droftreeology's Xanga

Friday, December 18, 2009

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:36:29 GMT

I'm so bad. I haven't blogged in way too long.

It's because I don't like to just post "This is what I did today" blogs on here. I like them to have a little more wholesomeness. It's much easier to post those kinds of blogs; I actually have to work at posting something here.

I have a pensive 2009 and 2000's post in mind... I'll have to get it ready to close out the decade!

I finished writing my novel. It's a little weird not having to work on it every day. Now I just need to revise and edit it. Right now I'm actually interviewing my characters. It's amazing how much I'm able to learn about them by writing like that. Writing is so weird. I can't just sit down and make things up about my characters, I have to talk to them. Honestly, the creative process, for anything, is just weird. It's really good though, because it's making me think of holes in my plot and characters and such. I don't want to have lame characters.

I didn't want to have to create any history in my story, but any story needs a history, I guess. And since I'm writing a medieval fantasy type thing, it needs history more than anything. Like LOTR. I'm channeling Tolkien. Anyway, interviewing my characters makes it easier to make up their personal histories and the history of their country.

I'm also being the designer and editor and all of that stuff for the print version. I'm pretty sure I mentioned in my last blog that the winners all get a free paperback copy of their novel. So I've been preparing the cover and figuring out which fonts to use on the inside and for chapter headings. I made a photo-manip cover and it turned out much better than I thought it would. I'm so glad I decided to use some stock photography!

I'm turning 20 in ten days. I wonder what my 20s will be like. Probably just as eventful as my teens. But longer of course, because I was only a teen for 6 years. My 20s get to be a full decade. :)

I've been listening to a Columbian singer named Fonseca a lot. I found him in Spanish class, and I ended up really liking his music.

Ahhh...

Taking Spanish has made me appreciate my Hispanic heritage a whole lot more. The Spanish diaspora is huge, "Hispanic" doesn't just mean Mexican, with light brown skin and black hair. There are the more European looking Hispanics, and then black Hispanics. It's crazy.

It's about time that I felt more in touch with that part of me, since I'm equal parts Irish and Scottish and Hispanic. (My grandpa was from New Mexico. Or Texas or something like that.) I only say Hispanic because I have no idea what kind of Hispanic I am. haha.

Haha, my 15 year old sister doesn't like my Columbian music. She said the accordian makes her want to throw up. I love accordian, and you can find it in so many different cultures around the world.

Okay, I'd better go. I haven't even eaten breakfast yet. But I should blog here more often, this is fun. I forgot how much I liked posting blogs that I actually thought about.

NaNoWriMo

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:16:56 GMT

I finished NaNoWriMo on Saturday! I forgot to write about it! haha

I got to 50,039 words, and before dinner! It was great. I celebrated by eating two sour cream turkey enchiladas. :) That's my favorite way to eat leftover turkey. My least favorite part of Thanksgiving is the leftover turkey! As long as my mom does something more with it than putting it in a soup or just reheating it, I'm okay with the turkey.

My goal was actually to finish writing yesterday, so I was happy that I was able to finish a day early. I didn't want to rush around trying to finish writing today, since I have finals coming up. I'll probably do some writing this morning though.

I'm still not done with my story. I'm very close to the end though, or so I think. I should finish the story within 10,000 more words. Then I can edit!

I can't believe it's the last week of this quarter already. Last year fall quarter went by really fast too, and I'm not sure why.

I'd better go. I have an astronomy lab I need to type up.

Blog.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:56:19 GMT

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm really enjoying just spending time with my family. I think we're going to watch Jim Carrey's Christmas Carol tomorrow, possibly with the way cool 3D glasses.

Also, I'm almost 44,000 words into my NaNo novel. I kept worrying that I was going to run out of plot before I got to 50,000 words, but I'm not worried at all anymore. It's going very smoothly right now.

I don't know if I said this on here before, but since I was able to be so productive with my free time, I've decided that even though school is still going on, I'm going to try learning more Irish and some Swedish as well. I can do that! I found some amazing, complete, and free resources in various places all over the web for learning Irish. I love it. I don't have to pay $500 to learn it from Rosetta Stone. Yay for internet.

I've been sick this week, and so I've got all this junk going around in my body. It started with my sinuses and now it's moving toward my lungs. Eh, it's great. My voice is really messed up.

Anyway, that's all for now. I wanted to post here since I forgot about it for a while.

Oh, I should mention, I'm reading Pride & Prejudice. I love it. It used to be really hard for me to read books that were written in the 1800s, or even Tolkien. Something changed in my brain though, and that stuff is easier for me. It makes reading a lot better, since I can read classics without feeling burdened by the language.

Bye for real now. Don't eat too much. I've heard that between Christmas and Thanksgiving adults gain like 15 pounds. (!!!!) And over the years, even if they lose weight, they still add about a pound permanently to their weight each holiday season. So, don't go crazy. You'll still have food to eat tomorrow.

Goodbye, fair prince.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:44:31 GMT

I've finally come to the part where what I've written is actually making way for the plot to happen. My introduction ended up being wayy too long. But here's the important part; I've finally come to the part of the story that matters. Unfortunately the whole point of writing Prince Aidan was so he could die and get the story going. And unfortunately I'm sad to see him go.

Farewell.

The Power of the Internet at Work

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:54:19 GMT

For the past two and a half months I've been following the progress of these four English YouTubers on their journey to write and produce a song and music video to see how high in the UK charts they could get. They're pretty high in the UK charts right now, the song's been up for two days and already shot up to the top 30.

All the money they're making is going straight to charity for children in need. ("Children in need" may be the title of the charity...)

I wanted to share it with you! Part of history! It's amazing how powerful the internet is. It makes me very proud to be a part of this generation.

And here's their YouTube channel where you can find some more information.

And the song is really catchy!

Shout-Out on the Radio

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:08:21 GMT

I was listening to my favorite station, LiveIreland-which is broadcast from Dublin-this morning and sent in a request for a Liam Ó Maonlaí song and a hello. I recorded it with my digital camera since I don't have a way to record just sound. The sound is really quiet, so you'll have to turn it up to hear.

Pretty exciting, even if it isn't a major radio station. :D

I have to blog about this.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:05:02 GMT

I was doing my homework like a responsible student when I came across this in my logic text:

For instance, suppose that if George orders a double cheeseburger, then Joe will order one. Suppose also that if Joe orders a double cheeseburger, Fred will order one too. If so, what can you expect if George does order a double cheeseburger?

Before Harry Potter, Fred and George were the most boring names on the planet. They were kind of the default names my mom would use to name people or things. Along with Bob, and Joe is another one of those "Mr. Smith" names. I'm sure it's that way for most people. Most normal people. As soon as I read "Fred" I was all excited and imagined two tall skinny redhead twins ordering cheeseburgers at a local diner. And who cares about Joe? Because the inference for that particular set of premises is "If George orders a double cheeseburger, then Fred will order a double cheeseburger."

Mmhmm. Weasley twins for the win.

But not cheeseburgers, because I'm not a fan of cheeseburgers.

Mrs. Nickel

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:08:47 GMT

I went to school in a town of less than 2,000 people for seven years. Five out of those seven years were spent at the high school/middle school building, where for most of those five years I had a certain teacher named Mrs. Nickel.

When I moved up to the middle school in sixth grade, she was the well-known teacher. She seemed kind of mean and strict. I learned quickly who she was though, and of course in a middle school of less than 100 kids, got to know her a bit. She called herself the queen, and had colorful pictures of dolphins splashed all over her classroom. She had pictures of dreamboats from the sixties and seventies and as much dolphin paraphernalia that couldn't be hung up on the wall. She had a very commanding presence and a loud unashamed laugh, with a loud sense of humor to accompany.

At the end of my sixth grade year we were choosing our classes, and we had a choice between Mrs. Nickel or another teacher for homeroom. I chose Mrs. Nickel, despite the fact that two of my friends thought she was too mean. I knew the truth, that she wasn't mean. Later I told her that and she said that she liked to make the sixth graders afraid of her.

I was glad that I chose her class. She taught me English, social studies (which is basically history) and a study skills class. I remember so much of her teaching: always use semicolons to make people think you're smart, read the questions in your textbook and scan the first and last line of the paragraph to make the reading go more quickly, and never forget how terrible the Holocaust was. She was also a driver's ed teacher and told me to never drive over anything in the road. I still use that piece of advice, even though she didn't teach me how to drive.

When I entered high school, I was on the yearbook team which she led for the two years I was there. So I was always around her, always there for hugs or advice or little bits of wisdom. She was a much beloved teacher. I was shocked to learn that she passed away last Friday, of a heart attack. She had just turned 60, and still had maybe five gray hairs on her head. She was so youthful and funny.

She used to say that her favorite bible verse was, "Man shall not live by bread alone. He must have some peanut butter to go with it." She loved peanut butter and Nutella. She used to crack funny jokes, most of them were a bit on the crude side. She's tell kids, "I'd break your butt but there's already a crack in it!" and then laugh loudly.

I went to her memorial service yesterday, and there were about 500-700 people there, most of them former students of hers. She taught there for almost thirty years. She was also one of the two people I knew who had a teaching certificate for K-12th grade. They don't issue those anymore. I had the great honor of signing Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" for her, with former members of the ASL (American Sign Language) Club. It made me proud to go back there and see so many people she had touched and to see old friends. It made me very proud to grow up in such a place and to have a teacher like her.

I couldn't possibly write everything I want to about her. Most of the things are just small things, small ways in which she impacted me. On the whole, she influenced me profoundly. She influenced every one of her students just as much as me, if not more. She will be very sorely missed, by me and by everyone who knew her.

Type Monster

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:34:34 GMT

Nearing 5,000 words. I can't type any more story stuff. I'm an overachiever though, the word count goal for today was 3,334 and I'm at 4,414.

I wanted to share with you really quickly who I have in mind while I'm writing about Prince Aidan.

Domhnall (Donal) Gleeson, who I think spells his name with ó, but I'm not sure. Not that it makes a difference in pronunciation. He's been cast as Bill Weasley for the last two HP movies and I'm excited to see him in that, although it will be weird hearing an English accent.

I watched this video the other day after I decided to make that character look like him and thought he made a great prince. I think he's princely-looking.

My dry eyes are hurting now. Time for bed, oíche maith!

Aidan

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:22:43 GMT

I took some pictures of my Hermionarry/Hermione Potter costume from yesterday.

Hermione Potter is a Ravenclaw.

Here's the first excerpt from my story for NaNoWriMo, called Olwen. I really love this character. :D I'm taking a break now. So far I've written 749 words. I'm almost halfway to my daily quota.

Aidan opened his sparkling grey-blue eyes.