"Summer of Storms"
Word count: 828 (Thurs) + 684 (Fri)
Total word count: 3,974
Finished! (Well, for some values of finished. Needs to go through the crit group, and I already can see some stuff that needs work. But the next revision will actually be just revision, not rewriting.)

Now I'm working on "Sparagmos." After that, not sure. Possibly "The Beginning of Change" which just needs a rewrite on the ending, or possibly revisions on two poems.

I figure I should put some time in now on my actual job. Since I'm being paid for it and all...

But before that, dance class today was so much fun. I love learning choreographies. And my teacher had the coolest  new cd. She's going to burn it for me. Bagpipe versions of all sorts of songs... We Will Rock You, Eye of the Tiger, Clocks... and so many others that I can't remember. I only got to listen to a couple tracks, but it is sweeeeet.

Nothing else to report really. Everything is pretty much at the status quo.

 In nerdy and belated news,

Saw Ironman on Monday, and OMG wow it is much love. The same sort of much love as Transformers.

-fangirls-

ALSO! The trailer for the new Batman movie played, and it looks AMAZING. Amazing.

-fangirls more-

 I think I'm being given a hint here...

I have no bed at my parents' house, since my dad took mine. I've been sleeping on a futon in the basement this whole visit home.

Now, I have no key either. It's been taken away to be the key for the lock-box for the real estate agent.

I can take a hint, guys. No bed, no keys? I don't think I'm welcome here anymore :P

And they're selling the house, too, so soon I won't even have it to come home to. Sign goes up on the front lawn today!

Et avec ça, it's back to the salt-mines for me. I hate packing. I'm so so bad at it.

(Oh, and it looks like I'm heading back to Waterloo a day earlier than planned.)

Because I don't know what else to do with this, have some melodramatic!poetry (also, by extension, shitty!poetry):

Quand T'es Parti

Je ne peut rien penser sauf
Tu me manques,
Je ne peut rien dire sauf
Je t'aime encore,
Je ne peut rien sentir
Quand t'es parti. 
 

This got me thinking though -- someday, I'd love to start up a 'zine for bilingual English-French short fiction and poetry. It would be geared towards Canadians (could probably get an arts grant for it), and would have an equal number of English and French works published in it. Not only that, but it would also encourage works that combine both languages together within the same poem/story. As far as I know (and I don't know much, since I haven't gone searching),  there's nothing like that out there currently. Who knows, there's probably something similar started up already, I hope there is. But if not, well, then maybe someday I will start it. Cause I think it's a damn good idea.

What do you guys think, crazy idea or workable idea? (Or "run a damned Google search already, Lillian, it's been done" ?) 

ETA: Did a Google search -- found this site, which will be useful for market hunting, and specifically aea magazine, which does accept submissions in both English and French. From a quick scan, though, that seems to be the only one listed there.

Oh boy have I ever been scarce. Well, a lot of the reason I've been holding off posting is that I was waiting to hear back on the job I wanted this summer. Also, I've just been hella busy. But I have a lot of really exciting updates that I can finally post here.

First, about the job. I had my interview on Friday morning, and I was pretty confident it went well. Got an email this morning from the prof. in charge, and they're hiring me! So I am officially spending my summer buried neck deep in 800-year old Latin, hurray! I get to proofread the automatic text generated version of scanned images of the text. Mostly I'm sure it will be really tedious, but I get to work with one of my favourite profs (the other prof on the project I have never met before), I get to make some money, and most of all, I get experience that is right in the proper field that I want to go in. I am insanely excited =)

Second, about my teeth. Or lack of them... I had all four wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. It was a whole lot of not-fun, but at least it's done. And I guess I'm pretty lucky too. My dentist, as he was pulling them and telling me what he was doing, at one point goes "okay, so the top two are out. They're usually the easiest, so that's why I started with them, the bottom two are usually harder to get out." Pause while he takes out the two bottom ones, and then: "oh... your bottom two came out even easier than the top." He sounded a little bemused, haha. Anyways, my appointment was scheduled for an entire hour longer than I was sitting in the chair. And I had the nice hygenist. Actually, I think all hygenists are saints, must be a job requirement. But I had the extra nice one. All in all, it was pretty good I guess. It was the nausea and inability to keep anything down -- not even water -- later on in the day that was the worst. Today seems better though. Only a brief bit of nausea, and I've managed to eat soup, and my mouth isn't hurting too too bad.

Third, about my sister. She flipped over the handlebars of her bike last Sunday and the doctors were pretty sure she had a broken elbow. This was awful for her as she was all set to be the star quarterback of her school football team, and something else important (hey, I don't know anything about football) for her touch football team. Plus it would mean that she would have to switch which horse she competes on in the summer, and would probably have missed the first couple shows. BUT! It isn't broken! It was just a ligament injury, so now she just has to do some exercises to regain range of motion and strength. The doctor said max. 2 weeks until she can be doing all her sports again. So today has been just full of good news.

Fourth, about my family/family home. Getting the idea why the past week has been complete insanity yet? My parents are selling the house, a prospective buyer wants a closing date of July 1st, another wants to sneak in fast before we list with an agent, all of our stuff has to be cleaned and packed away into a storage unit, my mom has bought a new house, my dad doesn't even know which city he will be looking for a condo in... it just goes on and on. But I'm really, really excited about all the changes. And my mom has agreed to store my piano until I have a place of my own for it, and my sister loves my nice mirror too much to let it be sold/left behind, so my only two larger and more precious objects are going to be taken care of.

This is getting ridiculously long, so I'm going to stop here, and hang out with my ice packs and Lord of the Rings for a while. It's been so long since I read LotR, it's so much fun to re-read it. The Fellowship, minus Gandalf, has just managed to get out of Moria. And re-reading the book, I am annoyed all over again at Liv Tyler's Arwen for stealing Glorfindel's part, but that's a rant for a different day.

 Ten good things:

i. Today is gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. I walked to dance class today in just a sweater!
ii. Going bowling tonight, whee!
iii. My Chaucer essay is FINISHED! (emailed it to the prof -- hope he got it with no problems -- still have to print it off and drop off the hard copy, but still. FINISHED.)
iv. Didn't muck up the championship s.t. in dance class today, so I think that's what I'll dance at the talent show on tuesday -- I'm kinda nervous, but excited, for all the classics people to get a chance to see what I do. I love a chance to show off =)
v. Going to see 21 on Wednesday again with Steph, omg yay!
vi. My Greek prof changed our essay to essentially a personal response, which means I will be able to do it in time and won't need to ask for an extension.
vii. Went out for all-you-can-eat sushi last night, mmmm. And watched Cloverfield after, which I really enjoyed.
viii. Only 13 days left until I'm finished this term. Yes, I'm counting.
ix. The last half of April looks like it will be pretty relaxing... only a booksale, wisdom teeth removal, three dii crits, and Raphael world-building scheduled. And hanging out with the Ottawa-types, of course. bluebonnets, we'd better still be on for girly drinks and sushi!
x. Just the fact that I can come up with ten good things is a good thing!

Time to do laundry now. Then print off essay and walk over to see if STJ is open on Saturdays.

 2008 is a quarter over already, how did that happen?

In my New Year's Day post, I said 2008 would be a good year. And you know, so far, I'm proving myself right. This feels like a good time to remind myself of that, because March has been sort of shit overall. (March has been sort of shit for just about everyone I know, to varying degrees.) But we're only three months into 2008, and already I've managed to do quite a bit. Submitting "A Thing of Many Facets" is way up there on that list, of course, but in general, I've been doing okay. At least I think so, and that's what matters.

Plus, this term I've really been putting myself into more social situations, and the result is that now I'm being invited to more things, and making a lot more friends. (A Big Deal for someone as shy as I am, or was). I've realized that whatever scares you, for no good reason? That's what you should do. Take the risk. It usually won't turn out to be as scary as you first thought.

So, how am I doing on all my goals and resolutions for 2008?


I hope this optimistic outlook manages to hang on through this coming week... Chaucer essay, here I come.

 

In non-fangirl related news, in no particular order, today I:
- found out the concert in NYC is cancelled.
- did not write one single word of my essay, even though it was due 21 minutes ago.
- signed a lease and paid a deposit for a place to live come September.
- did not study Herodotus, even though I have a test on it tomorrow.
- watched Buffy.
- went to class.
- posted a dii crit.

I am an unproductive idiot. Tomorrow has got to be better. But I guess having a place to live is pretty important...

The feast on Monday was delicious. Beef stew (tasted like beer), garlic and bacon mashed potatoes, corned beef with cabbage and carrots and potatoes... mmm. And apple pie and nanaimo bars for dessert. Not so sure how those got dubbed Irish, but I ate them anyways. (It was quite the hardship...)

Went home at like 9:30 though, to watch Buffy with my roommate. And then yesterday when I woke up, I could barely talk and I couldn't breathe, so I decided going to school was not the best idea... and everyone assumed I was hungover. =/ I'd even done my Herodotus translation too...

Today, though, I'm quite a bit better. Not completely better, my head still feels about twice as big as it should be and stuffed with cottonballs, but getting better. I feel like Bilbo in the Hobbit after his barrel ride: "Thag you very buch".

I'm getting a bit antsy about "A Thing of Many Facets". Tomorrow will make it 60 days since I submitted. Duotrope says the average response time is 56 days, and the max is 176. I potentially have a long time to wait still. I'm just wondering, at what point do I query? The submissions page at Fickle Muses doesn't give a response time, so I don't have anything to go off of there.

I know that what I have to focus on is writing more, so that I submit more. But it's hard not to think about it... I did write a couple hundred more words of "Summer of Storms" yesterday though, before Iuliana ambushed me and demanded that I pay attention to her. 1,200 words worth of attention, and it was the fastest I've written anything in a long time. It was such a good feeling... to just let the words spill, and know that they weren't really that great but who cares, just get her thoughts and feelings and actions out there.

I'm going to try and get back to "Summer of Storms" later tonight. I think I've found the feeling of the story again. If I were more talented, it wouldn't be a story at all, it would be an interpretive dance. It has... movement to it. A sort of tug and pull. I want to get it finished in time to post for the Post the Most contest over at DII. Hopefully "Sparagmos" too, but that story is missing something and I don't know what.

Time to go switch my laundry. See my thrilling life...

 The good.
1. "You're my girl. I miss you."
2. Been invited to a lot of different events recently. Feel like a social butterfly. A loved butterfly. And the Arts Gala on Friday was a ton of fun.
3. Snow is slowly starting to melt (and then freeze again). Had one of the first Sightings of spring this morning on the way home from class: mud! And a tiny bit of really squished, really dead grass. Spring is on its way.
4. No latin on Friday means no Ovid to translate this week, means a lot less work this week.
5. Term is almost over, and I have a good three weeks off between the end of exams and the start of summer term.

The bad.
1. The new piercing got infected.
2. Essays, and essays taking up time I would rather be spending otherwise.
3. I am sick. Not sure whether I caught this from someone or whether it's from the infection. Trying to stay on top of it, but it's no fun at all.
4. Because of sick, have decided against going to the Irish feast I'm invited to tonight.
5. Just one of those times when I feel like no matter how hard I try, I'm falling behind, so what's the point? Not fun.

Oh, I forgot one other good thing. I have tomato soup. Actually, it's Super Creamy Spring Vegetable Extravaganza or something like that. But they basically mean tomato. 

ETA: Okay, so I'm going to the feast after all. Can't turn down a ride if it's offered to me. I have the self-discipline of a... very un-self-disciplined thing. But hey, it's St. Patty's day. And meat and potatoes have got to be good for you when you're sick...