Best of 2006: Blog Extravaganza!

Rather than going to a drunken, riotous party (or any party at all for that matter) I have decided to write in my blog the best things about 2006. This is partly to keep me from moping because my sister went home today, but also to hopefully start a tradition that will make me try to actually remember good things that happen to me, because at the moment I'm pulling a blank; though I know good things MUST have happened to me. My year wasn't that horrible. One particularly good thing I can recall is coming home to Gilpatrick House after my studies abroad. It seems like such a long time ago that I can barely believe it was 2006, but I know it must have been.

If there has been any good in my time at Denison during 2006, then it has predominately come from Gilpatrick and the people living there. It was the perfect place for me to come back to in order to ease slowly back into the American lifestyle. A cozy Victorian style house could almost make me believe I hadn't gone so far from my life in France. I even recall upon entering seeing a 3D puzzle model of Notre Dame chathedral, that although it was not intended to, made me feel particularly welcome. Later I would make friends with the puzzlemaker, Becky, and monopolize her window seat for the better part of the fall semester. It was in Gilpatrick that I first played Dread Pirate, the best board game ever, and found a group of peers that, like me, preferred board games and snacks to drunken revelry. A group of my fellow Gilpatrikians: Ishani, Brian, Becky, Sam, Louvie and Bethany (the only non Gilparikian but she makes a lovely cake) were also the first to ever throw me a surprise party which had to be the highlight of my summer.

Outside of Gilpatrick I have had at least one incredible experience in 2006 that I have already documented in this blog; that is finding Lucy, my childhood friend and former next door neighboor. I think this may also be the most and only truly incredible thing to happen to me this year.

I fear 2006 may have been the year of mediocrity for movies. I can only think of one that I was truly inspired to watch again and perhaps might even recommend for others. It's A Good Woman which is based on an Oscar Wilde play called "Lady Windemere's Fan." As I'm a fan of Wilde's work, particularly his satire, I could at least enjoy the story of the play. The acting of the vetran actors was also quite good. Although I felt as if Scarlett Johansson 's done better, and her acting seemed a bit flat. But maybe it's just the character that I didn't like. I don't think the innocent, somewhat whiny girl suits her personality. Anyway, there were plenty of really good characters to make up for it.



Books are far easier for me to keep track of than movies because I keep a list of every book I read, and I start a new list each year. My 2006 list has 36 books on it (12 of which are audiobooks and 2 of those audiobooks were just me listening to the last two Harry Potter books again). However, I'm proud that one of the books is a novel in French. Sure, as a French major it should be more than one, but I did mostly poetry this year.





































*Anyway, because of this list, I can also confidantly say that the best books I 've read this year are the Tiffany trilogy by Terry Pratchett. Tiffany's my hero, and I'd like to grow up to be just like her, except that she's younger than me. The first two (The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky) have an obscure vocabulary word each that Pratchett makes a joke of throughout the book. The latest (Wintersmith) doesn't continue this trick, but I still remember laughing out loud while reading it, which is mostly what I ask for in a book. The second book had a character I disliked vehemently, but you're supposed to dislike her, so I suppose that's fair. In the third book Tiffany's 13 and does subcumb to a little bit of teen angst, but she does so in admirable moderation. And you have to love the Feegles: little blue, mini-Scotsmen that live in hives and for brief shining moments can even make me believe I can speak with a Scottish accent. The Wee Free Men is actually going to be made into a film (I heard by the director of Spider-Man, Sam Raimi) and slated to come out 2008. I sincerely hope they do a good job, but of course the book will always be better.

Well, that's all for 2006 that I can dig out of my foggy ol' brain at the moment. Though, I'm personally terrified of what 2007 will bring with my imminent graduation I wish everyone else a wonderful New Year and can only hope I get by myself.

Now for the Other Boy...

Typical me not to really talk about my Christmas but it was just good in its simplicity which makes for very little of interest. My sister flew in Christmas Eve and that was really the only present I needed to be happy. Though the Christmas money and early present of a digital camera from my Dad are certainly greatly appreciated. On Christmas my little brother Curtis got a lovely model VW van from Santa and my brother Dennis got a stuffed polar bear. I may have slept through the happy discovery of these gifts but I stayed up as long as Santa and thus was quite tired. Once I did get out of bed, my dad, my sister, little brother Dennis, and I went to the beach and watched the surfers and then hung out in a park.

Now onto some, hopefully, more interesting reflections. Famous people. Many people like to entertain the thought of meeting famous people but mostly I shy away from the idea. This is due to three fears: (1) They will not like me. (2) I will not like them. (3) Both. Then there's also the problem that I'd have no idea what to say and probably end up mummbling something stupid and shuffling off. So it is that I'm perfectly happy to go without meeting any of my favorite authors. I feel I enjoy their books far more if I don't consider what kind of people they are. This isn't to say I think they're bad people, but rather that I have developed a very peculiar personality over time that does not necessarily mesh with everyone.

There is one exception. Not in the sense that I would seek to meet this person as I once had a possible chance and passed it up with very little regret, but if I had to meet a celebrity, (I know such terrible decisions happen everyday) then I would probably like to meet Daniel Radcliffe, the boy who plays Harry Potter. Now, this isn't because I find him attractive. Certainly he is attractive, but I am far more attracted to many other celebrities. I would be happy to meet Daniel because he's so charismatic and seems like the type of person who could put anyone at ease and is genuinely interested in what others think: traits I look for in anyone. As an avid Harry Potter fan I've watched many interviews with Dan and am always impressed by his optimism and energy. Think me a hopeless fangirl if you'd like, but I'll protest all the way.

So to counter the picture of Draco, here we have Harry:




By the way, for any of you who don't already know, the title of book 7 is now out. But I won't spoil it for you if you'd rather not know it. You can easily look it up on the internet if you do want to know it.

Maybe I'm Just Mean...

...But I really enjoy the music by Draco and the Malfoys. They're a "wizard rock" band who, as you can probably tell, sing Harry Potter themed songs (or rather Draco Malfoy themed...)

I particularly like "My Dad is Rich." Very mean song. ... Hee, hee, hee ...

Link: http://www.myspace.com/dracoandthemalfoysusa



I already sent some of you the Whomping Willows' music but here it is in case any of you want it again/didn't get it. It's also cruel as well as deliciously demented with a pretty good melody to boot in my opinion: http://www.myspace.com/thewhompingwillows

YES!!!

Originally Disney was planning on making a rather dubious sounding "modernized" version of Rapunzel. It sounded like the same kind of blasphemy Miramax inflicted on Ella Enchanted. But now, thankfully, they seemed to have realized what a stupid idea that was and they're finally going to make normal Disney film based on my favorite fairytale. I think the release has been pushed back as well but if it's on par with Mulan, Aladdin, Beaty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid etc. then I'm more than happy to wait that long. I have been waiting for a decade or more already so a couple more years is fine.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapunzel_%28film%29
http://imdb.com/title/tt0398286/plotsummary

To be honest I'm not nuts about the concept art, but if it's a good story (with good songs) then I really don't care. I was dubious of the art in Hercules before I saw the movie, after all, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Why Do Women Make Such Good Men?

In cosplay, at least, (which is where people dress up in costumes of various characters) girls who aren't particularly voluptuous (so that rules me out) make excellent male characters. I've already sent most of you pics of the girl who dresses up as Link, and now I've found this women who dresses up as Snape. I suppose costume design is just more popular with women, but I wish there actually was a man who looked as good in these costumes as these women do. For the woman who dresses as Snape, I admit you can tell she's a woman in some of her more dramatic poses and when you see her face full on. But at certain angles, you can completely believe she's a man, which is a strange compliment because I think she makes quite a handsome man.

Anyway, here's the link to the Snape pictures: http://logospilgrim.com/
(click photos, then scroll down and click "The First Gallery", then scroll down again and click on any or of the 28 galleries to see a bunch of pictures.) The picture below is just one of many but one where I thought she particularly resembled Snape.




And here are the Link pics for anyone who doesn't remember, didn't get them, or wants to see them again: http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=703577
(there are more pictures on the link)

Feeling Much Better

I just thought I should let everyone know that I did not die or suffer any brain damage (that I can tell) from my recent illness. My dad also bought me a nice, shiny, new digital camera today! This is excellent since the hamster living in my last camera seems to have retired indefinitely. This also means that I have no excuse not to have some pictures of the week so here are some pictures of my dad's Christmas tree. Dad's never had anything against Christmas so it's not too surprising that he got a tree. Knowing my dad it's also not surprising that he neglected to buy ornaments for it. But it seems that my little brothers have remedied this by hanging anything on it that has a loop or will stick in the needles, including but not limited to key chains, empty tape dispensers, halloween decorations (Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas would be pleased), and some actual handmade Christmas themed ornaments.

Cold, Flu, or Hypochondria?

Whatever I have it wasn't even possible for me to concentrate properly on a simple game of Candyland with my brothers. I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining the whole thing as my hypochondria usually doesn't make me feel like I've been run over by a truck. But I'm not sure about the severity of it. I figure it's either a bad cold or mild flu. Either way I hope it goes away soon and it isn't some brain-eating virus or I wasn't bitten by a black widow or rattle snake in my sleep (yup, that's the hypochondria kicking in.)

Santa's Bag...

Well, I'm in San Diego now on winter vacation, and for those of you who were in touch with me during exams week, you know this break could not have come too soon. Anyway, I'm certainly enjoying the rest. I took my little brothers to the mall today. They looked at toys for ten minutes and then got bored. Go figure. So I got home in plenty of time to ride my bike (yay!) and then color some of a Christmas card before I too got bored (must be a genetic trait.)

Last night I asked my little brothers what they want for Christmas. My little brother Curtis wants a Voltswagon van. Not a toy one but a real one. The kind hippies used to paint flowers on. It's kinda a shame because my dad actually had one when I was a kid. It was brown and didn't have any flowers and he sold it some time ago. Somehow Curtis found out about it and has since become strangely obsessed. I tried explaining to him that a van wouldn't fit in Santa's bag and that Santa's elves can't make one anyway, but he's quite persistent. Meanwhile, my other little brother, Dennis would like a polar bear.

I think Santa's bag may have a white bear for Dennis (polar bear-esque if he can wrangle it) but for Curtis there may be some monetary amount with a note suggesting that he start saving...

Happy Holidays to All!

Graduate School Apps and Gambling

It has occured to me that paying application fees for Grad School is a lot like gambling. In both you're giving money for an uncertain return. The only difference is, if you don't get anything back in gambling, then you're just unlucky (and possibly stupid for gambling in the first place). However, if Grad Schools do not accept you, that's actually some kind of reflection on your worth as a person. I've never gambled, but I can safely say I'd infinitely prefer the cruelty of a slot machine at this point.

The Saddest Thing in the World and the Sins of George Lucas...

For this post these two things are not one in the same. But they easily could be...

Anyway, the sad fact I learned today is that bunnies can get syphilis. Considering the sexual habits of bunnies this has got to be one of the saddest things I've ever heard. It also brings to mind certain questions like "What happens when a bunny goes crazy?" and "If one bunny can get syphilis, how come all bunnies do not now have syphilis?" I am informed that this is not the type of syphilis transferable to humans. But I would still not recommend having intercourse with a rabbit.

As for the sins of George Lucas...oh, where to start... Well, he's released the "1977" version of his films on DVD. This "original" version contains ALL of the revisions he's made from the computer generation of 1997 to the blasphemous edition of Hayden Christensen to return of the Jedi. Basically, it's the Special Editions with the word "original" written on them. George, you've done some pretty low things, but I think this has got to be the lowest. I mean, the prequels may have been bad but at least they were new. Now you're just trying to trick fans into buying the Special Edition AGAIN by telling them it's the "original." And if you cannot believe on my word alone that such an atrocity is even possible (and it's so incredibly bad that I'd understand if you didn't want to believe it), here's the Amazon review confirming the sadness of it all.


George = the Emperor in flannel

Hi Brian! And To All Other Anonymous Posters...

I just wanted you to know that I guessed it might be you in the comments on the anaconda post. But I also thought it might be your sister. As one who shares her initials with her own sibling (my sister and I are both CML as well as my father), I recommend a more specific form of identification. Although, now that I know it's you, as long as Becky doesn't start signing the same way, I suppose it doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm always be happy when people read and comment on my blog so many thanks!

And a note to anyone wishing to post with their name in the title instead of having "anonymous says," click the "other" bubble in the box below the comment's field, and you'll be able to put in your name. Or letter initial, nickname, royal title, etc...

Pictures of the Week: The Wilds of Nashville

For anyone too queasy to appreciate the picture of the anaconda from the Nashville zoo, here's some less objectionable animals. Additionally, I'd like to add that these pictures, as well as the anaconda from the last post, are all courtesy of my fabulous sister Chrissy.



Animals make such cute couples. You can bet people don't look nearly as endearing when they lick each others heads.



If this meerkat could speak, I think it'd be saying, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

Don't forget, you can click on the picture to enlarge it. I've even found out recently that you can click on it again to make it even bigger!

Slow Anacondas, Ghosts, and Water Guns

If you're easily grossed out, then I do not recommend looking at my picture of the week. But, if not, read on: Here is an anaconda feeding that my sister and I witnessed at the Nashville zoo. But after seeing this creature eat, I'm shocked it survives as a predator at all. The zoo keepers feed it pre-killed bunnies so I suppose that may have taken some of the hunt out of it. The woman feeding it practically had to coax it into eating the thing. It opened its mouth which was pretty impressive, then put part of the bunny in its mouth and dragged it back under the water with it. Then it sat there. And sat there some more. It clearly had no intention of finishing its food anytime soon. I mean, I suppose there probably aren't a lot of things that would bother an anaconda, mouth full or no. But I would think it'd be pretty vulnerable just sitting around with a mouthful of rabbit.
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Well, I've probably insured a pretty small audience for the rest of my news but oh well. I'm beginning to think there's a ghost in my lounge that likes Harry Potter. Here's why. A while back I went down into the lounge and saw The Chamber of Secrets playing on the TV but no one was sitting and watching it. The lounge was completely deserted and no one came back in while I was there. Then today I went down an The Sorcerer's Stone was playing and there was no one around. I feel this is conclusive evidence of a ghost and not someone who just doesn't turn off the TV.

Furthermore I wish to report the sad news that I actually tested the range of my water gun today and, as I suspected, found it dissappointingly deficient for the purpose of shooting drunks.

Note to Self:

For Thanksgiving break I meant to bring a Christmas card I made for Tim and Mag with me so that I could color it. Unfortunately, much to my general vexation, it was lost amid the rubble of my desk. I have finally tracked it down once more upon returning and would just like to note that it is behind the framed picture of my Dad on my desk with a folder of loan information I should show to my father over Christmas break.

The Perils of Hypochondria

Tim reminded me that there are still people who read my blog (even if it is just him). Well, to be fair, there's probably at least three, maybe even four if I haven't lost someone's interest. And as long as I have an audience, no matter how small, my vanity forbids me from giving up completely. So I apologize for my long hiatus. My life to date has unfortunately been filled with grad school applications, spending time with my family, and getting sick. You would think that Thanksgiving break would have been an opportune time to post in my blog, but I felt guilty about any time not devoted to spending with my family, grad school apps, or editing my novel. Besides, since my sister is a member of my audience, and thus also a large percentage all by herself, I felt that there wasn't a lot of reason for me to post over break. Plus, I also figured that all of the rest of my audience would be spending time with their families rather than reading my blog.

Anyway, I'm afraid I'm not very happy right now because I had to call in sick for work. Although, I suppose the "had to" part is the problem. I am sick. There's little question about that. I've been sick for days. But I have a little Confucius that lives inside me that says I'm never too sick to do work (where this Confucius goes when I'm writing papers, however, is a mystery). Still, I took one look outside which is a very wet-looking grey mess and decided that going out for the long walk down to the elementary school would not improve my health. It's a bummer because I actually love my job. I love working with the kids, and I feel bad when I can't go in. I worry the kids will think I've abandoned them. It's bad enough that I do have to abandon them at the end of the year. It seems I have precious little time with them as it is. But I also was so exhasted last night that I went to bed around 9pm but still slept very poorly. All night I was unusally hot and thought that I must have a fever. However, when I woke up this morning and asked my roommate if it was hot in the room she said that it was. She also reported that my forehead did not feel hot, so I must conclude my hypochondria got the better of me as far as the fever was concerned. But I still do have a bad cold and that's undeniable. It is doubtful, however, that I have Mad Cow disease, though I did consider the possibility.

I just wish this horrible weather had been last night instead of this morning because I was constantly woken up by drunks outside my window. Close enough to hear clearly but not close enough to shoot a water gun at. It appears to have stopped raining, though, which makes me feel even guiltier for not going to work, but what's done is done.

Pulchritudinous

I bet when you learned the word pulchritudinous (the world's ugliest word for beautiful) for the SAT, you never thought you'd see it again, save for maybe something stuffy and literary. To be honest I had't seen it in anything outside my high school vocab book, and I've read some pretty esoteric stuff. Until now. Today I have found the word pulchritude (the noun version of pulchitrudinous) in MSN's current dating article: Are You Hung Up On Looks? proving that the SATs are not in fact useless but teach us how to understand internet dating advice.

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On a completely different subject I'd like to note that I was a bit hard on Tim and that I misinterpreted his remark on my pictures of the Louvre. He was actually simply saying that the Louvre would be an excellent setting for a horror story. It already is the setting of The Da Vinci Code, though I suppose that's more suspense than horror. Besides, the scariest thing about Dan Brown is his writing style (or lack thereof).

Art Wars







My apologies to all like Tim who feel that Michelangelo is "creepy." You're right. How dare I post such filth? So to make it up to Tim and anyone else who was offended, here are some works of art I hope you find more to your liking.

Pictures of the Week: Palace of the Gods





Just thought I'd remind everyone what an art nerd I am. For anyone sadly unaware of the most beautiful place on Earth, this is the Louvre and these are some pictures I took on a nighttime visit.

Sciencey Thoughts

It has occured to me that the answer to my previous writer's question would depend on how hot it gets in a burning house. Tim seems to be estimating far higher than I would (read comments in Another Writer's Question for details). But my only basis for how hot a house gets when it's on fire is the book Fahrenheit 451 where the firemen had to make sure the house reached that temperature for the books to incinerate.

So, anyone know the average temperature of a burning house?

Another Writer's Question

If your house caught fire and you have a box made of something that doesn't burn with a bunch of coins inside, would the coins melt?

Morris Dancing

I'm reading the new Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith right now and it mentions morris dancing. Now this isn't the first time Pratchett's mentioned morris dancing and in a newspaper article that Pratchett once heatedly criticized, they also said that the fantasy genre was nothing but "lords and ladies morris dancing to greensleeves" or some such nonsense. Pratchett got a lot of flack for criticizing this article because it was trying to praise JK Rowling while putting down all other fantasy authors. Personally I think Pratchett was too polite. I would like to find that reporter's house and have a stampede of morris dancers level it.

At any rate, all this inspired a great curiosity to actually SEE some morris dancing so I looked it up on YouTube. Pratchett always seems to associate this dance with some sort of dark portent, but as far as I can tell it's England's form of square dancing with a bit more do-si-do and a little less swing-your-partner. But go ahead and take a look at these videos to decide what you think of it. They say it can be done with swords, which would be AWESOME, but sadly I could not find any examples of that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw8Cf1rPmio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2YplTOOtEI&NR

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EDIT: Well, I still couldn't find morris dancing with swords but I did find this video. I think it's more Asian style sword dancing and it's Star Wars themed! Anyway, these kids are AMAZING and the little girl's like a billion times cooler than Amidala.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2DpFFIJKDBI

Stupid Scam People Wasting My Time!!!

Here I will do a community service and say that if you received a postcard that looks like the one below and was postmarked from San Diego California, ignore it! :P You might already do so but if you're a conscientious person like me, you have to verify everything, so I'll save you the trouble. I wasn't stupid enough to call the number on the card, but I did call the REAL loan center just to be absolutely certain it was a scam. Which it is. So that's 20 minutes of my life wasted because some moron decided to rob people with student loans. It's not bad enough that we're in debt, you've decided to try to take the money we don't have! To whoever sent this to me, congratulations, you are officially scum.

Luckily they didn't get my money but my time is just as precious to me. So I would now really like these people to do my presentation that's due tomorrow which is ironically about finding a HELPFUL solution to the wealth divide... On second thought, nevermind; these people would only mess it up.

Writer's Question of the Week

Writers often must ask themselves strange questions when they write such as whether or not someone would die if an elephant sat on them or the average time it would take a unleaden swallow to fly north. Here's my writer's question of the week:

Would a small glass ink pot shatter if it was thrown in someone's face or would it just leave a heck of a bruise?

The beauty of writer's questions is you don't necessarily have to be right. You just need a general consensus because the whole idea is that someone doesn't read your book and then say to themselves "That wouldn't happen!"

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Shout Out To...

Kelly who got married yesterday! Congratulations! It was a beautiful ceremony full of love, light, and ...pumpkins.

And personally I think EVERYONE should have a Hello Kitty wedding cake!

Picture of the Week and News!



This is a rather blurry picture but it looks good that way. I took it in Taiwan at a place called Tiger Head Park. It reminds me of one of those fast action camera tricks they do on TV when all the cars turn into streaming lights.

In Cherie News:

I started serious editing on my novel today. I already separated the scrap from what needs to be kept but since I dropped dozens of characters and made several changes much of it needs to be rewritten. Starting with the entire beginning. I was going to start on Saturday but I was so daunted by the fear of doing something wrong and once again messing up the story that's been my life's work that I decided to write in my children's novel instead. But today I actually started the new beginning and I'm feeling really optimistic about it. I just hope it stays that way because I'm too lazy to learn to be good at anything else. Writing's all I've got.

On a somewhat related note I've decided that I quite like surrealist French poetry. This is a nice surprise since I thought I'd hate it more than the classic poetry considering I generally dislike modern artistic movements. It's best in French, though, so I recommend you all learn French to read it.

It's a Grey, Grey World...

Yes, I like to spell grey with an "e." Deal with it. At any rate when I look outside my window from my bed all I see is white-grey abyss. It's liked my entire house has been wrapped up in a giant somber cottonball.

On the upside, I've realized recently that I really love my job tutoring at the elementary school. I still don't want to be a teacher, but I think one of the reasons I enjoy tutoring is because for a few hours each week people look up to me and I can give them knowledge that's important to them as opposed to the general college standard of not knowing what the heck I'm doing half the time and never being sure if I have anything useful to add.

In other news, one of my mid-terms got pushed back to Monday so the pain's not over yet...

Because I Have Ceased to Be Interesting...

I'm going to feature someone who is! Ever wonder where all my time goes on the internet? So do I! But I can attribute at least a small percentage to looking at pics by this fabulous Harry Potter fan artist. And I'm sure she needs my endorsement...(sarcasm) But nonetheless perhaps some of you will enjoy her work. I've already probably bugged most of you to look at it.

http://acciobrain.ligermagic.com/

Pictures of the Week Return!


Yeah...kinda took over a week blog hiatus and probably lost my entire readership. Anyway, I wish I had some funny pictures or something interesting but here's just some natural beauty of Granville and Denison. On the top is the village in it's fall colors and the bottom is the Swasey Chapel spire and Burton Morgan in the moonlight.






In other news: Mid-terms approcheth and my sanity goeth...

Pictures of the Week:Old School...Literally.















This is a historical park I went to in California with my Dad. Click on the picture below to read it. It is a list of digressions coupled with the number of lashes each would earn you. The glare unfortunately covers up #10 a little which is either "sewing" or "swearing." I'm hoping it's "swearing" because I just don't feel like sewing should be worth 8 lashes. However, boys and girls playng together clearly merits 4 lashes...

Japanese Tourists?

There are many places you expect to see Japanese tourists: famous monuments, grand museums, big cities, giant balls of twine...

But one place you don't expect to see Japanese tourists is Granville Elementary School. Nontheless a bunch of Japanese men and women dressed in suits randomly came in while I was tutoring and started taking pictures of the students.

This story has no point and I still don't know why they were there but it's a good addition to my list of strange observations.

It's National Fire Prevention Week!

...To which I ask, don't we want to prevent fires every week?

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Things that aren't as good as they used to be: The mints in my cafeteria. At least they still have them, but the wrappers of the old mints were very good whereas these wrappers start sticking to the mint if you leave them in your pockets for even short periods of time. Probably an evil scheme to stop students like me from hoarding the mints.

Note to the Photographer

In a gross oversight I forgot to aknowledge the awesomeness of my queen picture taken by the marvelous Becky who wandered around with me at RenFest. There are very few people capable of capturing my full regal beauty, but Becky has done it. So to Becky: a tip of my crown to thee.

Pictures of the Week: I Am the Queen



As monkey socks descend down the page I am reviving my ever exciting pictures of the week feature. Now I've been having pictures which I've sort of been counting as pictures of the week but I like being able to officially post for this purpose. Anyway, it was more than a week ago that I was at the Renaissance Festival but I still thought everyone should see what a striking resemblance I am to Queen Elizabeth I.



These other two pictures are even older but it seems to be a pictures of the week tradition to have old pictures. Anyway I took these at an aqaurium in San Diego. Here you see "wuv troo wuv..." or "true love" for anyone who can't read my Princess Bride quote (which is probably everyone even if they've seen it because that does not translate well into text.) The point is that this couple of eels is the cutest couple I've ever seen.



This is just an awesome pic I took which would probably make you believe that I'm a better photographer than I really am. What's my secret? Luck.

Anybody Ever Wanted To...?

Put on a pair of bunny ears and run around? No? Just me then I guess.

OH MY GOD!!!!

Okay, although I'm not religious, I don't normally take the Lord's name in vain. Probably because I'm not religious so what would be the point anyway? But as my favorite author Terry Pratchett once put it (though slightly differently) "Oh my god I don't believe in" just has less zing.

EENYWAY, I think my departure from normal speech patterns can be justified by the WEIRDNESS that just happened to me. Good weirdness. Awesome weirdness. But weirdness all the same.

Okay, so this guy from my fencing club invited me to watch a movie with him and some friends. I go to see said movie (Robin Hood Men in Tights) and in the middle a girl walks in and starts talking to my fencing buddy. He says, "Oh, this is my girlfriend, Lucy." I greet her and then she looks at me and says. "Cherie?"

***

Now, at this moment you would have to be me or a family member to guess who this Lucy might be, so I have to add back story which makes this universe has-socked-you-in-the-face moment so much less shocking than it deserves to be, but oh well.

When I was a kid I had a friend named Kyle. He was my best friend being one of the few kids my age within walking distance. (My mom would not let me cross the street unassisted until I was 8.) Kyle had a little sister. Now, at the time, I admit I was closer with Kyle because his younger sister was younger than me and five to eight year olds can be quite elitist. However, towards the end of our friendship I hung out with Kyle's little sister a lot more and when they moved away she was the only one who wrote to me. Which is how Kyle incited my eternal wrath, but his sister was much elevated in my opinion as being thus the best friend of the two.

Sadly, after a year or so of letters, we lost touch.

***

Fast forward like 13 years and picture me sitting in the Morrow House lounge staring at the girl across from me with my jaw unhinged, desperately trying to make the synapses in my brain connect with what I'm hearing.

Now anyone with any understanding of narrative has probably already guessed what's about to happen. So I shall only confirm that, yes, the Lucy that I met today was my long lost sandbox buddy and next door neighbor who is now attending my university.

I still have so much homework to do but I can now neither concentrate nor sleep because I can barely believe I'm awake.

...I don't suppose my old elementry school sweetheart will be next? Kenneth, you out there? Call me. No? Well, can't have it all.

Thar Procrastinatin' Pirate!

Yar, yesterday was that finest of days where there be the speakin' of the pirate speak. Sadly what with one thing and the other I didn't get around to celebrating it... Nor did I hear any fine pirate speak. I only saw one guy dressed in proper uniform and failed to extend an "ahoy!" to him. But Becky was kind enough to wish me a fine day and such was a bonny gesture. The barnacles of guilt do gnaw at my soul. On a random note to Becky, I will get those Renaissance maze pictures to you soon. I should have already since I downloaded them quite a while ago, but I think I must have gotten distracted by a shiny object or something. As any true pirate would...

I fear I'm not really all that good at Pirate talk to be honest, though. And yesterday I went to bed around 9:30 because I've been sick for quite a few days now and my normal four hours of sleep just haven't been cuttin' it as far as recuperation goes. Luckily I'm feeling much better now for all that sleep, but it isn 't something I can do all the time unfortunately. I shouldn't have done it last night as I will now have to work a lot harder today but oh well...

Cherie's Wisdom of the Day

Exposition Tastes Funny: Don't feed it to your fictional characters too much. It will give them stomach aches.

Cherie's Firsts: Last night at my university's perfomance of the 5 Browns was the first time I ever saw a guy play rock on a piano with his elbow and knee while screaming "Oh baby!"

It was pretty hot.

I Don't Know About Dancing, but he Sings AND Does Martial Arts!

All right, enough of this boring talking about my blog on my blog. Here's a fun fact for today. Jackie Chan can sing! Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: Jackie Chan Music Video

The song is "I'll Make a Man out of You" from the Disney movie Mulan. He sang for the Chinese version of the film.

You Can Post Comments Now!

It has come to my attention that the comments field was not functioning since I had accidently chosen to moderate it by email and then neglected to put an email in the email field. So if you posted a comment and thought that I snubbed you because it was never approved, I just want you to know that that's not the case at all. Any previous comments simply would have fallen into the sad white abyss of cyberspace. Anyway, the good news is that the comments are working now as Tim has so kindly proved. So please comment if the fancy strikes you!

Like I'm Being Watched...

Seriously, though, it's a good thing.

I just saw that my blog profile has had 32 views. Normally I scoff at such internet related numbers and I've already told you all how I feel about Facebook. But as this particular statistic appeals directly to my ego, I'm quite proud of it. I am vain enough to look at my profile a lot, but I don't think I've looked at it that much. I'm also not sure it even counts me, because I just looked at it again and it didn't go up. If that's the case, the number's even more awesome. I'm flattered people are interested enough in me to look at my profile. Not that I'm not just that super, but I was under the impression that five people tops read my blog, so that's a pretty impressive number all things considered. It could be just other bloggers skimming profiles with similar interests, but that's still good. I don't expect my blog to become wildly popular, I just like to know that someone looks at it.

And I admit that this entry cannot beat monkey socks, which is also another reason I haven't posted in a couple days (that and the mounds of homework). But it's just so awesome to have a picture of monkey socks at the top of my blog that it'll be sad to bump them down. Still, we must all move on in life. My Buddhism class has taught me that all things are impermanent. I also learned that Harrison Ford and Richard Gere are Buddhists. I'll let you decide which of those facts is more enlightening.

Monkey and Banana Socks!

They rock my feet.

Hey There Hot Stuff

Today I had to exercise in Taylor House because I didn't get to Mitchell early enough and Taylor house has a treadmill angled in such a way to the mirrored wall that if you turn your head, you can see most of your backside while you're exercising. It was because of this that I realized what a fine backside that I have. If you know me (which you probably do if you're reading this) then you know that I'm quite vain, and you've likely already accepted this. Sadly, I already love me, so hitting on myself does me no good. Alas, why can't there be a man as sexy as me?

Now I bet you're asking, "Cherie, why do you need to exercise if you're so hot?" Well, it seems I was born with perfectly toned muscles and therefore became accoustomed to them. Unfortunately, laziness and college food has taken those muscles away. A problem with motivating myself to do something about this loss is that is I'm still incredibly hot. Yet, parts of me just don't feel like they used to. So I exercise in an effort to feel as sexy as I look.

Louvie the Loris in his Natural Habitat


For any who doubted that Louvie was a small, tree-dwelling, rain-forest mammal, I present here the photographic evidence. You'll definitely want to click on the image to see the enlarged version. Note the eyes! I apologize for the lighting. My camera is not the best. As a matter of fact, the poor little hamster that lives inside my camera (if you could see my camera you would not doubt that it's operated by a hamster on a wheel) recently got over-heated and repeatedly informed me that he would shut down the camera due to high temperature. As I do not feel that I had been overworking the hamster in any way this annoyed me greatly. I have wanted a better camera for quite some time merely for better image quality. But I've had this one for barely over a year, so I will be quite upset if it breaks. I am also hesitant to buy a new one simply because of this inexplicable error. I bought a new CD player recently because the other one appeared to be breaking, but after the purchase, my old CD player began working perfectly again. I would like another camera, but I do not yet know enough to confidently select a superior model, so I would rather that my current camera remain functional.

So it Was Written, So it Was Done

Horray, I actually edited my fantasy novel yesterday! I was also in a relatively positive mood about it. I decided to look at it like a film. (I watch a lot of film commentaries for those of you who don't already know). I am trying to mercilessly cut out everything that does not in some way lead to the climax of my story or relate to my primary plotline. I still have subplots, of course, but they must all trace back to the primary plotline. I have plenty of material; the main problem is sifting through it all. Sometimes I get discouraged at how much I'll have to rewrite or I'll get sidetracked by ideas. Right now I'm just focusing on what needs to be cut and rewritten. I haven't encountered any scene that won't undergo some rewriting, which is what usually makes me gloomy. But once I sift out all the scenes I want to keep, even if I have to rewrite them, that should be a good framework. I hope so anyway.

Should be Sleeping...

More things that annoy Cherie: People who do well on tests and then are like "What? It was, like, so easy." They're the bane of test anxiety sufferers everywhere.

AND loud and inconsiderate drunken peers.

Nostalgia: We found one of Ishani's knitting needles in the couch in Gilpatrick. It's a little piece of Ishani who we all miss so much. Though I like to think I miss her the most. What's that? She's got a boyfriend? Bah. We all know she loved me best.

Things I NEED to do: Write in my novel. Or edit a novel. Man! This happens everyday! I put it off until it's too late for me to do anything (despite the fact I'm doing this.) Writing's all I have though. Without it I'm just like everybody else. Slightly worse actually (see above test anxiety) so I need to get with it. Tomorrow. I'm trusting my huge blog audience *hears crickets* to descend upon me if I keep slacking on the one thing that makes me me.

Pictures of the Week: Ghosts

Once again these are old pictures because I was talking with my friend Becky and I told her about this blood-chilling picture my very special Kodak camera took of a ghostly tourist, doomed to roam the old prison quarters of Mont St. Michel until she finds the perfect souvenir. The giant wheel you see was used to bring food up to prisoners they once kept there. Unfortunately, the prison ghosts were camera shy.

(Click picture to enlarge)

Speaking of ghosts, below is a non-humorous cultural photo of a Ghost Month celebration in Taiwan. This is paper money being burned to be sent up to the ancestors in heaven. The litter on the ground is all paper money because some bits would get caught in the current of hot air and rise out of the bin to fall to the ground. I remember how the ash danced in the air like black snowflakes.


(Click picture to enlarge)

* * *

Cranky Cherie's Aches and Pains: As an old lady of 21 I feel compelled to complain of my old bones. In this case, actually, it's my old muscles as I seem to have thrown out my right shoulder. Again. This probably means I should not do any fencing until it heals, but I don't know how well I'll stick to that plan. More likely I'll convince myself that I'll be fine if I fence left-handed and thus make myself worse.

I also have a toothache that hurts searingly when I drink hot or cold liquids and sometimes if I eat hot or cold foods (though the food in the dining hall tends to be a uniform lukewarm so I have an easier time with the latter.) Last time I had this problem I went to the dentist only to be told that I had a sinus infection and I paid $80 for nothing. So this time I refuse to go to any quack calling himself a doctor or otherwise.

Things that Annoy Cherie: People who lock their computers *coughcough*Nathan and Louvie*coughcough* so I can't sneak into their rooms when they're out and change their desktops to something totally incongruous to their personalities.

Walking at Night...

...from the library to my dorm while listening to the Elizabeth soundtrack (very broody classical music with horror movie undertones) makes me paranoid that some scary Catholic priest dude's gonna pop out of the shadows and assasinate me...

Cherie's Wise Thought of the Day: Classical music is sexy.

Deer, Birds, Bees and Keys

Things I saw walking back from Gilpatrick the other night: a stag eating grass on the academic quad. The deer population seems to be rising as I've seen more than ever this year. The rowdy drunken senior population who hang out in the common area between the apartments behind my dorm also seem to be increasing. I would only recommend hunting one of these populations in order to control it. Hint: I like animals.

Random thought of the Day: What do birds and bees have to do with sex? I mean, I'm sure they copulate to continue their own populations but hopefully not with each other...

Question of the Day (ignoring the fact that the random thought was a question): I was pondering this with a fellow Denison student so I do not take all credit, though I have always wondered myself. During the summer the dorms are locked by key rather than key card. But the key is also your room key. Does that mean all room keys of a dorm are the same? This seems unlikely. So how do they make so many different keys open one door but still block other keys?

Urgh...

I have to wake up for an 8:30 class tomorrow. My roommate got a grin out of that when I told her. I also have a first day assignment due Tuesday. This is shaping up to be a rough first week.

In book review news I am actually reading several books at once which is not something I do normally and it is fragmenting my brain accordingly. I have not finished any of these books but I can provide analysis on each of them (perhaps revealing why I've yet to finish them). I recently scolded my friend Tim for judging a book before he had finished so I won't say that these books are bad. Merely that most of them start out that way. I'm determined to finish all of them eventually, though. "Eventually" however, can simply mean at some point in my life.

1.) Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett: Not Pratchett's best, I'm sorry to say. It's one of his more abstract views on the fabric of reality. It also doesn't feature any of my favorite characters. Vetinari pops up occasionally, but not nearly enough to keep me interested, and the main protagonists are clearly throw-away characters that I'll never see again aside from Gaspode the Wonder Dog. While Gaspode is funny I'm more interested in humans.

2.) Angels and Demons by Dan Brown: The fact that this book got published makes me feel a whole lot better about my chances. The premise is all right, but the villains are flat comic-book like people who seem to be evil just for the sake of it and the good guys aren't much better developed. The style lacks the usual eloquence that I expect from a good book. It is written as a novel yet it has all the mental depth of a James Bond film.

3.) Phantom by Terry Goodkind: I already did a long preliminary review on this so I'll just briefly update to say that I'm still having issues with this book. I usually accept Goodkind's violence and gore because the story is so compelling and action-packed. But the characters have done practically nothing for the past hundred pages or so but reminisce about how horrible the evil New Order army is and how they rape and kill everyone. Yes. I get it. I KNOW. Move on with the story! I also like Goodkind's philosophy, but when the characters do nothing but ponder for fifty or so pages I begin to squirm. Plus Goodkind's male fantasies are showing through more than they usually do which once again leads to the bad fan fiction feel. At least two all-powerful beautiful women want to copulate with Richard (who is ALREADY MARRIED to another beautiful and all-powerful woman) and this nearly escalated into a cat fight. Luckily it didn't because I would have had to throw the book at the wall at that point and it's rather heavy and the walls here already have holes...

4.) Rasputin's Daughter by Robert Alexander: This is actually the best book I've been reading so far. I just picked it up randomly in the library because I've always been interested in Russian history of the Romanov era and the cover has a both disturbing yet captivating image of a haunted and angry-looking young woman. I got to Chapter 6 before forcing myself to put it down. It's a highly suspenseful account of the week before Rasputin's infamous murder told from the perspective of his teenaged daughter. I like that while it doesn't say Rasputin was a good person, his daughter clearly loved him, so it's a much different account than we normally get. She doesn't try to hide his rather questionable activities, but she has come to accept them, so she doesn't portray Rasputin as the center of all evil. Plus it's a murder mystery to boot and far more artfully written than Dan Brown's in any case. Probably the only reason I haven't finished it is because I know that, if I pick it up again, I won't do anything else for the rest of the day.

This is also an unprecedented amount of books for me to be reading all at once. I can't remember the last time I read so many, in any case, so I hope I don't go insane when school starts.

No Turkish Delight...

I searched Granville and was shocked to find that they didn't have any Turkish Delight that I could buy anywhere. I know it's a small town but even Bexley stocked some in the corner drugstore. Oh well, perhaps I shall have to track down an errant Snow Queen?

Pictures of the Week

In an effort to make this blog vaguely interesting to someone who might read it I've decided to add pictures more frequently. They might not actually be every week, but I'd like them to be, so we'll see. Anyway, these are some old pictures from Taiwan, but they're quite amusing and I don't think I ever got the chance to talk about them. I also just learned that if you click the picture, you can see a bigger version. Just a heads up in case you, like me, are a slow learner.

I apologize for the glare of the flash, but it was too dark to get the picture otherwise. Plus, people tend to look at you strangely when you laugh and take pictures of signs, so I had to do this quickly when there was no one to see me. At any rate, here we see an excellent Taiwanese elevator sign. Even if one cannot read the characters, the pictures are quite clear. The first picture in the upper left hand corner advises talking to a policeman who lives in the wall should any problems occur. Then the picture in the upper right corner advises sitting down in the elevator after a long day's work and having pleasant conversations with your colleagues as a form of stress relief. The lower left is my favorite. It clearly tells an avant-garde and abstractly philosophical cautionary tale of minature twin sisters who lived in a shoebox their whole lives until one day they finally popped the top off and were horrified to find that the outside world consisted only of a bleak, blue abyss. Overcome with grief one sister faints dead away. The last picture may appear to tell people to use the stairs instead of the elevator in an emergency, but really it's revealing that if you go through the green exit of heavenly white light, X will mark the spot to a long lost pirate treasure.

Here's a pic of a dog waiting patiently at a streetlight. It is my scientific opinon that dogs in Taiwan have this behavior ingrained in their genetics as the dogs who don't would not likely live long enough to continue their genes.

* * *

On a random note I would also like to explain why I don't have a Facebook account. The idea of Facebook rubs me the wrong way for several reasons. The first being that if someone is truly my friend, then I feel they'll take the trouble to keep in touch with me in the first place rather than looking me up one day when they're feeling nostalgic. This doesn't mean that I expect constant correspondence from my friends, or that I wouldn't be thrilled to hear from an old friend out of the blue, but I'm presently confident that all of the friends who have completely lost track of me have done so on purpose and due to no lack of trying to keep in touch on my part. Furthermore, when I was younger, I was quite fond of message boards, and I met plenty of internet friends with the same interests there rather than needing to be sorted into a certain category on any Facebook group. I also have grown mostly out of my message board phase and have found a plethora of other things to waste my time on. I still talk on message boards occasionally, but I'm no where near as keen on them as I used to be. Finally there's just something creepily cultish about Facebook in my opinion. Things that are popular tend to detract me automatically and my feelings about a thing only change if I see a good reason for its popularity, but I personally have no use for Facebook. I know that many people use Facebook for purely practical reasons. I want to make it very clear that I am not refering to these people. But so many more seem to use it like some kind of virtual popularity contest. When I hear people having long conversations about who's signed who's Facebook wall and their pleasure at abusing the "hooked-up with/dating/marriage" status options, I just feel like these are people who lead rather small and meaningless lives, and I have no desire to join them.

Yay Mag!

Tim did finally show up last night with his charming fiancee Mag and we had a rather late dinner and a fun tour of Denison and Granville today, during which Mag took many wonderful pictures of my college campus and I took some pictures of a "Put Your Cardboard Here" sign.

Very few women would be okay with the fact that Tim is still friends with his ex-girlfriend, so I am very lucky that he is marrying Mag. Plus I feel I get another excellent friend in the bargain. I also know, that as the ex-girlfriend, very few people would believe just how happy about this I am. But luckily those people won't likely be reading this blog at any rate. Besides, anyone who could dislike Mag would have to have a heart of ice, that girl is just too sweet.

Freaking OUT!!!

My friend Tim is supposed to be visiting me tonight and he's late, which is nothing new for Tim but I'm worried because I forgot to tell him that the emergency call boxes outside the dorms only work if you call the last four digits of the phone number. If he calls my full phone number he'll hear ringing but no one will pick up so he'll think I'm not here and that I callously forgot about him and his fiancee! Nothing could be farther from the truth. I've been peering out the slits in the blinds for the last few hours like some crazy paranoid girl every time I hear the sound of a car. I've run outside twice when I thought I spotted them and shouted desperately out the window once at someone who looked lost. I even taped little signs on the call boxes in my vicinity that tell how to use them but I couldn't check all the dorms and I'm not sure which call box he'll use. Assuming he even recognizes the little yellow boxes. Some of them have signs all ready but the print on them is really small, it's quite dark, and Tim's not the read-the-instructions kind of fellow. At least, not when I last knew him. Normally I'm against cell phones but it's times like these I do wish everyone had them. Or, at least, telepathic abilities.

Gurgle!

Where is he?!?!?!?!?!

Update: Now almost 2 hours late. More updates as my neurotic behavior increases. And I just want to say that I hate the GRE and their stupid writing snobs for giving me a stupid writing grade of an essay I was quite proud of.

Update 3 seconds later: That stupid security van keeps driving by and stupid people keep making noises outside and I saw a large silver van but it doesn't look like the silver bullet (Tim's name for his very stylish mini-van.) Though, I don't know if he drives that anymore.

Yaaargh!

French Canadian...

Apparently I understand Canadian French much better than normal French. Dang it. Nothing against Canada, it's just I've been trying to learn standard French for nine years now... I came to this conclusion while listening to "God Help the Outcasts" on YouTube in Arabic, Chinese, French, and Canadian French. I was frustrated with how much less of the normal French one I understood but I comforted myself that it was just because songs in general are hard to understand at times. Then I listened to the Canadian one.

Oh well. Canada is closer...

Han Solo Vs. Aragorn

IMDB had this poll and called it a "showdown" but then after I voted I realized they might have just meant which character I like best. Or which I'm more interested in romantically? In any case, I thought they meant who would win in a fight, which is a no-brainer--Han Solo. Because Han would inevitably cheat and Aragorn's far too noble for that. Plus, blaster vs. sword? So I voted for Han. But if the question was who I'm more romantically interested in that would be Aragorn for the same reason he'd lose in a fight. Though I'm more of a Legolas girl myself, I'm more than happy to "settle" for Aragorn if it's between him and Han. However, if they're talking about who's the best character then I'd have to say Han again because Aragorn's just far too serious.

So that's two out of three for Han and I've proved that it's not just because I'm a Star Wars fan but rather that I have logical reasons.

Terry Goodkind's Phantom

Warning: If you have not read this book, and do not wish to be spoiled, do not read this.

This is sort of a preliminary book review since I'm only on page 78 out of 587. But so far I have to say that I'm disappointed. I used to love these characters, but I can no longer move myself to care whether they live or die. To be fair I've always found Goodkind's books difficult to get into, so perhaps I only need to give it another couple hundred pages. Plus my sister, who reads the novel I am writing at present in small 5 page sections as I crank them out, recently observed that there is a "flattening quality" that affected the characters when she only read small sections. When she went back once and read from the beginning her opinion of my characters seemed to improve. So it may be that since I have not read, Chainfire, the book preceding this new novel in quite some time, I do not remember the characters well enough. All the same I shall give my impressions so far.

Richard, who is commonly my favorite character, has lost his charm for me in a lot of ways by starting out the book as an insufferable know-it-all. Though my memory of Chainfire is foggy, I do remember that Richard spent the entire book trying to convince everyone that his wife Kahlan had disappeared. I felt frustrated for his sake during this entire ordeal. It was deeply psychological in the sense that even though I did not think Goodkind would do something as cheap as to make his character turn out to be simply delusional, all the evidence pointed to this fact almost until the very end. As a reader you even began to question the existence of a character that you had read about in 8 whole books. Despite the fact that it would have been sheer literary folly to say that she never existed, I began to worry. But Goodkind has pushed it over the top by beginning this book with another instance where Richard is the only one who knows something is wrong with a spell his grandfather and friends have created.

On one hand, it could just be my foggy memory of Richard's previous adventures that makes this part annoying. He insists he is an expert on "emblematic forms" though I can recall no incident of this. When Kahlan disappeared it was an emotional memory and it was Richard's will to get her back, and refusal to let go of her memory, even if everyone else thought he was insane, that endeared him to me. However, this time it is purely intellectual and I am forced to agree with the annoying characters that there is no way he could know what he is saying. It's like reading a bad fan fiction and Richard is a horrible Mary Sue, capable of solving everyone's problems with a wave of the hand. At the same time, even though there's no reason he should know there's a problem with the spell; it's irksome that the same people who doubted him in the first book are doubting him once more. One would think they would have learned their lesson. Only his grandfather believes him but cannot help, of course, because only Richard has the power to undo the spell. Even though I do know why only Richard can undo the spell since he is the only other person free with Subtractive Magic and his Subtractive powers are a well established fact (unlike his emblematic studies) his ability alone to resolve the problem only exacerbates the too-easy feel of the situation.

Then there is the trouble with Nicci who seems on the verge of death in the first few chapters yet I cannot seem to care. This is in stark contrast when Richard's companion Cara was in mortal danger in the last book and I kept reading because I needed to know that she would be okay. But the idea of Nicci dying does not seem to bother me at the moment. I used to have some respect for Nicci as a villain and still respected her when she turned good. But in these first few chapters she seems like nothing more than a lovesick puppy, only living for Richard's sake. It is not that I mind her love for Richard but rather that it seems to have become the very core of her personality. Originally I had the feeling that she loved, not only Richard, but what he represents which is the nobility of the human spirit and the importance of individuality. So it is sad for me to see someone who I had thought appreciated individuality clinging so tragically to unrequited love and the dependency on another person.

My last complaint is the complexity of the magic in the first few chapters. Goodkind has always said he is not a world builder and it is the philosophy of the books that is most important. This was something I always respected about him, that his ideas could work in a story that featured no magic at all. The magic was just there to make it more fun and exciting. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy and I will have a long debate with anyone who disregards it as a lesser genre. But that is because I have always believed that good writing transcends genre and that at the core of any good story is something universal. Therefore I was upset when I was treated to a lengthy discussion of abstract magic in the first few chapters. Perhaps there was something philosophical in the discussion, but it was buried under layers of magical theory that was so far removed from any sort of reality that I could neither comprehend nor relate to it. I don’t take issue with the reasonable explanation of magic’s limitations so we understand that all problems cannot be solved with the wave of a wand. But I do not care about the nitty gritty details of how the magic works; I care how the people work. And they have not been working very much in the last few chapters.

As for Kahlan, I am afraid she has never been my favorite character and the loss of all of her memories has not improved this.

There are hundreds more pages to go though and I still have hopes it will improve. As I said at the beginning I have always had trouble getting into Goodkind's books. If I had not been bored and on vacation and had my sister not positively insisted it was a good book, I never would have gotten through The Wizard's First Rule which begins "It was a very interesting vine..." I mean come on. So I hope that this book improves as I read more as many of its precursors did. Though I think Faith of the Fallen shall remain my favorite. I recommend everyone to read the first half of this series just so you can read Faith of the Fallen which is the most inspiring book I have ever read and helped put words to many of my own convictions which I could never explain so eloquently myself. Terry Goodkind will remain one of my favorite authors because of that one book even if he never writes another good book again (though I certainly hope he does.)

What's the point of Getting Older...

...If I still get acne? Seriously. Am I going to go straight from acne to wrinkles?

However, I will say I like it that now when I go into a grocery store I'm making a conscious decision not to buy alcohol rather than simply not being able to.

And my little brother's Dennis's birthday was actually an hour or so ago but I'll give him a shout out all the same despite the fact that he's only 5, won't read this, and refused to talk to me on the phone when I called. My other little brother, Curtis, also stole the phone the first time I called, made several obnoixous noises, and then left it on top of some radio playing rap music which is, in my opinion, worse than elevator music, so I was forced to hang up, but when I tried to call again it became clear that he had not hung up the phone and that no one had noticed so it was indefinitely busy. Yeah. It's funny when it's not you. It seems I'm doomed to love Curtis as much as I want to strangle him. As for Dennis he's never particularly warmed to me (as evidenced by his refusal to speak with me). What does it mean when the only little brother who loves you appears to be some sort of demon from the netherworld?

I would also like to put out a notice to the black-hearted villain who stole my dish soap. I left you a polite note to return the soap. It has been many days and the soap was not returned. I was forced to buy new soap. I know it's petty. I know it probably wasn't even stolen but more likely innocently removed by a confused member of the cleaning staff unable to concieve of a student who would want to wash dishes. I know it's not that expensive. But I am short-tempered and quick to hold a grudge so by the blood of my forbearers I shall hunt you down.

In all honesty little things like this do make me unreasonably upset. Probably why I was put into anger management at the age of 11. All the same I don't like being angry. I know I should just let it go. But I still find myself coolly considering all the people around me wondering if they're the kind of person to steal dish soap. I hate it! I hate being suspicious of people. I much prefer thinking well of everyone, but how can I trust people who steal something as stupid as dish soap? It's horribly selfish since I put it out for the purpose of letting everyone use it and so they didn't just steal it from me. They didn't even have to steal it!

I know, I know, I need help, whatever. If anger management didn't cure me then, it won't cure me now.

What?!

Apparently there's a cult on a small island somewhere who worship Prince Philip:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanna

Furthermore, I admit I just learned today that there is a Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Talk about being overshadowed. I always assumed that her husband was dead since I never heard anyone refer to a present King of England. But that's not because he's dead but rather because he's not King.

Yeah, yeah, I'm American and they don't teach us things.

Wengo Phone Redeemed...

Sorta. Okay. It's working now and Skype was wigging out on me so, since it means so much to my sister, I shall declare Wengo Phone redeemed. For now. If it starts echoing me or giving me gruff again, though, it goes back on my evil list.

How hard is it to make pancakes?

Apparently a lot harder than I thought.

Soul Mate's Response

All right, I admit I actually wasn't expecting that. Especially not this soon. I figured he'd delete the email outright, thinking it was spam or porn or something. Or worried that he wouldn't delete it because he thought it was porn. I'm still not saying he's my soul mate, despite the title of this entry. But I know a bit more about him now which is interesting. Now, if he isn't intimidated by the long letter I sent back, I might find out more. If not, though, it simply wasn't meant to be because any man that wouldn't be able to put up with my endless rambling and inability to be concise couldn't possibly be my soul-mate.

Okay, so I can be concise sometimes. But one shouldn't count on it, or base a relationship on it.

Zelda, Toilets, and Soul Mates, Oh my...

Probably the biggest discovery I made today is this trailer for a Legend of Zelda fan film. It's a movie clearly made on limited resources, but I'm very impressed with what they've done all the same. Having made only a 2 minute film with a a friend of mine, I know how much hard work goes into movie making, and I have a high admiration for anyone who would make a feature length film with no promise of monetary compensation. Besides, it is my hope that the story and acting are decent.

http://www.zeldarevolution.net/Files/zeldatrailer.mov

I also did some fencing today which is an aspect of my life I like to brag about. I'm not sporty, but I find fencing interesting enough to go through physical exertion for it. I don't want to compete because I'm sure I'd never live down the shame of being beaten by some ten year old prodigy. However, I have a great respect for anyone willing to take such a blow to their ego. As for me, I'm simply happy to hold a sword and fence with someone who's willing to have fun and not by making fun of how bad I am.

A brief update on my toilet's identiy crisis. There is, in fact, another word written on it. "Mansfield." Though it still says "Church" as well.

I was also informed by a friend of mine that she has met my soul mate and she gave me his email address. As this is not something one gets told everyday I figured it couldn't hurt to look into it, so I have sent an email to a boy I have never met. More on this if I find out anything more myself.

Huh...

Women in the United States were allowed to stand for election over a century before they were allowed to vote.

http://archive.idea.int/women/parl/ch6_table8.htm

* * *

On a completely unrelated note I also realized today that my toilet has the word "Church" prominently displayed on it and nothing else. I think it may have an identity crisis.

Things I've Learned Today...

Philip Pullman hates monkeys.

WengoPhone is evil (though my sister insists vehemently otherwise). I don't care if it's open source, I never had this many problems with Skype. I shall advertise Skype now. Everybody go get Skype.

My sister seems to take this as a personal slight. So I want to make it very clear that I love my sister. I hate WengoPhone. My sister is also quite brillant. She just gets these...ideas.... The type of ideas that insist that innovation can't be user friendly.

As for the things I hoped to get done yesterday. I did a little research on Confucius and some editing in my Science Fiction, realized that I could do something really cool--provided I changed the whole course of the story at some point--got depressed at the enormity of the task and the lateness of the hour, did some stretches and went to bed listening to Pullman's The Tiger in the Well, which is how I learned of his aversion to monkeys having already got through the entire His Dark Materials series. One evil monkey is a coincidence. Two suggests a deep psychological fear. Besides, the lengths that he went to portray this animal as a denizen from the deepest depths of some fiery underworld... I mean, he's perfectly free to dislike monkeys. I'm just curious as to his reasons. Anyway, it's probably clear from this that I got addicted to the story and spent my whole day listening to it.

Still working on being useful as a human being.

Okay...

So I won't likely update very much. Originally this wasn't even meant to be a serious blog as is evidenced by the previous posts. But I've thought a webpage might have its uses. Though I can't think of what at the moment. Anyway, I think I'll write down what I did today. Even though I highly doubt anyone is reading, the slight chance that someone will may motivate me into useful activity through shame at admitting I'm so lazy.

Anyway, today I bought groceries (despite already having done so on Tuesday.) Nearly got blown over by crazy high winds.

Got to hear: My roommate's phone ringing repeatedly. The band camp practicing at my university.

Ate. Stared at my computer. Checked my email. Looked at Mugglenet and the Leaky Cauldron far too many times. Found out how to change my blog's template and add my profile and pic. Felt unreasonably proud. Still trying to figure out how to add links.

Things I SHOULD have done today and have four or five hours left to do:

Write in my novel
Edit one of my completed novels
Research....

Things I would have liked to have done today:

Watched a movie. Though, actually, more accurately I would have liked to have wanted to watch a movie. As it is I can never convince myself it's worth the time I would otherwise waste.