As you can see, dear readers, I have been making an effort to post more frequently, due to the abnormally large amount of people who have been visiting my site! The counter has been up for less than ten days, and already more than a hundred people have stopped for a look.
Of course, with more quantity comes the threat of a lack of quality. When I post every now and then, it is usually because something extraordinary has happened, and I naturally put all of my writing skills to good use in order to transcribe the experience accurately. When I'm updating with the extraordinary (albeit to a lesser extent) somethings of every-day life, naturally I should spruce up the language a bit to keep you all interested, and to give my writing skills a good work out for the literary equivalent of a triathalon that is National Novel Writing Month. With three papers due in November, I have my doubts as to whether or not I will be able to reach the 50 000 words, but I at least want to try. I can be fairly wordy at times, so reaching the limit shouldn't be as difficult as it might be for some, but whether my ramblings will make any sense is anyone's guess.
I did rather terribly on my Classics Midterm, but the professor was very merciful in tolerating my bad spelling (I wrote Pharaoh Akhenaton's capital as Akheton, and the prof accepted it, even though the real spelling is Akhetaton). Still, I only got a 75%, and I don't want my GPA to drop any lower than where it already stands at 3.4, because I can't bear the thought of Sister #1 gloating how she has higher marks, and how a 3.4 is the equivalent of a C+ (I think it's closer to B+, but feel free to comment if you know for sure), which is nothing near as remarkable as her wonderful grades.
And my Symbolic Logic mid-term is today. It is one of those dangerous subjects where one feels that one is so very good at it, and understands each concept so clearly, that studying for it is a horribly boring task and one cannot help but do it very poorly. Of course, when the results of these subjects come back, one finds that one's work is not nearly as perfect as one fully expected it to be, but is instead riddled with dozens of tiny mistakes that one could have avoided if one had studied to the fullest extent of her abilities.
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Moving onward, my rehearsals with the Mixed Chorus are going very well. With few exceptions, I have always managed to work myself up into a foul mood concerning some small inconvenience that occurs at the beginning, but I can never succeed at holding onto that black mood for long, because I am always overwhelmed by the power of the music and the general good-nature of the other members. There are two kinds of rehearsals - the ones during the week are "Full Rehearsals" - where the entire Chorus sings together. These are my favourite kinds of rehearsals, the music vibrates so strongly through the soles of my feet (with the help of the very sexy-sounding Bases and Tenors) all the way up to the top of my head (with the pixie-ish voices of the Soprano Is - I am Soprano II, and as such, am rarely called upon to extend my voice up into the quivering heights of the First Soprano Range).
I always feel very powerful when I am performing a solo, but that is nothing compared to the strength that one feels when one is singing with two hundred people behind you. It glorifies my vocal strengths and conveniently hides my mistakes. I feel the same importance that I do as a soloist, but I am no longer subjected to the pressure of having the success of the performance rest entirely on my shoulders, to know that my voice is supported by women who can reach higher notes than I can, and go for longer without breathing, and can remember the pronunciation of the German/Latin/Old English words.
The second kind of rehearsals is the "Sectional", and thankfully -- since our Christmas Concert is drawing nearer -- there are going to be far less of those. Sectionals have their uses, but they come nowhere near the glory of the Full Rehearsal. Sectional is where each section (Soprano I, Soprano II, Base, Tenor, etc...) learns their own notes individually. For someone who can't sightread music, this is incredibly helpful to me, because in the heavenly cacophony of the Full Rehearsal, it is sometimes hard to pick out what is supposed to be your note out of the host of others.
My two problems are that it sounds a lot quieter and makes my fumblings more apparent to sing in a smaller group, and that our section leader and instructor makes a frustrating amount of mistakes when teaching us the notes. We always get it right in the end, but I have lately taken to keeping a score of how many times the instructor says "Sorry" throughout the course of the Rehearsal. I realize it's petty, but since everyone has already learned their parts for all of the songs, I will have less occasion to do so.
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Lastly, I am completely engrossed in Mary Barton. It truly is a marvelous work of fiction - it drew me right into the story so that I could not stop reading. All the heroes are so flawed and beautiful, and Elizabeth Gaskell is very adept at linking the scenes with the proper amount of suspence. Mary Barton, if you don't wish to be spoiled, does not go the Emily Peggotty route, I am happy to say. Her mistakes are eventually rectified, not without cost, to be sure, but the ending (I haven't quite finished) doesn't look like it's going to be as completely depressing as I suspected it would be. As I mentioned before, the book is quite realistic, although it does occasionally rely on the quaint idea that strong emotions (sorrow, a broken heart) can lead to illness, convulsions, and death. During the courtroom scene where Jem (Mary's true love) is declared "Not Guilty", Mary is so anxious and stressed that she undergoes a type of epileptic seizure, and takes a long while to recover. I think it's fairly silly, but the rest of the book seems to be quite well-researched, so I'll leave it alone for now. I highly recommend you all try reading Mary Barton, if you haven't already.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
At least I got the 'the' part right...
I made a complete ass out of myself, dear readers, during my film lab yesterday. We have to watch two films, the first of which was On the Waterfront. During the break between the two films, I phoned my mother to tell her I was going to be late (due to the films' lengths).
"Oh? And what's the second film you'll be watching?" Mum asks me.
"Into the Night," I reply, from memory. I hear the professor snort, but I can't see for what reason. I start to understand, once the movie starts - the title says Out of the Past. Eeep.
Well, it's not my fault, you see. I lent my syllabus to an acquaintance from The Gateway, because he said he'd missed the first few labs and classes. I lent it to him, he did not give it back, he does not attend any of the classes or labs afterwards anyway, and I no longer see him in The Gateway offices. This required me to ask the professor for another copy, which was embarassing, to say the least.
On the Waterfront was a fairly decent movie, I enjoyed it, and Marlon was a babe back then. I couldn't understand why, after he testifies against the Mob-run longshoreman's union, all the other longshoreman were cruel towards him, or why that annoying kid killed all of Marlon's pet pidgeons. I understood it better after I read a part in my textbook that relates how Elia Kazan portrayed Marlon's testimony in a manner that echoed his own "naming of names" during the Red Scare. I don't quite see the connection myself - getting people into trouble for supporting harmless politics seems to be quite different then exposing a union leader who resorts to murder, poor wages, and blackmail to shut people up.
Out of the Past reminded me, in the very beginning, of the plot of A History of Violence, and I thought it would turn out that way. Turns out not - it was dead boring, with endless unnecessary twists, a sardonic gumshoe (Robert Mitchum, who bears a faint resemblance to Clive Owen) and a dame (Judy Greer) who leads us all on a repetitive she's evil - she's being used - she's evil - she's being used chase. They end up dying together (Judy's character shots Robert's while they're driving towards a police barricade, and she's finished off by a cop), and the innocent towngirl that the gumshoe was hooked up with walks off with another dude. Not quite my cup of tea, I'm afraid.
--
Mary Barton is turning out to be quite the quick read - even when I have to go slower over the accented dialogue. It seems strangely more contemporary than the others Victorian novels I've read - Elizabeth Gaskell doesn't cushion the narrative with piles and piles of words (like Dickens, who I think I take after the most, stylistically speaking), and describes quite appalling, and appallingly realistic conditions of the poor. Mary Barton, to me, seems to be following the Emily Peggotty route of David Copperfield - she's adored by a man of her own low class, but she's aiming high for the son of a factory owner in hopes of becoming a lady. I certainly hope that Henry Carson isn't entirely like Steerforth, and won't try to marry the girl off to his butler when he's through with her.
--
In writing news, I was working over the plot of my NaNoWriMo novel (only in my head, you understand), and I came to realize that my ending was a tad idealistic. However, this was not a bad thing - because it gave me a wonderful idea for a sequel, while still supplying the first book with a climax and conclusive ending.
"Oh? And what's the second film you'll be watching?" Mum asks me.
"Into the Night," I reply, from memory. I hear the professor snort, but I can't see for what reason. I start to understand, once the movie starts - the title says Out of the Past. Eeep.
Well, it's not my fault, you see. I lent my syllabus to an acquaintance from The Gateway, because he said he'd missed the first few labs and classes. I lent it to him, he did not give it back, he does not attend any of the classes or labs afterwards anyway, and I no longer see him in The Gateway offices. This required me to ask the professor for another copy, which was embarassing, to say the least.
On the Waterfront was a fairly decent movie, I enjoyed it, and Marlon was a babe back then. I couldn't understand why, after he testifies against the Mob-run longshoreman's union, all the other longshoreman were cruel towards him, or why that annoying kid killed all of Marlon's pet pidgeons. I understood it better after I read a part in my textbook that relates how Elia Kazan portrayed Marlon's testimony in a manner that echoed his own "naming of names" during the Red Scare. I don't quite see the connection myself - getting people into trouble for supporting harmless politics seems to be quite different then exposing a union leader who resorts to murder, poor wages, and blackmail to shut people up.
Out of the Past reminded me, in the very beginning, of the plot of A History of Violence, and I thought it would turn out that way. Turns out not - it was dead boring, with endless unnecessary twists, a sardonic gumshoe (Robert Mitchum, who bears a faint resemblance to Clive Owen) and a dame (Judy Greer) who leads us all on a repetitive she's evil - she's being used - she's evil - she's being used chase. They end up dying together (Judy's character shots Robert's while they're driving towards a police barricade, and she's finished off by a cop), and the innocent towngirl that the gumshoe was hooked up with walks off with another dude. Not quite my cup of tea, I'm afraid.
--
Mary Barton is turning out to be quite the quick read - even when I have to go slower over the accented dialogue. It seems strangely more contemporary than the others Victorian novels I've read - Elizabeth Gaskell doesn't cushion the narrative with piles and piles of words (like Dickens, who I think I take after the most, stylistically speaking), and describes quite appalling, and appallingly realistic conditions of the poor. Mary Barton, to me, seems to be following the Emily Peggotty route of David Copperfield - she's adored by a man of her own low class, but she's aiming high for the son of a factory owner in hopes of becoming a lady. I certainly hope that Henry Carson isn't entirely like Steerforth, and won't try to marry the girl off to his butler when he's through with her.
--
In writing news, I was working over the plot of my NaNoWriMo novel (only in my head, you understand), and I came to realize that my ending was a tad idealistic. However, this was not a bad thing - because it gave me a wonderful idea for a sequel, while still supplying the first book with a climax and conclusive ending.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Portrait of an Artist?
I've tried reading like mad on Sunday, and managed to finish David Copperfield just in time for today, when we will be discussing it in class. I've decided (for now) to renounce listening to music, because it takes up hours of my time and is entirely unproductive, seeing as all I do when I listen to music and rock back and forth and daydream about my fame as an actor/singer/screenwriter/director/fantasy novelist/Hollywood social butterfly. I have also decided to limit my television to two hours a day (more on weekends), reading during the commericals, and staying up later to read into the night, and getting up early to read as I exercise on the bike.
David Copperfield was a good novel, and I've just finished reading it for the second time. I enjoy David's character very much, even if he does seem to be quite submissive - more an observer than an instigator. But the women in his life (with three exceptions - Betsey Trotwood, Peggoty and Agnes) are all twits. His mother is a push-over, with no self-confidence, who worries herself into an early grave instead of standing up for her son. Clara Copperfield's answer to verbal pressure is to burst into tears - which solves every type of problem, now doesn't it?
I hated the character of Mrs Strong, when I thought she was cheating on the Doctor with her idiot cousin Jack Maldon, and even in the end, when it is revealed that she never strayed, even though all circumstances contrived to make her look like an unfaithful gold-digger, I couldn't help but hold on to a bit of my dislike of her. Why didn't she come forward sooner?
Dora, while certainly good-natured, had the mental age of a six-year-old. A very cheerful, sweet six-year-old, but a child nonetheless, which disturbed me to some extent as to why, exactly, David was attracted to her in the first place. Especially since she had the nickname of his child-wife. She lives on in every girly, bubble-headed yuppie with a tiny yappy dog forever in tow - in short, she is the Paris Hilton of the Victorian Era.
I believe I felt the harshest feelings towards Emily. I know we are expected to feel more angry towards Steersforth than Emily (and he did lure her and used her, there is no doubt of that), but Emily made the conscious decision to go with him, in order to rise above her social station. I can respect that, even though it broke Ham's heart, and I would have had a great deal more fondness for her if she had stuck to her guns. But no! She insists on sending letters full of misery and self-reproach. "Oh, I hate travelling all around the world with a wealthy gentleman, gaining admiration and fame!" --This is a crude paraphrasing, "I'm a horrible, horrible, evil person, feel free to hate and forget about me!" If she feels so badly about what she is doing, why does she continue to do it? Get over yourself, woman!
What confuses me is that my English prof refers to David Copperfield as a kunstlerroman - that is, a portrait of an artist. David becomes a writer at the end, but what I disagree with is the suddenness that he turns to his craft. There is very little indication that he shows any sort of inclination towards writing - he tries things as a proctor, than a note-taker for Parliament, then suddenly "took a liking to authorship", by "writing a little something". Where did that come from? True, there was a period in his childhood where he read a great deal and loved all the adventure stories he had on his bookshelf, and in Salem house he told stories to the other boys, but once he runs away to find his aunt Trotwood, and starts living a better life, he forgets completely about this - until it resurfaces suddenly after his wedding to Dora.
It's much more obvious in books like, say, Anne of Green Gables, where everyone knows that Anne simply must become a writer, because there is no restraining her imagination and flair for the dramatic. I simply wish David would have remained more consistent, would have tried writing a little earlier while he was with the Doctor, and it would have made more sense.
I also learned today in Japanese class, that the Japanese are simply crazy for Anne of Green Gables (who is known in Japan as, translated, "Anne of the red hair"), and when a Japanese citizen says he's going to Canada, it is immediately assumed that he is going to visit Prince Edward Island. It's astonishing, really - nearly everyone in Japan has at one point, or will at one point, read Anne of Green Gables, or watch the anime adaptation (!) or read the manga adaptation (!). I can't imagine what part of the book would be so appealing to an entire nation (I enjoyed it myself, it's one of my favourite books, and my mother has always been convinced that I am Anne's twin in personality, imagination and verboseness) to such an amazing extent.
I guess admiring Canada for one literary work is similar to admiring Japan for one medium (anime). Silly me...
David Copperfield was a good novel, and I've just finished reading it for the second time. I enjoy David's character very much, even if he does seem to be quite submissive - more an observer than an instigator. But the women in his life (with three exceptions - Betsey Trotwood, Peggoty and Agnes) are all twits. His mother is a push-over, with no self-confidence, who worries herself into an early grave instead of standing up for her son. Clara Copperfield's answer to verbal pressure is to burst into tears - which solves every type of problem, now doesn't it?
I hated the character of Mrs Strong, when I thought she was cheating on the Doctor with her idiot cousin Jack Maldon, and even in the end, when it is revealed that she never strayed, even though all circumstances contrived to make her look like an unfaithful gold-digger, I couldn't help but hold on to a bit of my dislike of her. Why didn't she come forward sooner?
Dora, while certainly good-natured, had the mental age of a six-year-old. A very cheerful, sweet six-year-old, but a child nonetheless, which disturbed me to some extent as to why, exactly, David was attracted to her in the first place. Especially since she had the nickname of his child-wife. She lives on in every girly, bubble-headed yuppie with a tiny yappy dog forever in tow - in short, she is the Paris Hilton of the Victorian Era.
I believe I felt the harshest feelings towards Emily. I know we are expected to feel more angry towards Steersforth than Emily (and he did lure her and used her, there is no doubt of that), but Emily made the conscious decision to go with him, in order to rise above her social station. I can respect that, even though it broke Ham's heart, and I would have had a great deal more fondness for her if she had stuck to her guns. But no! She insists on sending letters full of misery and self-reproach. "Oh, I hate travelling all around the world with a wealthy gentleman, gaining admiration and fame!" --This is a crude paraphrasing, "I'm a horrible, horrible, evil person, feel free to hate and forget about me!" If she feels so badly about what she is doing, why does she continue to do it? Get over yourself, woman!
What confuses me is that my English prof refers to David Copperfield as a kunstlerroman - that is, a portrait of an artist. David becomes a writer at the end, but what I disagree with is the suddenness that he turns to his craft. There is very little indication that he shows any sort of inclination towards writing - he tries things as a proctor, than a note-taker for Parliament, then suddenly "took a liking to authorship", by "writing a little something". Where did that come from? True, there was a period in his childhood where he read a great deal and loved all the adventure stories he had on his bookshelf, and in Salem house he told stories to the other boys, but once he runs away to find his aunt Trotwood, and starts living a better life, he forgets completely about this - until it resurfaces suddenly after his wedding to Dora.
It's much more obvious in books like, say, Anne of Green Gables, where everyone knows that Anne simply must become a writer, because there is no restraining her imagination and flair for the dramatic. I simply wish David would have remained more consistent, would have tried writing a little earlier while he was with the Doctor, and it would have made more sense.
I also learned today in Japanese class, that the Japanese are simply crazy for Anne of Green Gables (who is known in Japan as, translated, "Anne of the red hair"), and when a Japanese citizen says he's going to Canada, it is immediately assumed that he is going to visit Prince Edward Island. It's astonishing, really - nearly everyone in Japan has at one point, or will at one point, read Anne of Green Gables, or watch the anime adaptation (!) or read the manga adaptation (!). I can't imagine what part of the book would be so appealing to an entire nation (I enjoyed it myself, it's one of my favourite books, and my mother has always been convinced that I am Anne's twin in personality, imagination and verboseness) to such an amazing extent.
I guess admiring Canada for one literary work is similar to admiring Japan for one medium (anime). Silly me...
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Drowning In Words...
I'm a very greedy person, about certain things, to the point where I find myself in awkward situations.
My family has always loved reading--my parents have a huge room in the house stocked with thousands of their books. I inherited this love from them - I love getting books.
Well, now it's getting to the point where I have too much to read. I have all those Victorian novels to read for English, I have three novels to review for Green Man Review, and another book on the way (a George R R Martin novel in a series I love, but I have to do it as an omnibus with the other previous novels - novels that are 600 pages long, or longer.)
Not to mention I have a gigantic list of books I want to read, culled from Locus and Entertainment Weekly reviews - none of them I've even come close to being able to read. I also have the Jasper FForde books, and the Neil Gaiman books, and all of my parents books which they are always insisting I read (Shogun, the Lord Peter Whimsys, Starship Troopers, etc.). And that's not even mentioning all of the classics (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, Falkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Revelations, Timothy, Acts of the Apostles...) that I believe I have to read if I want to have any respect at all in writers'-circles.
And yet, today, when my parents went to the bookstore, I tagged along and got them to buy me another one. Shinjuu, by Laura Joh Rowland. What is the matter with me? Well, I guess I know what's the matter. I simply can't bear to be left out of a "treat" situation, so I take what's offered without thinking about how good it is for me. I think I might even have to give up TV to finish reading all that I have to read. I might have to save up to buy another bookcase, or throw out some junk so that I can clear off another shelf to put them on. I might have to stay up later reading (and do it in a sitting position, I always fall asleep after reading one paragraph if I attempt it lying down) and wake up earlier to read (even though it annoys Sister #1, who sees my light under the door and thinks I'm staying in bed on purpose so that I don't have to go down first and empty the dishwasher - which isn't what I'm doing. I swear.) . I just don't know what to do - I never thought that I'd be in a situation when one of my favourite pasttimes has become a stressful burden to me.
By the way - my hit counter turns out to have been a good thing after all - I thought it would go up once, maybe twice a day if one of my relatives visited it - but close to ten people see it a day, even more sometimes. This also means that I must start writing in it with regularity, because I don't want to disappoint you dear readers, who, as it turns out, are most certainly NOT a figment of my imagination!
My family has always loved reading--my parents have a huge room in the house stocked with thousands of their books. I inherited this love from them - I love getting books.
Well, now it's getting to the point where I have too much to read. I have all those Victorian novels to read for English, I have three novels to review for Green Man Review, and another book on the way (a George R R Martin novel in a series I love, but I have to do it as an omnibus with the other previous novels - novels that are 600 pages long, or longer.)
Not to mention I have a gigantic list of books I want to read, culled from Locus and Entertainment Weekly reviews - none of them I've even come close to being able to read. I also have the Jasper FForde books, and the Neil Gaiman books, and all of my parents books which they are always insisting I read (Shogun, the Lord Peter Whimsys, Starship Troopers, etc.). And that's not even mentioning all of the classics (Dickens, Bronte, Austen, Falkner, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Revelations, Timothy, Acts of the Apostles...) that I believe I have to read if I want to have any respect at all in writers'-circles.
And yet, today, when my parents went to the bookstore, I tagged along and got them to buy me another one. Shinjuu, by Laura Joh Rowland. What is the matter with me? Well, I guess I know what's the matter. I simply can't bear to be left out of a "treat" situation, so I take what's offered without thinking about how good it is for me. I think I might even have to give up TV to finish reading all that I have to read. I might have to save up to buy another bookcase, or throw out some junk so that I can clear off another shelf to put them on. I might have to stay up later reading (and do it in a sitting position, I always fall asleep after reading one paragraph if I attempt it lying down) and wake up earlier to read (even though it annoys Sister #1, who sees my light under the door and thinks I'm staying in bed on purpose so that I don't have to go down first and empty the dishwasher - which isn't what I'm doing. I swear.) . I just don't know what to do - I never thought that I'd be in a situation when one of my favourite pasttimes has become a stressful burden to me.
By the way - my hit counter turns out to have been a good thing after all - I thought it would go up once, maybe twice a day if one of my relatives visited it - but close to ten people see it a day, even more sometimes. This also means that I must start writing in it with regularity, because I don't want to disappoint you dear readers, who, as it turns out, are most certainly NOT a figment of my imagination!
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
I've Added New Stuff!
Namely, a hit counter - so I can see how many dear readers I actually have. Whether this will prove, or shatter my beliefs that my blog is at least a tiny, humble, perfectly modest hit, is yet to be seen.
Currently, I'm pretty stressed. I've been lazy, and the result it that now I'm scrambling to study and read and take notes, and apply for scholarships and make the deadlines...
I can only fervently hope this is all over by November, so that I can participate in NaNoWriMo unimpeded. I've joined the forums now, so you may all go to www.nanowrimo.org and have a chat with me, if you like. The website is very detailed, and I've already signed up for parties and stuff with my other regional writers.
Currently, I'm pretty stressed. I've been lazy, and the result it that now I'm scrambling to study and read and take notes, and apply for scholarships and make the deadlines...
I can only fervently hope this is all over by November, so that I can participate in NaNoWriMo unimpeded. I've joined the forums now, so you may all go to www.nanowrimo.org and have a chat with me, if you like. The website is very detailed, and I've already signed up for parties and stuff with my other regional writers.
Monday, October 10, 2005
New Novel!
As you may have noticed, I've signed up for NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November.
Basically, the point of the contest is to write a 50 000 word novel from November 1st to 30th. Meanwhile, people from all over the world get together and have writing parties and participate in writing forums to prepare for the big event.
I already have a novel planned (Reading the Willow King), that I haven't started writing yet, that I will save until November to write like crazy. Wish me luck!
Check out the official website, if you dare. It sounds like a great idea, and they're raising money to build libraries in Laos.
Basically, the point of the contest is to write a 50 000 word novel from November 1st to 30th. Meanwhile, people from all over the world get together and have writing parties and participate in writing forums to prepare for the big event.
I already have a novel planned (Reading the Willow King), that I haven't started writing yet, that I will save until November to write like crazy. Wish me luck!
Check out the official website, if you dare. It sounds like a great idea, and they're raising money to build libraries in Laos.
Blogging from the Mountain Tops
‘Tis me, dear readers, about to experience a most enjoyable Thanksgiving Weekend. After my grandparents, who had previously hosted the large holiday dinners like Thanksgiving at their house, moved from said house to a luxurious condo, we’ve always had the big feasts at our house. They are worth the trouble and the effort, in the end, but really, it does take such a great deal of trouble and effort to organize the whole affair, to cook and baste and stew enough for fourteen people, to bring up the wooden leaf to extend the table, to put on three layers of tablecloths and polish the silver and assign the seats and scrub the house clean.
Not this Thanksgiving, though, thank the Lord! This year, my grandparents have whisked me and my immediate family off to an exclusive mountain resort, where they have secured an entire deluxe cabin for our lodging. We shall be having turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, but now it will not be up to us to make them, and it won’t be up to us to clean up afterwards. Joy of joys!
Everything is excellent. Mum and Dad, Nana and Papa, and my Sisters 1 and 2 all share rooms together, and I get my own (with a king-size bed!). Each room has its own adjoining bathroom, two nighttables and lamps, a phone, a TV, a closet, and a chest of drawers. Not only that, but because we have an entire cabin to ourselves, we also have a fully furnished kitchen, game room, TV room, and living room for our personal amusements.
We spent four hours in the car driving up here, which meant we spent three and half hours listening to loud music by ourselves, and half an hour rubber-necking to see all the mountains. We were warned upon checking in that it was elk mating season, and to not interfere between a bull elk and its harem of attractive elk concubines, because horny male elk tended to smash everything that moves near their pretty ladies. I figured this was to warn people who were going to take nature walks, and was most unnerved to find not one, but three bull elk and about thirteen cow elk clustered around our cabin. They were eventually chased off by a caretaker with what looked like a gigantic bright-yellow mop, but I will have to remember to be careful when I move from my cabin to the reception desk and the heated pool.
--
Of course, while all of this was all well and good, it was getting a bit late, and so we headed down to one of the restaurants around the resort for supper, on our grandmother's reservations. We were ushered into a dimly-lit establishment with musak (the worse kind, the kind with jazz sax and clarinet!), where we had to wait another hour to get our food, which was burnt. After alerting the staff to my fatal allergies, I was not allowed to eat bread, and the waitress mixed up our drink orders after spending ten minutes getting them. The only consolation was my dessert, which was specially made for me (the manager was actually quite helpful and accomodating), which was a large plate of fondue with pieces of cake and cookie and strawberry and melon to dip into it.
--
When we finally went to bed, we found the elk all sleeping around our cabin.
--
On Saturday, the elk were gone, and we all went our separate ways for the activities. My sisters went swimming, and I followed them after a time, eventually purchasing goggles so that I didn't have to doggie-paddle towards the the shore of the pool with my eyes tightly shut every time my head went underwater. We had a long lunch (long due to the service, because the resort was very busy for the Thanksgiving festivities), my sister #1, Mum, and Nana went on a kitchen tour, my father on a nature walk (which turned out to be intended for children), and I went back to the cabin to work on my short stories.
--
The dinner this time was a buffet, and since my mother had the foresight to call attention to my allergies during the kitchen tour, when we arrived at the dining hall, a very nice sous-chef named Todd came out to lead me through the whole buffet. Soup was in, bread was out. Meat was in, cheese was out. I managed very handsomely (although I limited most of my choices to meat), but could only manage some ice cream for dessert, because all of the deserts had been exposed to nuts and the kitchen was far too busy to do anything else, something I completely understand.
--
We have a sing-along on Saturday night (during which every family member is annoyed with at one point or another - the "young'un's" like my sisters and I because we don't know all the old Irish hymns my grandparents sing, and the older ones because they don't approve of the word "ass" in the songs that the "young'uns" choose), and then charades--which was quite hysterical during some parts of it, because we knew each other so well, one would only have to charade one word for a family to call out the eight-word movie title they were thinking off.
--
Sunday morning, no elk. We went to church in town, where I was reduced to pent-up hysterics by the end of it due to the creepy priest, who spoke horribly slowly with a terrible accent and a half-disgrunted, half-murderous look on his face. We finally managed to leave, and participate in the brunch, where Todd again leads me through the buffet.
I love brunch buffets--because it usually means waffles, the large, thick belgian kind, with lots of whipped cream and berries and hot syrup to go with them. I was horrified during the buffet tour because Todd told me to AVOID the waffles because they bought the batter from a company that might have exposed the batter to nuts. Without pastries or bread or cheese allowed, I began to miserably plan my meal around slices of greasy bacon, pan-fried potatoes, and bacon-potato salad, when Todd showed up again to correct his previous statement - as long I wasn't allergic to soybean oil, the waffles were fine. To my delight, they didn't just have hot syrup, they had hot MAPLE syrup, something so expensive that I rarely have it but tastes heavenly on waffles.
--
We go shopping afterwards, but no one gets anything after we entered a shop that actually charged about $25 more then the prices they advertised, which is illegal. We left in a huff, and alerted the front desk to their activities.
Mum and Dad and I go for a short walk to see the other Special Cabins. We saw the one that the Queen usually stays at, that actually burned down in 2001 and had to be rebuilt identical to what it had been for $3 million.
We also saw the special cabin that was reputed to be haunted (some homekeepers still refused to clean it), after a staff member in the 50s broke her neck falling down the steep stairwells.
I finished the first draft of my short story, "The Desert Muse". I'd started it a few months ago, but stopped working on it after I felt too disgusted with it to continue. Needless to say, I finished it, and while it still needs work, at least it's finished.
Dinner was a plated meal, and even with my allergies I didn't miss much - I still got to have turkey and candied yams and pumpkin tart.
After supper Mom and the girls and I watched Desperate Housewives before going to bed.
---
Monday (today)
The elk returned, and came so close to the cabin that we watched, in still-faced wonder, as the bull elk of the herd nibbled the hedges beneath our first-floor window. We spent most of the morning watching them, when we were not packing and getting ready to leave and discovering that I'd lost my goggles. I think it's safe to say that after such a wonderfully luxurious stay, I've been forever spoiled for other, lesser hotels/resorts.
Not this Thanksgiving, though, thank the Lord! This year, my grandparents have whisked me and my immediate family off to an exclusive mountain resort, where they have secured an entire deluxe cabin for our lodging. We shall be having turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, but now it will not be up to us to make them, and it won’t be up to us to clean up afterwards. Joy of joys!
Everything is excellent. Mum and Dad, Nana and Papa, and my Sisters 1 and 2 all share rooms together, and I get my own (with a king-size bed!). Each room has its own adjoining bathroom, two nighttables and lamps, a phone, a TV, a closet, and a chest of drawers. Not only that, but because we have an entire cabin to ourselves, we also have a fully furnished kitchen, game room, TV room, and living room for our personal amusements.
We spent four hours in the car driving up here, which meant we spent three and half hours listening to loud music by ourselves, and half an hour rubber-necking to see all the mountains. We were warned upon checking in that it was elk mating season, and to not interfere between a bull elk and its harem of attractive elk concubines, because horny male elk tended to smash everything that moves near their pretty ladies. I figured this was to warn people who were going to take nature walks, and was most unnerved to find not one, but three bull elk and about thirteen cow elk clustered around our cabin. They were eventually chased off by a caretaker with what looked like a gigantic bright-yellow mop, but I will have to remember to be careful when I move from my cabin to the reception desk and the heated pool.
--
Of course, while all of this was all well and good, it was getting a bit late, and so we headed down to one of the restaurants around the resort for supper, on our grandmother's reservations. We were ushered into a dimly-lit establishment with musak (the worse kind, the kind with jazz sax and clarinet!), where we had to wait another hour to get our food, which was burnt. After alerting the staff to my fatal allergies, I was not allowed to eat bread, and the waitress mixed up our drink orders after spending ten minutes getting them. The only consolation was my dessert, which was specially made for me (the manager was actually quite helpful and accomodating), which was a large plate of fondue with pieces of cake and cookie and strawberry and melon to dip into it.
--
When we finally went to bed, we found the elk all sleeping around our cabin.
--
On Saturday, the elk were gone, and we all went our separate ways for the activities. My sisters went swimming, and I followed them after a time, eventually purchasing goggles so that I didn't have to doggie-paddle towards the the shore of the pool with my eyes tightly shut every time my head went underwater. We had a long lunch (long due to the service, because the resort was very busy for the Thanksgiving festivities), my sister #1, Mum, and Nana went on a kitchen tour, my father on a nature walk (which turned out to be intended for children), and I went back to the cabin to work on my short stories.
--
The dinner this time was a buffet, and since my mother had the foresight to call attention to my allergies during the kitchen tour, when we arrived at the dining hall, a very nice sous-chef named Todd came out to lead me through the whole buffet. Soup was in, bread was out. Meat was in, cheese was out. I managed very handsomely (although I limited most of my choices to meat), but could only manage some ice cream for dessert, because all of the deserts had been exposed to nuts and the kitchen was far too busy to do anything else, something I completely understand.
--
We have a sing-along on Saturday night (during which every family member is annoyed with at one point or another - the "young'un's" like my sisters and I because we don't know all the old Irish hymns my grandparents sing, and the older ones because they don't approve of the word "ass" in the songs that the "young'uns" choose), and then charades--which was quite hysterical during some parts of it, because we knew each other so well, one would only have to charade one word for a family to call out the eight-word movie title they were thinking off.
--
Sunday morning, no elk. We went to church in town, where I was reduced to pent-up hysterics by the end of it due to the creepy priest, who spoke horribly slowly with a terrible accent and a half-disgrunted, half-murderous look on his face. We finally managed to leave, and participate in the brunch, where Todd again leads me through the buffet.
I love brunch buffets--because it usually means waffles, the large, thick belgian kind, with lots of whipped cream and berries and hot syrup to go with them. I was horrified during the buffet tour because Todd told me to AVOID the waffles because they bought the batter from a company that might have exposed the batter to nuts. Without pastries or bread or cheese allowed, I began to miserably plan my meal around slices of greasy bacon, pan-fried potatoes, and bacon-potato salad, when Todd showed up again to correct his previous statement - as long I wasn't allergic to soybean oil, the waffles were fine. To my delight, they didn't just have hot syrup, they had hot MAPLE syrup, something so expensive that I rarely have it but tastes heavenly on waffles.
--
We go shopping afterwards, but no one gets anything after we entered a shop that actually charged about $25 more then the prices they advertised, which is illegal. We left in a huff, and alerted the front desk to their activities.
Mum and Dad and I go for a short walk to see the other Special Cabins. We saw the one that the Queen usually stays at, that actually burned down in 2001 and had to be rebuilt identical to what it had been for $3 million.
We also saw the special cabin that was reputed to be haunted (some homekeepers still refused to clean it), after a staff member in the 50s broke her neck falling down the steep stairwells.
I finished the first draft of my short story, "The Desert Muse". I'd started it a few months ago, but stopped working on it after I felt too disgusted with it to continue. Needless to say, I finished it, and while it still needs work, at least it's finished.
Dinner was a plated meal, and even with my allergies I didn't miss much - I still got to have turkey and candied yams and pumpkin tart.
After supper Mom and the girls and I watched Desperate Housewives before going to bed.
---
Monday (today)
The elk returned, and came so close to the cabin that we watched, in still-faced wonder, as the bull elk of the herd nibbled the hedges beneath our first-floor window. We spent most of the morning watching them, when we were not packing and getting ready to leave and discovering that I'd lost my goggles. I think it's safe to say that after such a wonderfully luxurious stay, I've been forever spoiled for other, lesser hotels/resorts.
Monday, October 03, 2005
Confessions....
I'm currently experiencing one of those periods where I look upon my future career as a writer with dread.
It's a hard life, being a writer, and to be honest, I've become accustomed to an upper-middle-class life of standard luxury. I don't know what other marketable skills I have other than writing, and so what will I do for a living? I mean, I belong to an online writer's group for fantasy authors, and ALL of them are hoping to be published, but some of them write like crap, only they don't know it. Here comes the tingle of self-doubt: what if I am a horrible writer, only I don't know it? My parents think my writing is great, but they are my parents. They insist they are being subjective, but as their daughter, my instinct is to disbelieve anything positive they might say about my writing.
I mean, I might want to go into teaching (that's the only other career idea I have right now - I don't have the memory capacity or stamina to be a doctor or a lawyer, and I don't have the people skills necessary to go into advertising, and the city where I live is not enough of a cultural hub to lend copywriters any great opportunities), but will I have time for writing, then?
This whole train of thought leaves me feeling depressed and self-conscious. I feel like everything's wrong with me except for my writing, and the only reason that my writing's excluded is because I don't know for sure. I'm lazy, I can't cook, I can't clean (I'm a lazy perfectionist, which means it takes about 3 hours of lacklustre work to complete a task that should only take an hour of dedicated work), I can't keep things organized and neat to save my life, I can't shop - everything I buy shrinks, so I continually believe that my clothes look horrible on me and that everyone else knows it - I think I'm ugly, or at best, "unconventionally beautiful", I can't pay attention, I can't remember things, I'm overweight with an addictive personality (I thank God I never started smoking, or else I'd never be able to quit that - I'm having a hard time quitting a bizarre habit of rocking back and forth while I listen to music, a habit I am certain is giving me brain damage), nobody likes me, I can't make friends, or if I do, I'm inconsiderate and can never bring myself to keep in touch with them for more than a few weeks before I forget about them, I want to own cats but am now certain I could never stand to own one because I'd just be compelled to wash my hands every time I'd pet her, I'm narrow-minded and habitual, I don't like travelling or trying new things, even though those things are integral to being a good writer, I limit my writing because I don't know enough about how the world works to write well about it, and I think that I'll never know enough because I watch too much TV and keep my head in the clouds or down in the sand and never read the political bits in the newspaper, and don't even know where to start with fieldwork and research, I'm selfish, I like to talk, I spend money irresponsibly and never keep up-to-date on my finances, I'm petty, I'm immature, I'm pretty sure I'm a racist, I can't tolerate mistakes in others when I make so many myself, I think I'm losing my hearing, I label myself a devout Catholic even though I daydream about cartoons in Church half the time, I like to sing but am never willing to train myself professionally and feel envious of anyone who sings better than I do, I'm vain (during the periods where I do not think I'm ugly), I'm proud, I like to flaunt all my tiny accomplishments as if I invented How to Make Chocolate Pudding All By Myself and How To Get an Encouraging Rejection Letter, I'm vengeful towards my sisters, I manipulate my mother to get angry at my father whenever he picks on me, I'm a hypochondriac, I don't want to grow up and get my own doctor and my own dentist and my own optomitrist, I can't drive, I daydream all the time, I can't keep my room clean, I can never remember which ridiculously fruity socks my sisters wear when I do the laundry so I always give them the wrong ones, I can always find an excuse for not working (like writing in my blog), I worry all the time about being poor, I rarely give to charity, I'm always wishing that my high school years had been like the ones on TV, I feel nostalgic for when I was in elementary school and didn't have to worry about all of this, I'm greedy, I think I have an eating disorder (too much food in, instead of too much food out), I love to mooch off of others while contributing as little as I can, when given essay topics I always go for the one I think is easiest, I can't help but think that every writing idea I get has been done and re-done hundreds of times, I'm convinced I'm not up-to-speed with every other student on the university campus who talks about "the postmodernist populism of post-Imperial Britian" or some such thing involving post-whachamacallits and somethingisms, I've never kissed a guy, I'm afraid I'll die a virgin, I'm tempted to become a nun just so that I don't have to think anymore, I lie and exaggerate the facts and say I saw someone do a crazy thing for laughs when it was really me and I was too embarassed to say that I did it, I talk during movies, I'm always afraid my mother is going to die, and I can't help but think that the best years of my life are over.
And I'm only 19.
It's a hard life, being a writer, and to be honest, I've become accustomed to an upper-middle-class life of standard luxury. I don't know what other marketable skills I have other than writing, and so what will I do for a living? I mean, I belong to an online writer's group for fantasy authors, and ALL of them are hoping to be published, but some of them write like crap, only they don't know it. Here comes the tingle of self-doubt: what if I am a horrible writer, only I don't know it? My parents think my writing is great, but they are my parents. They insist they are being subjective, but as their daughter, my instinct is to disbelieve anything positive they might say about my writing.
I mean, I might want to go into teaching (that's the only other career idea I have right now - I don't have the memory capacity or stamina to be a doctor or a lawyer, and I don't have the people skills necessary to go into advertising, and the city where I live is not enough of a cultural hub to lend copywriters any great opportunities), but will I have time for writing, then?
This whole train of thought leaves me feeling depressed and self-conscious. I feel like everything's wrong with me except for my writing, and the only reason that my writing's excluded is because I don't know for sure. I'm lazy, I can't cook, I can't clean (I'm a lazy perfectionist, which means it takes about 3 hours of lacklustre work to complete a task that should only take an hour of dedicated work), I can't keep things organized and neat to save my life, I can't shop - everything I buy shrinks, so I continually believe that my clothes look horrible on me and that everyone else knows it - I think I'm ugly, or at best, "unconventionally beautiful", I can't pay attention, I can't remember things, I'm overweight with an addictive personality (I thank God I never started smoking, or else I'd never be able to quit that - I'm having a hard time quitting a bizarre habit of rocking back and forth while I listen to music, a habit I am certain is giving me brain damage), nobody likes me, I can't make friends, or if I do, I'm inconsiderate and can never bring myself to keep in touch with them for more than a few weeks before I forget about them, I want to own cats but am now certain I could never stand to own one because I'd just be compelled to wash my hands every time I'd pet her, I'm narrow-minded and habitual, I don't like travelling or trying new things, even though those things are integral to being a good writer, I limit my writing because I don't know enough about how the world works to write well about it, and I think that I'll never know enough because I watch too much TV and keep my head in the clouds or down in the sand and never read the political bits in the newspaper, and don't even know where to start with fieldwork and research, I'm selfish, I like to talk, I spend money irresponsibly and never keep up-to-date on my finances, I'm petty, I'm immature, I'm pretty sure I'm a racist, I can't tolerate mistakes in others when I make so many myself, I think I'm losing my hearing, I label myself a devout Catholic even though I daydream about cartoons in Church half the time, I like to sing but am never willing to train myself professionally and feel envious of anyone who sings better than I do, I'm vain (during the periods where I do not think I'm ugly), I'm proud, I like to flaunt all my tiny accomplishments as if I invented How to Make Chocolate Pudding All By Myself and How To Get an Encouraging Rejection Letter, I'm vengeful towards my sisters, I manipulate my mother to get angry at my father whenever he picks on me, I'm a hypochondriac, I don't want to grow up and get my own doctor and my own dentist and my own optomitrist, I can't drive, I daydream all the time, I can't keep my room clean, I can never remember which ridiculously fruity socks my sisters wear when I do the laundry so I always give them the wrong ones, I can always find an excuse for not working (like writing in my blog), I worry all the time about being poor, I rarely give to charity, I'm always wishing that my high school years had been like the ones on TV, I feel nostalgic for when I was in elementary school and didn't have to worry about all of this, I'm greedy, I think I have an eating disorder (too much food in, instead of too much food out), I love to mooch off of others while contributing as little as I can, when given essay topics I always go for the one I think is easiest, I can't help but think that every writing idea I get has been done and re-done hundreds of times, I'm convinced I'm not up-to-speed with every other student on the university campus who talks about "the postmodernist populism of post-Imperial Britian" or some such thing involving post-whachamacallits and somethingisms, I've never kissed a guy, I'm afraid I'll die a virgin, I'm tempted to become a nun just so that I don't have to think anymore, I lie and exaggerate the facts and say I saw someone do a crazy thing for laughs when it was really me and I was too embarassed to say that I did it, I talk during movies, I'm always afraid my mother is going to die, and I can't help but think that the best years of my life are over.
And I'm only 19.
Friday, September 30, 2005
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.
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 "
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.
Monday, September 26, 2005
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.
-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.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
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.
"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.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
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!
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!
Saturday, August 27, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
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.
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.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
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!
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
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.
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.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
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.
And I've lost it. I'm sure it was funny, but it belongs to God, now.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
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
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
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