B.C., leaving Sister #1 and I alone at home for the first time with no parents. Well, I bungled up that situation pretty badly already by forgetting to lock the front door at night, but I hope I can make up with Sister #1 early enough to go and waste all our parents' money with her doing something fun.

Fly free, little story! Fly fly!

Well, I've done it. I've taken my first official step in the direction of becoming a professional fantasy writer. After spending 20$ on stamps and envelopes, and 7$ (!) on International Reply Coupons, I mailed "My Brother's Own Words" in a manilla envelope, along with an introductory letter to the editor, a SASE (Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope), and two of the exhorbitantly expensive International Reply Coupons. So any day now, my little story will be out in the world, bereft and alone, and force to rely on its own wits and the strength of its packaging to manage the exhausting trek from here in Canada to Hoboken, New Jersey. Good luck!

I am the Butter Queen!

Bow before me, pathetic mortals! Who among you believes themselves to be my equal? I denounce you then, for you are a liar! How much butter have you sold, hmm? Not as much as me, I'd wager - because I am the Butter Queen, High Clogger of the Canadian Arteries! Bask in my greasy benevolence, you peons of margerine!

Now that that's over with...Not only am I Butter Queen, but I am now bereft of four teeth that used to supply me with wisdom. I have no idea how I'm going to manage my Wisdom quotient without those four bones to help with production, but one does not exactly need wisdom to work in a movie theatre, nor, now that I think about it, to be the Butter Queen.

The dental surgery went swimmingly. I was actually quite terrified about the upcoming procedure - I'd never been put under sedation before, and my only memory of having teeth pulled (I was six - and they were removing a tooth that had set funny after I'd bonked it on a wooden pew as an infant) was not very pleasant. I was afraid it was going to hurt, and that I wouldn't adjust, and that somehow I'd wake up in the middle of the procedure and catch them removing my wallet or molesting me or installing an organ that I wasn't supposed to have.
Instead, they poked a needle into my hand (to freeze my mouth), and put a rubber hose on my nose and told me to breath it in, and in truth it was a lot like going to sleep. I don't really remember nodding off, I only remember praying frantically and feeling somewhat blasphemous when I couldn't remember the words (Dad says I got that from my Baptist heritage, and that all their prayers are made up anyway).

My sister (#1) had it actually worse. I recovered from the sedative rather quickly, and was soon rapidly inventing ways to talk around all the gauze in my mouth. My sister (who was operated on 40 minutes after me) was harder hit by the medicine, and didn't fully awaken from it for hours (we had to wheel her to the minivan in a wheelchair, and I had to hold her head on the ride home to keep her from slumping over).

Eating and drinking with the lower half of my face frozen was somewhat unsettling. The upper jaw thawed in four hours, but the lower didn't for about 10 (because the freezing stuff goes directly into the lower jaw, I think). My mother was highly amused as I ran curious fingers about my face, and as they touched something soft and damp, I asked her if it was my tongue ("Ahs thahs mah tong?"). She replied, "That's your lip, darling." Why did the dentists move it? Drinking with a frozen mouth was difficult, because not only could I not feel anything with the actual parts, but the rest of my head was telling me that somehow, my lips were not only frozen, but moved to a much more inconvenient part of my face. All in all, eating and drinking with a frozen mouth made me feel like I had developed an enormous underbite, with my lower jaw and lip having to rise higher than they were supposed to in order to connect with my upper jaw and lip.

I eventually thawed out, continued to take my medicine, applied icepacks to each side of my face for 20 minutes each every now and then, and proceded to make the most out of a lazy three-day weekend. Sister #1 and I settled our asses on the couch with pillows and books, and proceded to drink every can of Orange Pop and Sprite in the house, gorge on noodles and chocolate pudding and ice cream (neapolitan - three flavours so that I wouldn't get bored eating it all. That's foresight!), and monopolize the television. Truth be told, this was the first opportunity I've had to rely on the Total Parental Service Method for Curing Illness since I was about ten. You know, the kind where you get to lie around and do nothing while your parents do everything for you without accusing you of being lazy. It was a nice touch of nostalgia - for both me and my parents. Me for when I was young enough to demand they wait on me, they for when I was too young to talk. Yup, I had to keep my mouth shut (or as shut as I could manage) to help it heal, no matter how many loopholes I tried to find in the damn situation.

Those three days passed swiftly though, and so I had to go back to work on Monday. Physically, I felt perfectly healthy, but I was depressed to have to go to work again before I was fully able to eat popcorn. Three pieces of good news greeted me as I arrived, however, which brightened the rest of my day considerably. Please allow me to list them:

#1: I'd won the day for butter on my last shift. With the rest of my Chapters money, I bought magazines for writing (before the surgery, we took a trip to the bookstore, where I used the first chunk of my winnings to purchase "The Complete Idiot's Guide To Writing a Novel").

#2: I'd won the week for butter, because even though I only won three days, the people who worked on Saturday got such horrible numbers it negatively affected their butter percentage. This meant I got free passes! (only four this time, and no popcorn coupons, but I wasn't about to complain!) - along with the free pass I got from my payment statment, and the passes I'd collected from winning the last week, and the passes I got from sending in specially-marked CD cases - this got me to about 11 passes!

#3: The contest ended on July 7th - and I WON! I mean, the WHOLE THING. The contest has been open since May, but I've only been working since late June...but I had the highest overall percentage! The grand prize was a very nice watch.

So that set me up to be in a very cheerful mood, which would have been fine if I hadn't gotten sick in the middle of my shift with symptoms I had NOT experienced during the last three days of recover. Nausea, dizziness, and headaches - today, the dentist's told me that it was because I continued to take one of the painkillers after the time it was strictly necessary. That put me out for Monday, and today as well. So, you can imagine me signing out early, dizzy and sick, all the while accepting prizes from the butter contest and stuffing them, squirrel-like, into my knapsack.

However, this leaves me feeling rather depressed. I had to ask especially for Sunday off- on the employee bulletin board, all the "day off slots" for Sunday had been filled, which meant that no one else was supposed to take that day off. I'd had to ask the manager especially for that day off, for the express reason that I'd have more time to get better so that I'd be back to work on Monday! I felt horribly guilty having to leave early Monday (even though the manager was angelicly understanding - it was Monday afternoon, after all, not very business, and we already had someone experienced working concession), and felt even worse (emotionally, although a little physically) having to phone in sick today.

But, that's not to say that I haven't been productive. Do you like the new layout? It's pink!
And I've customized it to record my comings and goings as a writer. As I may or may not have mentioned, I finished the first draft of my first novel ages ago, and have been in the process of revising and editing. I have now begun to seriously consider my career as a fantasy writer, so I've been working hard on my days off. During my sick days, I was inspired by a crazy idea, and instead of just writing the idea down and forgetting about it, I turned it into a short story that the Proud Mother Times reviewed as "Fabulous! Something I'd Pay to Read!"

So, here's the plan - before I send in my first novel to a publisher, I would like to get an agent, a respectable one, preferably from the Jabberwocky Literary Agency, because they seem to be well known in the fantasy field, handle genre (thus, fantasy) fiction, and represent Tanya Huff, whom I adore and know to be Canadian, like me. To get a respectable agent, I need to have "the right stuff" - hence, credits, and a name for myself in the fantasy community. So, while I revise my novel, I will also write loads and loads of short stories and cart them off to respectable fantasy-themed magazines, so that potential agents-of-mine may read and be amazed. I haven't written a great deal of short stories, mostly because I have so much hope for the ideas that I get that I believe (falsely, in most cases) are simply too grand for a short story, they must be novels! When really, most of the novels I've written (and since given up writing) were abandoned because I'd run out before hitting the 100-page mark. Most of those ideas could have been rather good short stories, instead of mediocre novels stretched too thin.
As you can see, I've finished one story, and have ordered a free trial copy from Realms of Fantasy and picked up some stories from Fantasy and Science Fiction from the University's internet library, in order that I may be get a clearer idea of whether or not they would be willing to accept my story or send me back my Self Addressed Stamped Envelope full of ashes or confetti. I'm aiming high.

Summer (and Employment) Fun (or Lack Thereof)

My relatives have urged me to delete this post, in order to make sure my boss doesn't read it and fire my ass.

And I've lost it. I'm sure it was funny, but it belongs to God, now.

Ha ha! I'm Back! And I have Money!

Lazy, lazy me. I haven't written for over a month, and so much has happened!

My sweet job at the Second Cup? I got fired! No, wait - "let go", if you are more comfortable with the poorly-fitting euphemism. Yup, it turns out that the manager incorrectly estimated the number of employees that she needed - how could she have expected that nine former employees, some returning from years spent in Europe or Ontario, would converge on this tiny Second Cup branch, demanding full-time hours?

Because, in some former life, they all worked at a Second Cup, or some establishment that served similar beverages in a similar manner, they were granted seniority, and as there were now no shifts left, as the new kid I got bumped off the end of the bench because the other guys apparently had the right to a seat. Sucks to be me. My dad was appropriately outraged, and was only barely prevented from dousing the building with gasoline and lighting a match by my mother, who (correctly, I'll grudgingly admit) identified that Second Cup as the town square of our upper-class neighbourhood, and still frequents the place (along with me, when I'm in the mind for a free hot chocolate).

At first, the letting-go part was rather painless. The manager had made a mistake, she said, it was not my fault, she said, I was an exceptional worker and was sure to find a job more suited to my intellect and talent, she said. As a naturally proud person, I agreed, and left the job more or less optimistic that I would find someplace better. I would not make the same mistake I made last year - where I sent in 11 resumes, minus cover letters and follow-ups. Oh no, now I had the insight to try for my dream jobs. I sent in resumes (and specially written cover letters!) to Chapters, to HMV, to Claire's and Ardene and Famous Players (which I initially refused, because they paid beans). I went to places that sold things that I loved - DVDs and movies and music.
I soon found out there were worse things than not being called - there was outright rejection. Not enough experience, not enough availability (I am restricted by bus routes), four different people who said they'd call no matter what by a certain date and time and didn't, and thus forced me to call them with some pretence or another only to be shot down. There was rifling through the "General Help" section of the newspaper and feeling inferior because I didn't have the muscles for general labour, didn't have the organizational skills for clerical work, couldn't get to a well-paying job because it was an hour and half ride on the bus. Nobody called, my favourite stores weren't hiring or wouldn't be hiring for another month, and I had a time limit.

Before I knew it - a month had gone by! A whole month, spent doing nothing, or close to nothing. A whole month without income supposed to be for my tuition. I decided I had no choice - so I returned to the McDonalds. I'd gone there first, before Second Cup, because the manager there said she could offer me full-time hours. I hated working there (you've read my earlier posts, right?) , but it was good money and good hours. So I went back. I spoke with a new manager, who verbally guaranteed that I could get steady 8 to 4 or 9 to 5 work. She said she'd call. She didn't. I called, several times, in a panic until someone brusquely replied "Could you please stop calling? We're busy." Finally, I called the day later, and she replied "Oh yeah, it's store policy not to rehire people who used to work at McDonald's."

Rejected. By McDonald's. It's like arriving at the house of the most acne-encrusted, bespectacled, bath-fearing, nerd in school all decked out for the prom, corsage in hand, only for him to say, "Oh, I don't date chicks who wear purple. I'm going stag! Whoo!" Even when the day before he'd said, "Oh my God! A girl talked to me! A real girl! Sure! Let's go to the prom! I'll pay for the limo! I'll pay for the flowers! I'll pay you if you want! Alright! Grandma's going to be so pleased! "

My own grandmother wasn't pleased by this rejection either, by the way. A woman who is usually so well-mannered and prim that she could sit on a whoopie cushion without making a rude sound (true story!), her astonishing reaction to the news that McDonald's kicked me to the curb was "Those bastards! I hope they burn in hell!"

I had few options left by this point. So, I chose to call back Cineplex Odeon City - a smallish theatre downtown where I'd had an interview and had been basically hired on the spot, if only I would call back. I didn't - which sorta makes me believe that the other people who never called back were really being manipulated by my bad karma. Needless to say, on the phone with the manager, I had to eat a fair bit of crow - but it tasted like buttery, buttery popcorn. I was hired!
Not only hired - but they actually worked my schedule so that I had work five days a week, pretty much the same time every day. Because I couldn't work past nine (buses again), I got day shifts, 10:30 am to 5:15 pm, and lots of them - five shifts my first week. I soon learned why - apparently, most people hired by movie theatres want to work at night - because although we get minimum wage (actually, a little above), we also get commission for every combo we sell, and more people come and eat at movies at night. So now you know why the people at concessions always pressure you to upsize - they get commission, and 90% of a theatre's money comes from concessions.

Still, though, I get two free shirts and a hat (to be returned if I quit), and everyday I arrive while it's light out and go home while it's light out, so I'm never nervous about being downtown. With every pay stub is stapled two free movie passes for me a friend, and in a movie season with Batman Begins and Bewitched and War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four, this is pretty much where I was planning to spend most of my spare money anyway. Now I can save it for Animethon 12!

Anyhoo, I feel much better, I'm working at an establishment that peddles something I love dearly (that is, movies) and the people there seem very nice and friendly. During my first training shift, after watching the obligatorily hilarious sexual harassment video, the manager explained to us the details of harassment (how it hurts people's self esteem, how it's derogatory), only to have it somewhat deflated by interruptions on her walkie talkie - one made by a employee who got stuck in the garbage room, and another by another employee who'd turned on her walkie-talkie for the purpose of laughing at him. "Jessica? Jessica? I'm stuck in the garbage room!" "HAHAHAHA!"

So now I have money. And movies. For now I am content.

Dear God...

Thank You. I know that even with all of my creative writing expertise, I cannot fully express the extreme depths of my gratitude towards You for helping me today. I finished all of my exams except for one, which was Anthropology 230 - Science and Technology. Now, I sat at the front of the class every time. You must have seen me. I paid attention (most of the time) and even took notes for a couple of disabled students. I tried very hard in that class.

I got 64% on the mid-term. I tried even harder.

I got 68% on my research paper. Yes, it's an improvement, but only the barest kind that is really more painful than encouraging.

With all of my exams coming up, I was only left with a day and a half to 1) Copy down all the notes I'd made from the three textbooks 2) Highlight all the notes, 3) Read all of the notes made for that class so that I'd be ready for my final final, Anthropology. I stayed holed in my room for a day and a half, reading until my eyes stung, highlighting until my fingers hurt, changing my position every hour so that my muscles wouldn't atrophy, and got up an hour earlier than usual to get all of my studying done.

You already know that I prayed to you when I sat down to take that exam, all jittery and bleary-eyed as I was with terror and horrible certainity.

I prayed for mercy.

You gave me a miracle.

I don't mean that in the goopy "I believe I can Fly" miracle - I mean, look at my grades! I had a 66% average in that class!

I finished the exam in thirty-five minutes. Thirty-five minutes that included my going over the answers twice to confirm how incredibly, miraculously, unbelievably easy the exam was.
And I have you to thank. I don't know how many strings you had to pull in my professor's head to get him to write such a simple exam, but you did it, and I thank you.

School's Out, Coffee's On...

Well, not quite - school isn't out until Friday, and I don't go full time at the Second Cup until after my exams are finished. But most of my important extracurricular activities have come to an end, at least for the year.

The Gateway: They had their last issue today, a spoof of Rolling Stone called Raging Bone. Understandably, but hilariously offensive. They didn't publish my article about rockers fighting for a cure to COOOV (Choking On One's Own Vomit), the #1 cause for premature rock star death, but in truth I can't compete with stories like Rock Back Franz Ferdinand Assasinated in Sarajevo.

Baka: Over for the summer -we watched some old episodes, and some news ones. We watched Hajime No Ippo ("Fighting Spirit" to American distributors), about a shy bullied teenager who blossoms into a shy bullied featherweight champion boxer. This episode was filler - about all the fame poor shy Ippo gets from the ladies (and the men), and the guilt that his most ardent fan feels when he remembers how badly he used to pick on Ippo, before Ippo developed a fantastically strong right punch.

We also watched the last episode of Scrapped Princess, which I didn't really watch - I came in when they were showing the last episodes, so I really had no interest. The Scrapped Princess Pacifica has been prophesized to end the world on the 16th birthday, so of course everyone's out to kill her - but she survives in the end, and so does the world, but as to how I'm not sure as I was not paying attention.

We watched a new show called Club-to-Death Angel Dokuro (I think) - which is about a 12-year-old perv who gets visited by Angel Dokuro, who reveals that 20 years in the future he will be a pedophile, and unwittingly create a technology that will keep all women from physically aging past the age of 12. Dokuro has been sent to beat him to death (with a giant lead club loaded with spikes called the Excaliborg), but she thinks that he's just so darn cute that she resurrects him every time she takes off his head. Very cartoonish Kill-Bill style violence, and lots of fanservice. Funny, but I wouldn't want to watch it in front of my mother.

Another show was Speed Grafter (or something to that effect) - which was basically a porn anime without the porn, about a photographer who sneaks into a meeting of a secret society - something about finding the secret of Estascy, and how this photog is discovered to have some Euphoria Effect - no nudity, just a really sloppy kiss and some scantily-dressed women in bondage.

Still, working at the coffee place isn't going to be so bad. It's very easy, the pay is good (standard) and there's lot of people to talk to.

I've also started reading the Manolo Shoe Blog recently, and I've even made some comments.

Coffee Agent 007

I've got a new summer job - at the Second Cup down the street. It's pretty much in the same area as the McDonald's and the Safeway, so it's within walking distance. Plus, their work policies make those of McDonald's and Safeway look like the Third Reich.

Of course, there will be differences in how I work there. For one thing, I'm going full-time for the summer. According to the manager however, workers who want the benefit of summer full-time have to commit (using the honour system, natch) to continue working there part-time during the school year. I jumped at the chance, full of writhing doubts, and of course had second thoughts afterward. Due to a sudden spasm of low self-confidence, I basically had a crisis of "If I don't take this job, who's to say I can get another one"?

Still, I calmed down. This year, summer for me lasts 4 months (May-to-August) and I was originally sure that working full time for 4 months at the not-too-shabby rate of $7/hour would provide me with plenty of cash, even with some to spare for Animethon if I played my cards right. I should remind you, dear readers, that math has never been my strong suit. In fact, by resorting to a calculator to tally up the exact sum, my travails at the Second Cup should only amount to $3360 - a little more than half the yearly tuition. Which means that if I want to pay my own way, I'll have to spend my part-time money on tuition as well, instead of on social entertainments as I was originally hoping. Still, it's far better than the measly $900 I got from McDonalds.

So - this means one of several things. 1) Once again, I will NOT be touching any of the money I earn during the summer. 2) I will have to resort to saved-up allowance and freelance projects (weeding the garden, mowing the lawn, reviewing books for the newspaper) to pay for fun stuff in the summer (i.e. Movies, Animethon [which is in August, which gives me a little more time], parties, trips to the bar, etc.). Needless to say, my summer doesn't look particularily bright.
At least the work will be easy. Second Cup is rather lax, not in the manner that they are lazy, oh no, but that they demand a great deal less. I can wear earrings to the Second Cup, and spike my hair, wear necklaces and rings. I can talk to people (as long as I'm not busy), and I can drink (completary!) coffee drinks during my shift. I am also able to schedule days off in advance - which I have already done to prepare for having my wisdom teeth pulled (because, evidently, they weren't doing me any good anyway, according to my parents) and for Animethon which, to my joy, has expanded into a full 3-day event.

Maybe this is sign from God to work on my writing. Free of the restrictions of "fun" and "games", I will have plenty of free time to work on my novel and short stories.

Whoring for Candy

I realize, dear readers, that I am a young woman with no few faults. I am prideful (although I prefer the term "smugly self-confident"), I occasionally experience moments of filial hatred (as evidenced by the now infamous - among my family members, anyway - entry "My Parents are Sadists"), and I have an unfortunate tendency to not listen to people.

There may be several reasons for tuning out the mindless drones of my inferiors. Sometimes, it is obvious that they are just not putting in enough effort in keeping my attention, and in this case I consider my attention to be a lighted torch at the end of the tunnel, a goal to which the speaker must strive to attain as if it were as precious as the Holy Grail. In this manner, I am actually encouraging people to become better speakers, and thus improving the intellectual status of the social circles I attend.

However, my integrity is not an entirely unassailable tower of purity. There are cracks, there are nooks and crannies through which even the most helpless of orators may squeeze, if they contain the one key that inevitably draws me to them like a fly to honey.

Candy. Sugar-coated delights. A memory wrapped in a dream tied in an enigma and then dipped in chocolate and nougat. Sweets. Les bon-bons. Ever since I began attending univeristy, most notably the Student's Union Building (SUB), I have noticed that such places of public interaction attract people who are eager to get their message heard, their club noticed, their religion acknowledged as something a tad more legitimate than a clone-worshipping cult. Normally I ignore them, unless, of course, they grace their tables and displays with bags, boxes and bowls full of brightly-wrapped candy.

Then I take notice. Then I listen. Do I agree with what they say? Hell no, but I'll certainly act like I do for the few seconds it takes to distract them while I raid their "Please Take One!" platters. Would I like to join the Church of Lizard Stallion Queens? Well...hey, is that a mini-KitKat bar? Do I believe in practicing safe sex? Yes, because I have no sex! Hmmm...Hershey's Kisses...uh, no thanks, you can keep the complimentary condom. So that is it. If you have a ridiculous plan for a New World Order or are the head of an obscure club, as long as you provide the goodies, I'll temporarily provide you with a purpose for your empty, empty lives.

Of course, I'm not entirely without guilt. There's only so many times you can nod, and smile, and reach again and again for the chocolate-covered mints without the other person acquiring that rather disappointed, fixed smile that lets me know I've blown my cover. It's even more difficult if it's the same person who manages the same booth, because if they aren't keen enough to discern that I never leave empty-handed and that they can't recognize me from any of the meetings or Black Masses, they assume that I'm trying to develop a relationship with them and even go so far as to learn my name.

What is worse is when then ask me to offer my own opinion. It breaks my heart to liberate Tootsie Pops from the Baptist Ministry table (for a scientific experiment - how many licks does it take, really?) while telling them how my former Baptist father converted to Catholism and how incredibly happy he is now that he isn't going to hell. Or to unwrap a Werther's while pointedly demanding the Church of Latter Day Saints missionaries why God would create over 12 billion people, but only let 100 000 of them into Heaven. I am trying to wean myself off of it, really I am, but if all they want to do is talk...

Okay, so I'm exaggerating about the 'going to Hell' part, but the general idea is the same. The thing is, I may look like a beautiful, wealthy, fabulously talented writer/singer/public speaker on the outside, but on the inside I have a voracious sweet tooth that cannot be denied. Just so you know, I may look perfect, but I'm not. Mostly, but not completely.

La-la-la, I'm not crazy...la-la-la...

Animejune lives!
Thank for your incredible patience, dear readers. I took such a large, long break, and I've left you all out of the loop and me with at least a month's worth of news to divulge. So, let's make a list:

-Christmas: Greedily speaking, this was the most profitable Christmas this year. I can safely say that nearly everything I received was something that I wanted or eventually found a use for, even if I was previously unaware of that want until I unwrapped the paper. Along with a lovely book about the "1001 Films You Must Watch Before You Die" from Nana and Papa, I received the 2005 Short Story and Novel Writer's Market, and of course, lots of money and gift certificates that resulted in a number of wonderful packages that arrived later in the mail.

-Birthday: Yes, I am 19 now! My presents were lovely. My parents bought me a year's subscription to Locus magazine (although the first issue I received was August's. They must really have a backlog), a new dress (black, short, teh sexeh..), and tickets to see the Citadel Theatre's performance of West Side Story, which was sub-par, but that's hardly my parents' fault and I had a good time nonetheless.

-Topher Grace: I saw In Good Company and while not dazzling, was certainly well-written and pleasant. He hosted Saturday Night Live and I am very sorry to say that he was a Reactionary Host, and the whole thing was rather boring.

-Writing: I'm doing a whole lot of it, actually. I'm working on a short story, and I'm up to Chapter 14 of my novel (and page 292, if I'm not mistaken), and I've come up with at least two more novel ideas once my fantasy trilogy is finished.

-University: Very difficult. I'm a note-taker for a girl in a wheelchair with reduced hand mobility, and that's rather nice, but all of my classes require a buttload more reading and note-taking then before, and I have my mid-terms coming up in a week, and I have two papers due.

Once I clear March, however, I believe the whole thing is going to be rather easy. I'm also volunteering more at the Gateway.
I'll try to keep in touch.
-AnimeJune

Live From New York...

Sorry about that last bitch - this was the post that I was intending to make in the first place today. I am a big fan of Saturday Night Live. I have to say that I prefer the newer ones, simply because I'm of the right age to understand the impersonations and pop culture jokes a fair bit more than the old ones in the 1970s. Sure, there are still the classic skits that make sense even now, but there are a few that are rendered incomprehensible due to the generation gap. I'd say I've been watching SNL for about five years, and I've come to a conclusion about the hosts and the quality of the show. Now, again, these rules don't apply to everyone, just a fairly large percentage.

With the celebrities that host the show every week, I've noticed that there are two kinds of hosts. There are the participating hosts and there are the reacting hosts. They aren't necessarily based on whether the host is a musician or an actor or a comedian, and sometimes aren't even dependant on whether the celebrity has a history of being funny on television.
The reacting hosts are the hosts that aren't funny. They may be funny on their respective shows or their CDs, but they are the ones that tend to bring the show down. The reason I call them reacting hosts is because that is what they spend the majority of their skits doing: they play the straight man, the so-called "normal person" who reacts (hence the name) to the crazy characters played by the SNL performers. They may have a few half-hearted funny skits, but reacting is what they spend most of their time doing.

The participating hosts are the hosts that are the most entertaining, the ones that make the show worth watching. They do not simply stand by and let the SNL guys take the spotlight - they often participate in the craziness, and sometimes even come up with a hilarious character of their own. Let's put it this way, in Cheri O'Teri's "Simmah Down!" skit, the reacting host would be the offended person who's on the receiving end of her "Simmah Down!", and the participating host would be the lady's manager behind the counter, giving their own classic rendition of "Simmah Down!" (Tobey Maguire's "Donna Summer" gag is an example.)

Sometimes the reacting host isn't always bad - sometimes they get the short shrift, but the main reason that a host is reacting is this: they aren't funny on live TV. However, the skits aren't the only indication that this particular episode that you're watching is going to be sub-par. Here are a few indicators of bad hosts:

1. They star as "themselves" in skits: This is a prime factor in whether they are bad or not. With "fake talk show skits " like the "I'm Just Keeding!" guy and the "Prince Show", the participating (ie: good) hosts usually do impressions of some other celeb. However, the bad hosts are forced to play themselves because they can't be funny otherwise - they have to squeeze laughs out of the fact that they are playing themselves and doing weird things "as themselves". Sad examples of this would be Colin Firth, Jennifer Aniston and Robert DeNiro. Exceptions to the rule would be Ben Affleck's classic skit where he spars with a mentally retarded man while filming Gigli.

2. They're not the centre of their opening monologues: This is a good indicator - it tells you straight off the bat who's going to be taking centre stage in the skits later on. The awesome Sir Ian McKellan did an entire monologue by himself with no help from others, Steve Martin was the centre of an entire musical number, and Ben Affleck had the hilarious T-Shirt joke about how he couldn't profit off of the "Bennifer" name because the branded T-shirts arrived after he and JLo broke up. Even Christina Aguilera sang one of her songs acapella (let's see Ashlee Simpson do that!). Examples of how this goes wrong would be Cameron Diaz's monologue - where her talented ass-shaking was upstaged completely by Will Ferrell's "ass choreographer" character, or Reverand Al Sharpton's bit when he was pushed aside by Tracy Morgan's impression of him.

3. "Featuring a Cartoon by Robert Smigel": The reason they show animations? Because that means less time for a bad celebrity to make an ass out of him/herself.
Remember what I said at the beginning that a host's hilarity factor has little to do with fame, or whether they are funny in other shows? This holds true - here are some examples of horrible hosts:

Jennifer Aniston and Megan Mullaly - I know! They're hilarious on Friends and Will & Grace! Why not here? Well, Jennifer falls prey to the "look at me I'm funny just because I'm Jennifer Aniston" attitude, and Megan Mullaly basically rips off her character from W&G for every skit. Dullsville!

Halle Berry - We don't care that you won an Oscar. Your skit about the Quickie Pills does nothing except reveal to us that you must have a really good sex life, because you're really bad at faking an orgasm.

Colin Firth - Don't make fun of Jude Law! That doesn't make us laugh, that makes us angry!
Al Gore - have you people even seen him on TV? Why would you want him to bring that vibe to SNL?

Now, the good thing about good hosts is that sometimes they surprise you. They come out of nowhere, waving their arms and pitching their voices in ways you never thought possible. Some of these people made me groan when I heard they would be hosting - but they quickly changed my mind with their surprising talents.

Justin Timberlake - 6 words: "Bring it on down to Omeletteville!" I thought you'd be some stuck-up person who used his "Justin Timberlake" persona to phone it in. You didn't! You danced in an omelette costume to "I'm a Slave 4 U!" You blasted Michael Bolton and Jessica Simpson! You said "I was only partially diddled" and "We need another napkin - this one's on FIRE!" with a straight face, and yeah, you did have to hide your face to keep from giggling over Jimmy Fallon's "Brothers Gibb Political Talk Show" skit, but we forgive you because Jimmy Fallon laughs at his own jokes, too.

Sir Ian McKellan - I didn't even know you were gay until this show! Your "Hot Air Ballon Inspector" skit was pure comedy gold, you gave two nerds an orgasm by "imitating" Gandalf from LOTR and then promptly disappointed them with your "horrible" rendition of Magneto from X-Men. You seared Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Judi Dench with one blow and then promptly did what millions of women have longed to do - catch Jimmy Fallon helplessly by surprise by turning what was meant to be a harmless peck on the cheek into a French kiss that Jimmy will never forget.

Elijah Wood - I guess something about the Lord of the Rings films makes actor's reading to try new things. Your "Soprano Choir Boy" performance is one that I will always remember at Christmas time, and your imitation of Boy George is almost disturbing in its accuracy. You also added some new life to Chris Kattan's tired "Old Vegas Comedian" gig, even if you did look like Screech from Saved by the Bell, only with better '80s clothes.

Jack Black - my dad keeps mistaking you for Meat Loaf, and you only added to his confusion with the brilliant "New Birthday Song" gag that roasts Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf's love for long, complicated, and "epic" song styles. You skewered fairy tales as the monster who "doesn't want a fair maiden, but a slutty older woman because she knows more", and then potheads with your "High Times Investigative Reporter" skit. Way to go! You met all expectations!

Ben Affleck - If your next high-profile relationship pans out, if your latest big-budget film goes down the crapper, if your career seems totally washed up - fear not. You will always be welcome at Rockefellar Center. The fantastic turn-around on Jimmy Fallon's last "Boston" skit - as the recurring macho character who turns out, at the very end, to be gay, or as Dan, Dan, the Garbage Man who schools Jimmy Fallon's repulsive "Shock Jock" - you can turn even old, dead skits into gold - at least while you're in them. You are not afraid to make fun of yourself - and that is a must for good hosting.

Did you think we'd really forget you? Never! The Holy Quadrulogy of SNL Hosts - Steve Martin, John Goodman, Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks. There isn't enough space to congradulate you for all the good hosting you have done. You are integral to SNL culture. Three cheers!

Walking Through a Weepy Wonderland 2: Revenge of the Ornaments!

Hello there. I know you, dear readers, have probably thought that after many parental admonitions, I would stop burdening you with tearful accounts of my progenitors' transgressions. Not so! Of course, the whole disastrous affair is partly my fault as well, and I know they are decent parents at the end of the day, but I'm only telling you these things now so that I don't have to remind you later and spoil my bitching. One can never bitch properly if one takes the blame.

Every year, we go through the same Christmas ritual - the week before Christmas, we set up our fake tree (it spares the environment, saves us money, and no pine needles need be cleaned afterwards), fill our 5-track CD player with our five favourite Christmas CDs and set it on Spiral (plays song #1 from the first CD, than #1 from the second CD, etc. etc.), and put up all our decorations. We use none of those glass balls, and our candy canes are always secreted on the space of the branches close to the trunk so that we can't get at them until Christmas is over.

Our ornaments tend to be a mixture of wooden miniature toys - wooden angels, wooden figures of Santa playing various musical instruments, rocking horses, boys on drums, the odd eccentric decorations that we receive as gifts from friends and relations - the fat ballerina, the heart-shaped mirror with my name scrawled on it in long-hardened glitter gel, the red and white felt birds in tiny golden cages (although the white one had long fallen off its perch), and old handmade ones that are wretched, but too dear to us to throw away - my sisters' laminated construction paper stars with their first-grade photos on them, along with numerous figures made out of various kinds of uncooked, spray-painted pasta.

I love going about the whole affair - listening (and often singing along to) the Christmas music, while hanging out with my family and joking while we convert an artificial representation of a pagan symbol into an artificial representation of a Christian symbol with our various knickknacks suspended on gold thread. There were years when Mum wouldn't do it, or when Sister One or Sister Two had a hissy fit and removed her presence from the activities, but I could never remember a year when I didn't help. I'm sure during the early years of my childhood development (ages 11 months - five years) I may have been a little reluctant to offer my decorative services in favour of running away and hiding, or else trying to pull the tree down around my ears, but once my mind could grasp the meaning of the word "tradition", I like to believe that I was wholeheartedly devoted to it.

Count this year out, then. Today, Sister One had a belt exam for Tai Kwon Do (she's moving up from green striped to solid green, apparently) in a town that is about half an hour away from our own. Loyal parents that they were, Mum and Dad agreed to drive and spectate the entire 3-hour event (I passed - I had to study, an activity which, er, I will begin to do shortly. I promise.). We were all rather late risers, so at 10:30, everyone realized they had to hurry and get showered, dressed, and decorate the tree before Mum, Dad and Sister One (I wasn't sure if Sister Two would be going) had to leave for the exam. We rushed to our respective showers, but Mum got to hers first, than Sister One, so I had to wait. While in my room, I heard someone start playing Christmas music downstairs. I grew rather suspicious (and rightly so), but I clung to my (now proven to be wrong) assumption that my family, who were aware of my devotion to this annual activity (yet another wrong assumption) would alert me to any early commencement of decoration.

Of course, after waiting through two showers, I had my own, got dressed, and went downstairs - to discover the entire tree was finished. My family had not waited. My family had done it all without me. Oh, they'd left "a few" decorations for me to add as a paltry consolation - six of the cheapest ornaments we had, that were gaudy enough to give my family members pause as to where, exactly, they could put them without attracting any undue attention to them. Don't get me wrong. After much thought, I'm not really angry at my parents for doing this. They had very little time before they had to leave. They couldn't wait for everyone to start. They assumed that I'd respond to the Christmas music the way Pavlov's dog responded to the bell and that any absence on my part was entirely of my own choosing. And they had, after all, thought they'd told everyone to start while Mother had her shower first.

I'm just surprised. Surprised that they'd think I would refuse to participate in such a wonderful activity without giving any discernable reason. What if I had fallen on my head and been knocked unconscious in my bedroom? They should have checked! Surprised that they'd think I would be perfectly mollified by the "honour" of being able to put six - only six! - of the ornaments on the tree, after everyone else had finished (although, given the ridiculous alternative - taking all of the decorations down and starting again at a later time that was convenient to everybody - I can be a little tolerant of that). Surprised that they would not remember my enthusiasm for the holidays of previous years. They've known me for eighteen years! How - how could they just have forgotten that? I was especially surprised when they had the gall to suggest (after I'd made the only response I thought was appropriate at the time for such a nasty discovery - bursting into tears and fleeing to my room) that I'd ruined the whole experience for everyone. My reaction was bad, yes, and it wasn't entirely their fault - but knowing that isn't suddenly going to make me any less miserable. I am miserable. I didn't get to decorate the tree. Granted, it was due to a miscommunication on my part (what Mother said: "Everyone have a shower, and start decorating the tree!" What I heard: "Everyone have a shower, so we can start decorating the tree!"), but knowing that it's my fault and that there's nothing I can do about it doesn't fix anything. The tree is finished - and not by me. How's any of this supposed to make me feel any better?

For some reason, my parents expect me to be happy now. But I'm not. Christmas 2004 is officially tainted for me now, because I will never be able to look at that tree without remembering that I didn't get to help with it. I think God was trying to spite me today, because Sister One's Tamagotchis (little virtual pets that programed to know the date and time) started making Christmas trees of their own on their tiny square screens - while mine made a poo, and not a Christmas Poo either. Bah! Humbug!

In conclusion, however, I want to get one thing straight. I don't hate my parents. They're wonderful people. This whole thing was made out of a huge mistake and miscommunication. I don't even really blame my parents for this. The main reason for writing this is that it makes me feel better - and I needed an outlet to articulately express my misery at having missed this holiday treat.