you live your life as if it's real

 A quick observation:

There is very little that feels better than coming home after a muscle strength and cardio class and curling up in the sunbeam on my bed to catnap and read Lord of the Rings.

Just saying.

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.

 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.

My newly dyed hair and I went to Toronto today to go to a booksigning at the World's Biggest Bookstore, which both greatly disappointed me and made me very happy. The bookstore, of course, not the signing -- the signing was more than I expected. I think that any bookstore worth its salt should either be very crowded and dark and crammed full of so many old dusty books that it looks like it could turn into a fantasy set piece at any moment, or else very light and comfy and airy with lots of armchairs. Since I had some time to kill before the signing, I was really hoping for the latter. (It was just a giant box store. Full of many wonders, which I will get to in a moment...)

So instead I walked over to the Eaton Centre and got some lunch there, and then meandered my way back along Yonge St. Stopped in at the huge HMV there, and bought Enjoy Incubus, so now my Incubus collection is complete, yayyy! Also bought the String Quartet Tribute to Incubus, on the theory that I adore the String Quartet Tribute to HIM, so maybe I will like this one too? I'm having a lot of trouble imagining Incubus songs as string arrangements though. Haven't listened to it yet.

Alors, having killed enough time (silly ol' Greyhound really did not make its schedules conducive to my purpose, and I actually had to wake up before 8 to get to Toronto in time for a signing at 1), I beelined for the sf/f section of the store. (Yes, I beelined for it all the way from the HMV. Get outta my way, cars! I have books to buy!)

And boy, did I ever score big. I had to exercise great self-restraint and there was many a moment of wishing that it was still before Christmas. January is such a bad time of year to throw me in a bookstore. But anyways, I'm very happy with what I did get, and I can get a lot of the stuff I passed on elsewhere, so. I am a happy bunny. And the booksigning started shortly after.


Now I will try and write past the sticky in "Sparagmos". And I won't force David to wear a sparkly blue shirt in it, even though that's what I saw pretty much as soon as I started seriously pondering. As David pointed out, he dies in a very unpleasant way in this story, the least I could do is leave him his male pride.

 So it's 2008.

2007 wasn't so bad. I finished my first year at university, made a whole ton new friends, travelled to Europe, travelled to Alberta, went to Incubus, went to Dir en Grey (seems like a lot longer  ago than almost a year...), joined DII, became more active in CMS, made a whole bunch more new friends, passed the second half of my teacher's exam for dance, supply taught several different classes, took a flexibility class... and a lot more besides. Not in that order. Definitely a good year. (Don't get me wrong, there were some very un-fun times. I haven't forgotten. But I am going to work through those and move on and be stronger for it, so there.)

2008 though, 2008 will be a good year too. My sister told me so. I believe it, too. It feels like it will be a good year. I will make it a good year, dammit. A better year.


I think that's more than enough resolutions. And I will keep them. At least most of them. At least some of them.

Coming soon, a happy fuzzy 'my friends are awesome' post. Cause you are.

Happy 2008, everyone. May the new year bring you love, happiness and health. And everything else you're looking for.

 Figured it was 'bout time for one of these again.

Word count: 580 on Mikko's joining post, written mostly today but some of it about a week ago; 407 on "Sparagmos" written in really tiny spurts over the past three days or so.
Total word count: 1342 words for Mikko, if you count the recycled Steve post I used for a sample; 407 for "Sparagmos"

"Sparagmos" is going so achingly slowly. But at least it's going. The last 300 words of it are shit though. At least compared to the first 100. Still. I knew it would be hard when I started. And the bloody thing wouldn't leave me alone, so.

And hurray, Mikey is joined! Soon he can meet 'vail and have all sorts of exciting and embarrassing adventures. Whee!

And my roomie is lovely and loves me and baked loaf cake and cookies tonight and gave me my birthday present. And I went out for dinner with friends, and dinner was delicious and the company was fabulous. And geoaspartamegave me my Christmas present, which was hilariously wrapped and almost impregnable, following which it was awesome and lovely. Thank you again!!

And I finished reading Tennyson for my English exam, so all I have to do tomorrow is read Malory and then review the course notes. And I have two chocolate bars, iced tea, mango juice, leftover pasta, and all the baking to get me through it.

I shan't starve. It's a comforting thought.

And Aria, Brant and Kez-baby had a really long snowball fight today, which resulted in so many moments of death by cuteness.

All in all, I'm really happy right now. It's been such a good day.

I had a pretty damn good weekend. =)

Dyed my hair! Fairly subtle but I think it makes a difference. It's just a slightly more brown brown than my natural (blonde?brown). My friend did it for me, and he just did highlights in case I didn't like it. But I think I will work up the courage slowly to dye my hair a more drastic colour. I wonder what I'd look like with darker brown hair? Anyways. And yeah, it's semi-permanent, so I won't give the family heart attacks, since it should be all or mostly washed out by then. (Though I'm pretty certain no one would notice the difference unless they were looking for it.)

My cold is finally going away, I think and hope.

Argh, okay, I guess I should back track for the blow-by-blow of my weekend.



And now I'm guessing I should really, really work on my essay. Ugh.

But! I'm pretty excited that I have no latin class tomorrow! I get to sleep in! (Except by that, unfortunately I mean "wake up at a normal time and write essay.")

 omgomgomgomgomgomgomg Guy Gavriel Kay is COMING TO MY ENGLISH CLASS!!!!


aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

(I can b fangurl nao plz?)

No, but seriously, Kay is one of my biggest role models and sources of inspiration. I love everything I've ever read of his, and I own all but one (to my knowledge). His books always give me that "holy fuck, this is what I want to do with my life... but I'm not good enough and I'll never be this good... but I have to try..." feeling/motivation. He's genius.

So yeah. I am SO PSYCHED. If this somehow falls through, I will be devastated.

Hm, what else happened since last I updated? Well, the weekend was the reunion bbq (wheeee, fun!), shopping, a wee dinner party, and some more getting ready for school/unpacking. I am mostly all settled in... pretty much I now just need to decide where I want to shove stuff I won't need for a long time (winter coat, etc.). As is, that stuff is sitting unobtrusively along one wall. It can stay there for a wee while, but not forever.

School was fun yesterday, except the whole boy-I-hate-more-than-anything-else-is-in-grk-and-just-as-awful-as-ever part. I really think that in a few weeks' time I won't be able to handle him anymore and will have to email the professor asking him to do something about it. And I know I'll be speaking on behalf of the entire class.

Holy shit. Stopped writing this for a while to eat and chat with my darling Stephanie (who has spoiled me rotten today, buying me bubbletea AND making me dinner), but now there's the most awesome storm raging outside. Turns out the view from the 9th floor is amazing for storm-watching. We could see the wind making the rain sheet off the parking lot almost straight back up into the air again, and I've never appreciated just how much sky I can see from my window until I see the lightning streak across all of it. And the rain still pounds against the windows; all I miss is the sound of rain hitting the roof. Which, admittedly, is one of my all time favourite sounds in the world. Some people find it annoying, I find it incredibly soothing. Especially if it's a tin roof.

And now the sky is clearing, with little patches trying to pretend that it's still late afternoon and all the world is sunshine and lollipops, and other patches stubbornly remaining big bad ass clouds threatening doomsday. And a bird returns, winging madly from wherever it took temporary shelter to wherever it lives. Still, I don't think we're going to see the sunset tonight, folks. The badass clouds are beating the happy lollipop patches.

Okay, so, where was I before weather happened? School, right. So latin and greek are both scary as all hell, though greek is more so, naturally. I have hours of homework to do for both courses that I haven't started yet (oh yeah, off to a rockin' start) and since latin is tomorrow, I really should get on that...

Today I had greek history, myth and english (arthurian legend). I've already done most of the squee-ing for english, with one exception: I can choose to write a story instead of an essay! ZOMG! Sounds like time for thinly disguised MZB Mists of Avalon fanfiction, to me! Hey, maybe I should write some Arthur x Lancelot slash, and justify it as bringing the saga into the 21st century. I bet that would work, actually...

Oh man, the more I think about that, the more I like it. Updates will follow.

Erm, what happened in the other classes... fairly standard intro classes, not terribly exciting. Mind-blowing-fact-of-the-day (from grk hist): at Dimini, a Greek settlement from the Late Neolithic Period (c. 3800 BC) they found human remains, specifically of children who were buried under the house floors. Then the whole class sort of went "ugh!" so the professor had to clarify that this was a common practice of the time. So cool! I want to know so badly why they did it... I can think of lots of reasons why they might (the childrens' spirits still need protection; their spirits will be good forces to ward off bad ones; etc.) but I want to know for sure... those are just speculations, the professor didn't say at all.

Not much else of note, except that Karl (or possibly Carl) is in my grk hist class and that really surprised me. Dude, he's a chem major. But he's a cool guy, so I'm pretty excited for the chance to get to know him better. I liked how when the prof started actually teaching, he sat up straighter and went "oh, I like this class!" XD. It was pretty much what I was doing in my head... he just said it out loud.

In other really nerdy news, when my engl prof told us Kay was coming, she was like "any Guy Kay fans out there?" and a few other people raised their hands... pretty sure I was the only one whose hand shot straight up into the air instantaneously. Whups. Involuntary muscle spasm, I swear... ^.^

OMG xsilvan  and candy_remix  are at the blaqk audio concert by now. SO JEALOUS. You bitches better have fun and dance like crazies for me!

Does this entry have an end? Of course not! I'm procrastinating doing my latin and greek homework. Buuuut... I really should get to work. So I'll try and wrap it up. We hung out with Edward yesterday, and that was really really awesome, plus he's going to come by our place for dinner sometime. The poor boy was planning on living off of microwave dinners all year, so we will cook for him sometimes. And then today I talked to Phil for the first time since being back, and I should see him sometime this week, yey!

Okay, now I'm almost at the end. Remember my old friends the word count posts? You thought you'd escaped those? Fuck no!
Saturday: 886 words, and the novel hit 90 pages.
Sunday: none =( but it was a good day anyways.
Monday: 146 words plus mulling over the plot. Which is still progress, albeit slightly intangible.
The novel is thereby officially at 26.7%

And you'd all thought I'd forgotten about it... Pah! I ALWAYS give up on projects. Every once and a while I've got to do something unpredictable, so this time I'm sticking with it to the bitter end.

(Badass clouds are definitely winning, fyi, though at the moment holding off from actually raining anymore.)

I'll end this entry with a quote from the drunken boy Steph and I passed on the way home from thecityssummer  et al.'s house last Friday, when we were carrying our door mirrors back. Cause it wins almost as hard as the shirtless boys sitting in the back of their white pickup singing Backstreet Boys that we passed the next day in the UW plaza parking lot. I mean, nothing can win quite as much as that. But drunken boy came close.

"Hey bayBEE! ... hey baaaaybay... watcha got there? Is it a storyboard?"

Can't get Phantom out of my mind. Wow. That was incredible... just... incredible. So powerful, I kept getting chills. It's kind of an achey beautiful. Bittersweet. Makes me want to just curl up in front of a window and watch the world go by without really seeing anything. Don't really know what else to say about it here. This will shape me and I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

I would love to see it again live. What can I say, I'm greedy. At least I have the cd (two disc full show, not just the highlights) to listen to. Which I think I'll do now... it's been storming like crazy for about an hour here, maybe a little longer, and who needs music when there's a storm? I still hear some thunder, but it's not so ominous and dark out anymore, nor is it raining a solid curtin of water. Yeah, that was awesome. I think our garage is flooded, but meh, shouldn't be too bad.

This is a trip and pictures entry, promise. Just a roundabout one. Today I went shopping and bought things like cutlery and a lamp and laundery detergent for next year. (Why do I keep saying "next year"? I'm moving in a week.) Also bought the blaqk audio cd, squeeee! Haven't listened to it yet, see large paragraph re: being obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera, but I have it now!

Anyways, so. Zee treep. With 27 pictures, out of 48 I took. I'm such a failed tourist =).



My dad is talking to me again. Mixed blessing, that, I think.

Must keep packing, this entry took far too long to write. (Watching a whole movie -- Cover Girl -- during it might have slowed it down some, but who passes up Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth? Not me, at any rate.) So far I've packed my cds, dvds, and cereal. Loads of other stuff are in a big haphazard pile in the middle of the family room... would pack them neater, but I need more boxes. I hate packing.

One week 'til I'm back in Waterloo. This summer has an end... weird. Yay, but weird. Second year, here I come.

Oh yeah, and I think it's my life ambition to get a researchers' grant/permit, whatever to the Louvre. I could spend years there. And my family thought I was bad with regular museums...

Hurrah, hurrah!

Word count: 891
Total word count: 23,838
23.8%
Typo du jour: "the dangers of night hair" instead of "the dangers of night air"

Today the words came pretty easily. Illicit kissing on a balcony'll do that for you, I guess. Tomorrow there's more kissing, on the front step this time. J is going to be one confused person. That's okay, it'll be good for her. Actually, tomorrow will probably be the carriage ride where she can't escape her uncomfortable thoughts. The day after will probably be her encounter with W. Roughly 1,200 words left in the chapter... yeah, it should all fit nicely.

And then chapter five will be done, and a quarter of the book will be done, and chapter six should be fun.

I think I have to leave and go get ready now. Dinner out with friends, hurrah hurrah!

I feel and look like shit. No, really. I have a stuffed up nose, a slightly sore throat, at least five bug bites in my hair, four blisters on my feet, and I haven't written in days. I have three more bug bites making a nice line of itchy doom along my collar line, and another two hanging out with the bags under my eyes. (One under each eye, one is slightly higher than the other, which makes me lopsided in my swollen-ness.) The wisdom teeth are deciding that they actually haven't come all the way through, and they're going to do that now. So my jaw hurts and my head hurts, and my poor cheek is very pinched between all this extra stuff that wasn't there before.

So. There's been no update in a while. What's happened since?

Sunday June 24: 780 words.
Monday June 25: 146 words.

Don't remember what else happened on either of those days. There have been no more words since. A week of not writing... bad, bad bunny.

Tuesday I babysat. Wednesday I went to a jazz concert with CB, watched a thunderstorm, didn't get wet, and ate gelato. Mmm, gelato. Thursday I babysat.

Wednesday I went shopping for wedding clothes, Friday I went shopping for bras.

(I'm reminded of Cyrano's gazette for Roxanne.)

On Friday, Cynd, dad and I left for the cottage. Saturday was a day of great triumph, for lo! there was a foot valve that didn't leak and then there was running water to our cottage once more. Sunday we came back to town.

Went downtown for Canada Day, but then it was crowded there and we didn't really know what we wanted to do, so we went to Chinatown. Fireworks went off behind our heads, almost entirely obscured by the buildings, around about when we got to Somerset and Bronson. Had some bubbletea and tiramisu. The tiramisu was good, but my craving for brick toast was thwarted. I'll have to satisfy it later... probably much later, after I get back from out west.

Anyways, it was fun. After we went and hung out in the park. When do we ever do anything else? I like our conversations sitting up on the playstructure, though. Somehow Rocky Horror didn't come up this time...

There was a lot of walking though. Note to self: don't wear new shoes when you know you're going to be walking a lot. I am dumb. The blisters, though, aren't as bad as they seemed last night. And no sand got in, which makes me very glad. Actually, at the moment, just general soreness from walking so much hurts more than the blisters. They only hurt when I do something stupid, like kick them.

Saw my grade 7+8 gym teacher downtown, bizarre in the extreme.

I really, really want some chocolate covered marshmallow. I should have bought some yesterday.

So I knew I'd learn a lot doing this. You know, actually writing a novel, instead of just falling in love with a new world, poking about in it for a few days or weeks, and then abandoning it.

The first thing I've learnt? I don't know how to do this. So I'm closing my eyes tight, kicking hard, and letting go of the pool wall. First time in the deep end. If I start to drown, someone throw me a lifesaver?

On second thought, don't. I'd probably learn more drowning. It just might not make for very good conversation.

Chapter 3 is getting towards done, should finish it tomorrow. About 500 words to go. All making W uncomfortable, mwaha. Unfortunately, that sucker is a pretty good improviser and an even better liar, so he won't be bothered for long. Take your wins while you can, W. You don't win in the end. That's just what you get for being the "bad guy".

Anyways, word counts from the past few days, since I haven't updated this baby in a few.

June 12:
Word count: 833.

June 13:
Word count: 753
500 from a flash fiction piece: On the Edge of the World. Features a parrot, and questions about sanity and insanity, and which is which where. I like it. But then again, I wrote it.
253 from the novel, lowest word count yet on the novel. Got stuck, didn't even want to write today at all, but thecityssummer  helped pull me out of that. <3

June 14:
Word count: 794
Total word count: 14,494
14.4%

In other news, am very very excited for the rest of the summer. So much travelling! So much seeing friends! I bought my ticket to Amsterdam today =D. It's a good life.

Man alive watching a huge storm roll in is fun. So this is how it went:

I'm sitting on the bleachers in back of the brother's high school, watching the sister's touch football game with the parents. (Missed a lot of the game due to running back home to fetch ice packs for a girl who had broken her finger -- even though I heard the coach's son say he was going for ice and he had a car so he'd clearly be faster but anyways I was mostly going to reassure my mom -- but that's just an aside, not the real story. I did miss the only touchdown of the whole game though, which was kind of sad/annoying. We won, which makes us undefeated, hurrah hurrah!) Anyways, so there I am, with all the family minus the brother. Someone makes a comment to the effect of "ooh it's gotten a lot darker all of a sudden" and this is true. Thunder boomies are heard in the distance, and the ref is trying to hurry up the start of the next game. In the space of about, oh, thirty seconds the sky in front has gone from cloudy and threatening to dark and looming, and the bank is coming closer all the time. You can tell that it's raining farther away, by the way that bits of the clouds are being stretched down, like someone pulling strings of cotton candy off the bunch.
We start to walk home, the mother making noises about how she hopes we get inside before it starts raining, and me (walking backwards to better watch the clouds, since we had to go the other way from them) telling her fat chance of that, just look at those clouds! They were huge. And rolling in really fast. We hadn't even fully crossed the parking lot before the wind started up, strong. The sister on her rollerblades was pushed on ahead of us fast enough that I ran up and grabbed her hand to slow her down enough that she didn't break herself in one of the many potholes that parking lot is full of.
The clouds were awesome, the leading edge sort of outlined and defined, the storm itself a bit further back and unforgivingly grey. The wind blowing bits of dust and pebbles and the first few drops of rain was exhilarating, but not quite as awesome. The rain started slowly, and we got about half way home before getting too wet. Then the skies opened up with a vengeance, and we all got thoroughly soaked. I haven't been out in a downpour like that since... since the day I biked to say goodbye to Michelle, what, two summers ago now?
It was a lot of fun. The rain was cool, but not cold, and home was only three blocks away by this point, so it was a wonderful adventure. And after a day that was supposed to hit 40 degrees with humidex (don't know for sure what the actual high of the day was), it felt damn good.
It was lovely.

Anyways, after that came drying off, tea, ice cream, and watching a movie (why, yes, another Fred and Ginger, how did you guess?) with the sister and the father. Then, inevitably, writing. Which brings me to...

Word count: 1,397
Total word count: 10,025
10% done! Finished chapter two!

Not quite as exuberant about finishing chapter two as I was about chapter one, but I am still very pleased with myself, never you fear. The novel's gone and sprouted another POV, go figure. I like him though, I approve his choice to take control of the story for a while. It does mean re-jigging some of the following chapters, though. Oh hey, it also means I can actually describe that other scene as it happens instead of just by word of mouth later. Now that is intriguing.