you live your life as if it's real

 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.

 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...

i.  Heath Ledger died.
ii. Despite ranting in the DII chat, to Steph, to Andrea, to my mother, and to SR, certain family issues are still really bothering me.
iii. The fire-alarm went off at 5:15am today.
iv. I have a criticism essay due in one week. I've only done one of the readings.
v. I'm now behind in Latin and Greek, though I've been trying not to sink.
vi. Three Days Grace was in Kitchener, all of a ten minute city bus ride away, for two nights in a row. Yesterday and the day before. I found out last night.
vii. I'm having trouble sleeping at night.
viii. Steph is getting sick.

I am more shocked than I can say at the news of Heath Ledger's death. I spent all intermediate and high school fangirling over him. He was incredibly talented and could have done such amazing things. It's really weird to feel this way. My mind just skips over thinking about it, but can't think about anything else for long. What happens when the shock wears off?

I feel so sorry for those who actually knew him.

 Milestone! I've been revising "A Thing of Many Facets" slowly over the past week. Didn't really make any major changes, mostly just cut a few unnecessary words and added a few for clarity here and there. The only major change I made was adding two sentences to the ending paragraph to give it a bit more weight and hopefully fix the (very valid) concerns that shade53had with it.

"A Thing of Many Facets"
Starting word count: 1,489
Ending word count: 1,530

I submitted it to Fickle Muses tonight. Not a paying market, but it was the one I could find whose guidelines seemed to match my story best. First ever submission! (Unless you count my high school magazine, in which case it's my fourth ever submission.)

So now I wait, almost certainly for a rejection. In the meantime, I'll create a spreadsheet for keeping track of submissions.

... Alright, that's done. Now what? Right. Wait.

Good thing I have Iliad and Aeneid translations to do.

(Oh yeah, and I've been on a big TRAX kick lately. Can you tell?)

Edit: I was tagged by bluebonnets!

Ten things.

i. Don't believe me when I say my skin is really ridiculously dry? I rugburned my elbow a couple days ago by rolling over in my sleep. My sheets are flannel. Point proven.

ii. Haven't updated much recently. Been really busy. However, I'm now back in Ottawa for the holidays, and exams are over. I've gotten all but one of my marks back, and so far the lowest is 81. (Greek, obviously.) Last mark to get back is English, I expect something in the 80s.

iii. The pillow icon won over the umbrella icon because I'm more tired right now, and also the umbrella icon makes me a lot happier than wetness did today.

iv. Visited with my Nana, Uncle, Aunt and cousins on the way home. Had a pretty good time, except that my Nana is observably worse. =/

v. I'm pretty sure I'm done all my shopping. I can't remember one of the things I got for my brother, though, and I'm wondering whether this means I hallucinated getting him another thing or not. We'll see when I wrap gifts tomorrow. I really hope I got him the same number of things I got everyone else.

vi. The new floors in my house and the new colour in the living room/front landing are really exciting.

vii. Less exciting is the fact that it's now very obvious that the worker men didn't do a very good job fixing our roof. Oh, sure, the spot it used to leak doesn't leak anymore. Now there are three or four leaks all along one wall in the family room. Nothing says Christmas like a bunch of pails with water in them right beside your Christmas tree! Ugh.

viii. My dad, being the genius he is, decided to keep the Christmas tree he and my sister bought a couple weeks ago lying on its side in the backyard. Since that time, Ottawa has gotten over 40cms of snow. Tree was completely buried. Today, it's been raining really heavily all day. Snow and tree were really wet. Today also, we had to bring the tree inside and set it up in the family room. Entire house, since we had to get it in the front door, up the stairs there, through the living room, across the family room to the corner, was now really wet. Good planning, father.

ix. Once we got the tree standing, the stand tightened around it, the floor mostly dry again, and most of the pine needles picked up, I was starving and decided it was time for a break. After dinner we didn't come right back to it, in retrospect that was a very bad idea. Anyways, sometime later I heard my mom shout for me to bring her more paper towel. The tree has fallen over and a) spilt more melted snow/rain water on the carpet, and b) tipped over its stand and spilt the water from there on the carpet. It was just after that that we noticed the ceiling leaks. One of the windows in that room is leaking too. Got to spend at least 45 mins getting as much water as possible out of the carpet with paper towels. Whee! We used up about 6 full rolls just then.

x. But! After all this hassle -- and only interrupted a few times with "fuck! stepped in the wet spot again!" -- my sister, dad and I got all the lights and garlands up (and tied the tree so it wouldn't fall again). And the living room is mostly clean, so it's starting to really feel like Christmas. The best part of today was that my sister actually found a complete bird's nest in the tree! Can't beat getting a real tree every year. =)

Haven't updated in a few. Not much reason. Couldn't think of anything to say. But now the time has come for another ten things list. Just cuz.

i. I organized all my music today. Actually, I started quite a few days ago and stopped because it was a lot of work. But today I persevered and finished! It was very exciting. I completely wiped my itunes list and re-imported all my files. So now I have all sorts of music that had been lurking forgotten in my received files, like a full Miyavi cd and 3 of his singles, among other things. Whee!

ii. I'm having fun watching the play count in itunes. Just a bit ago most of my songs had like 30+ plays... now they almost all have zero. Mwaha. Also, according to itunes, I have 1312 songs. That's 4.73 GB, or 3.4 days worth of music. ♥

iii. Today was my second presentation in Greek. It didn't go that well. But, it was also the very last thing I have to do for marks this term, until exams start. Yesss!

iv. My Greek exam is alarmingly close. (Dec. 6) I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.... will that help?

v. I am happy. I wasn't, yesterday, and I'm not sure what occasioned the change, but hey, I'll take it.

vi. I have a handful more words done on "Summer of Storms". Hopefully I'll be able to finish it before I go home for Christmas. I've been working on it in my Latin notebook in the classics lounge, and once this guy noticed I was writing and asked me about it. We had a conversation about writing, turned out he writes too (paranormal/urban fantasy political and/or social satire, I gathered, from his rather fuzzy description). So now every time he sees me writing, he goes "working on your book again?" and I feel obliged to insist that it's only a short story. I haven't worked on the novel since September. Bad bunny, I know.

vii. Friday is the ROM trip. Je suis nerveuse. Aucun de mes amis les plus proches viennent. (Je ne sais pas si mon français est correct, mais j'aime parler en français.) Je pense que ça sera le fun... apparament des anciens étudiants de classiques ici seront nos guides. Quand même, je suis nerveuse. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to be brave and meet new people, hang out more with people I'm only sort of friends with.

viii. Oh crap, I should have started charging my ipod a while ago.

ix. I didn't mean for that to be 8. Oh well. I don't think I have that much more to say, anyways. I'm going shopping again on Saturday. I desperately need shoes. Nice shoes. Dressy shoes. The CMS end of term dinner is semi-formal. I have no idea what I'm going to wear. But at the very least, I am determined I shall have nice shoes.

x. Not much longer 'til I'm home for Christmas! So excited to see everyone again! I wonder if my house will still have a trench around it...

Je vous aime tous. ♥

1. I have officially started edits on the-story-that-used-to-be-called-Heart-and-Soul. Only, you know, almost a year and a half after I figured out what was wrong with it. At this rate, in another 10 years, I just may have a finished short story!
   
2. I called home on Sunday, right. And my house has a trench going almost completely around it. (They're repairing the foundation.) It rained like crazy here today. If it also rained in Ottawa... my house has a MOAT! Yeahhhhhhhh I want a drawbridge. This makes me far more excited than it probably should.
   
3. When I go home for Christmas, there are three new floors, a repainted living room, rijigged sleeping arrangements, and countless smaller changes awaiting me. Pretty psyched.
   
4. Got up the courage to post something to the list in DII today, after a conversation with Shade about poetry. I've gotten some comments back already, and it's not as scary as I thought it'd be! I think I can do this whole "receive criticism in a sane manner" thing. (Please remind me I said that when I break down after getting my first harsh crit.)
   
5. Did not clean the bathroom today as planned. I really, really have to stop putting that off.
   
6. I had no pressing homework to do tonight and it felt damn good. Just hung out with the crit group, wrote a little, thought a lot, made an easy dinner... it's been a good night. Tomorrow night is back to having things to do, but I'm hoping that I can stay on top of things now that I've caught up. That is my Goal. Yes, capital G.
   
7. I think I have kicked the habit. Mhm. I'm even confident enough that I'll post it publicly. After eight or so years of compulsively pulling the skin off my lips until it bleeds, I think I've kicked the habit. I still pull at the skin occassionally when stressed, but it hasn't bled in months, and I now dislike the feeling when I do pull at it. I wonder what vice I'll pick up to compensate for this one...
   
8. We're doing Xenophon in Greek now. No more adapted texts in our textbook, which are supposed to be friendly and easy. This is the real deal. Ancient Greek that hasn't been messed around with. I'm pretty much wetting my pants, and I hope we're not tested on it anytime soon. (Homer next term is going to be frightening.) (However, our prof LOVES Xenophon, and it's pretty hilarious to see how excited he gets when talking about how Xenophon broke the rules of genitive absolutes -- which, à la PotC, are more like guidelines, really -- in this instance for stylistic reasons, and Xenophon is just so good at style, and he's just the coolest guy in the whole world past or present. I'm paraphrasing, of course. But yeah, entertaining.)
   
9. Once again, I'm doing the whole wait up for the roomie to get home from work thing. I don't know why. She went and got a tattoo on her wrist which means I have to do the dishes for the next who knows how long until the scab comes off. Sigh. The things I put up with. (I am one hundred percent not serious, by the by. It is a lovely tattoo, and I don't mind doing the dishes.) I think I'm going to go steal one of the romances from her room. I want me some fluffy reading. (In this case, I am serious.)
   
10. Ten things make an entry, even if the tenth thing is nothing substantial. Hah.