Gingerbread Men, A Thousand Words, and Private Thoughts

Last night my sister and I were walking when we came upon this scene of holiday terror. Observe the gingerbread man face down in the grass. Observe how his side of the of the house has gone dark. And observe, the bright and jolly jubilance of his wife shining brightly over him.

Speaking of tragedies some of you may have noticed that I did not report how many words I wrote in November. I know you all wait in breathless anticipation of such reports, so I apologize profusely for my oversight. Partly it was due to not having time for anything, but partly it was so sad as to only increase my depression by reporting it. But as I'm feeling quite a bit better now after a hefty dose of blissful vacation nothingness, I will finally fess up to the hateful number: 1,158 words. That was my yield for all of November. I wrote more words than that yesterday in less than two hours. The frustrating thing is that I know there was time in November. There just wasn't the mental energy to use it properly. But a large part of me doesn't really accept that as an excuse and has concluded that I'm just lamentably weak. I worry that this will become my life--being too tired to write. But I try to remind myself that my sister now has much more time and energy ever since she graduated from grad school. I will just have to hope that grad school is the culprit and not work in general. In any event, I have gotten quite a lot written over break, though it cannot make up for what I could not write any other time, and while my yield for December will be a lot less depressing than October and November, it probably will not even surpass that of September which is when things all started going downhill in the first place.

Now that I do have a little extra time, though, I find that I am lacking something else. A diary. I did not so much forget to bring my diary as omit it from the packing list because I haven't written in it in quite some time. The whole point of starting this blog was because I'd mostly run out of the sort of private thoughts that I would not wish to share with everyone. But for the first time in a long time I wish I had my diary to confide in. Nothing wrong with all of you, but I suppose every human being gets a little bit of existential angst every few years that is best not shouted merrily across the void of cyberspace. They're the sort of thoughts that you may read over and still be moved by later, or could just as easily be glad that no one else knew they occurred to you at all. It may also simply be a case of missing what I don't have. True, I could write on anything, but there is quite a bit less security on writing one's innermost thoughts on spare bits of paper or even on a computer. I considered writing them in French since very few people I know could read it, and those who could aren't likely to see it if I keep it to myself. But that's slightly more effort than I'd like to put into random mental rambling. I could also buy another notebook but the economical side of me rebels against this since I've already got two unfinished diaries. Also the thought of writing in just any notebook doesn't really appeal to me. Oh well, perhaps I'm just spoiled. One way or another I'll either write them or I won't.

Anyway, I can't exactly make up for the recent lack of blog posts. But I hope this is something for those of you who've missed me. I miss all of you as well.

To all my dear Gilpatricians, it was wonderful to see you all again. It was good to see you too, Eric, if you're reading this. I am sorry to the rest of my Denison friends that I wasn't able to visit. Chalk it up to very limited time and poor planning on my part. But I hope I can come back again sometime. And to any of my friends that I wasn't able to see at all recently, I hope I can see you all again sometime. I hope you all are well and have all had a great holiday and will have a very good New Year.

Friends of the Week: Becky (I think the cat is cute too) and Anonymous (you guys really need to remember to put your names down)

Mom is Mom of the Week.

A Town Bereft...

...of magnetic poetry! I went to the Borders and five, that's right five other book stores and a novelty shop but one little box of magnetic words cannot be got in this town for love or money! There is much to be said for Ann Arbor, its lovely trees, its inspiring old edifices, its bubble tea, but this lack of magnetic poetry to me seems a great failing indeed.

More Frightening...

More frightening than any ghost, ghoul, or beastie stirred up at Halloween is my word count for the month. 2188. An all time low. I basically feel about it how this cat looks.

Friends of the Week: Mag, Ishani, and Tim ! :)

Mom is also Mom of the Week.

Happy Halloween!

You may think decoration, but the squirrel thinks "lunch."









Squirrel says "Whut?!"

My very own "unfinished" pumpkin art on display at the library. Exactly the right kind of pumpkin for a grad student. (That black thing is a plastic knife)

Reference Desk Super Powers

If you know me, then you know how much I like to talk about how awesome I am, but today I was particularly so. Today a mother hesitantly approached the desk. "This is a hard one..."

Being new I'm not particularly good at hard ones. But I listened attentively. "My son was here yesterday and saw a book about a crab."

"Does he remember the title?"

"No."

"Author?"

"No...he's three."

Hmm...we have a fabulous children's librarian but she wasn't there at the time. It was definitely a picture book, but there's no way to narrow the search that way on the library database. The other librarian on desk with me thought it might be an Eric Carle book about a Hermit Crab. I thought this seemed as good a guess as any. I checked the shelves and Eric Carle's Hermit Crab was not there but that didn't mean someone couldn't have checked it out. I went back and googled an image of the Eric Carle book to show to the 3 year old to see if he'd recognize it. But when I went over the child was entranced by a computer game and did not seem to like the idea of pausing when his mother suggested it. So I went back to the desk and got distracted by other things. Then finally the mother returned with her child and I showed him a picture of the Eric Carle book.

"Is that it?"

The kid looked at it. "No."

Then it got worse. I suppose he'd really been counting on this book. "Nooo!" he wailed more forcibly, his eyes welling up and his nose beginning to drip. "That's not right!"

I could see the crab situation had reached critical. Luckily, I'd also googled crab+picture book as a back-up and quickly showed him the cover of a different book (the one pictured above to be exact.)

A few sniffles and the kid seemed to calm down. Yes, that was the book. It was also still on the shelf! Hooray! I'd like to say it took more than that, but mostly my amazing find was a mixture of luck, Google, and a cool-head in the face of a drippy nose.

Still, I feel pretty good about it, and my colleague seemed pretty amazed with me for the rest of the day.

Friends of the Week:

Tim and Brian!

Looks Like I Can't Do it All...

My writing yield for the month is (drum-roll please) 7082 words.

Sigh...I know, compared to the other months that's pretty pathetic. As is painfully apparent by this number, I was not able to write 500 words every day while being a grad student and holding down a part-time job. My life is clearly busier, but this still makes me frustrated. I feel like if I was hard-core enough, I could do it.

But I suspect that somewhere at my core, in the place of an iron-will, I have a slightly melty cream filling.

Friend of the Week: Sarah! :)

Obituary: Dr. Desmond Hamlet

It is difficult to believe that a man with such energy and vibrance is now gone. His eyes truly shone when he taught. But a person like Dr. Hamlet does not simply disappear. His booming voice will echo forever in the minds of his students, whether it is to simply remember a terror for comma splices or the enthusiastic encouragement to truly express ourselves. I have posted two very similar messages in both guest books to the obituaries linked at the bottom of this post. But I shall reiterate my sentiments here:

I wish I had taken more time to express to Dr. Hamlet just how highly I thought of him. I still remember my class with him: Words and Ideas, a freshman course that I thought would be boring. However, upon entering, I was greeted by his energetic enthusiasm for the subject and booming voice, which is probably as close to the voice of God that I will ever hear. I still remember he took the time to talk to a harried-looking freshman with a suitcase full of books, and he told me that he had once been the same. He scared grammar into me, challenged my ideas, and encouraged me to write what I really thought, even if it was completely the opposite of what he thought. Often times it was. But Dr. Hamlet was one of those rare people that can look at something they do not agree with and still analyze it fairly and seemingly objectively. Many other professors had told me that I should write what I really thought, but Hamlet truly meant it with every fiber of his being. I remember he practically wrote another essay in the margins of my paper about why I thought James Joyce wrote poorly. But when I flipped to the end of my essay all in red, I was shocked to see an A and an excited note about how he didn’t agree with a word of it, but I had argued well. I already loved to write before his class, but I will always remember Hamlet and the difference he made in my writing and how I thought about writing. He made me really believe that my ideas were worthy. He was strict, but it was because he really believed in writing and expression. I will always be grateful for everything he taught me and that I had the privilege and honor of knowing such a great and brilliant man.

McPeek Obituary
Columbus Dispatch Obituary

RAM, SAM, and Gilpatrick

I was just reading an article for class (or rather I’m currently reading it and should be doing so now) but the fact that serial access memory is shortened to SAM made me pause and chuckle. In my mind I see a little Gilpatrick lounge inside every computer with Sam sitting down, his feet on the table, watching TV when some command tells him to go search the computer memory. The little computer Sam will probably grumble, set aside whatever food he’s eating, and go and get it.

Maybe this won't help me understand computers but it sure makes this article less boring. Gosh, I miss Gilpatrick.

Is She...Dead?

No. I'm still alive. I haven't felt like it at times, but I am. There have been a couple times through the week where I could have blogged but didn't. There are several reasons for this. One is that the blog may have consisted of something like: "Ogg...sleepy." The other is that there has not been much of note for me to share. I could probably still post a sentence everyday. But the utility of this is questionable. It seems most my readers appreciate my longer, thoughtful posts. The only things I've thought to remark on recently is that I discovered there are cinnamon bun Creme Savers (which are awesome), and that I really hate it when people knock on the doors of public restrooms that are locked. If it's locked, then there's someone inside, or it's locked for some other reason, likely by someone with the key. I know sometimes kids amuse themselves by crawling under the stalls and locking the doors, but I was in a single room restroom. What's someone going to do? Ooze under the door crack, lock it, and then ooze back? So yes, I'm in the restroom, but I'd rather not announce my presence or talk about my activities therein, thank you very much.

It's been a full week. I think most the exhaustion really comes from adjusting, though. Once, I've got certain things like food and transportation down pat, those will hopefully drain less of my energy. Plus, they really weren't kidding about needing at least 8 hours of sleep in grad school. I skipped two days of novel writing because I ran myself so haggard, but on Thursday the TA was kind enough to provide us with snacks at our last class, and it really perked me up more than I would have thought. So some of my exhaustion may be from low blood sugar. Mom was right, I should carry snacks with me. I'll try to remember to buy some when I go to the store tomorrow. But I'm proud to say I managed to write a little over 500 words both Thursday and Friday, and I hope I'll be able to make-up for the missed two days by writing at least 1000 Saturday and Sunday. We'll see. But if I can at least keep up the writing, that will be something.

Both an exciting and tiring thing I did this week was my work orientation and training. It's exciting because I learn many cool super librarian things so that I may soon be a little super librarian who shall hopefully be able to upgrade to big super librarian. But it's tiring because all the librarian super powers have to be taught to me very fast so I can throw on my spandex sweater set as soon as possible and fight with my amazing bookish powers!

Anyway, let me know if you would be interested in me blogging random short stuff everyday or if you'd prefer that I only write when I have something interesting to say.

Friends of the Week: Tim and Becky! Thanks for commenting!

Chrissy also commented a while back, and she's my sister of the week every week, but I thought she deserved a colorful name.

The Other Me....

They forced us to get accounts in Second Life for one of my foundation courses so we could have an educated opinion on whether or not the university should teach a class in Second Life. Yes, apparently many educational institutions seriously do this. Now, while I acknowledge its use as a tool in distance learning, the fact that people could feasibly come to class with rabbit ears (or as a rabbit), with green hair, or decked out in a leather catsuit troubles me. I dunno. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. I also had to take on an alias because I couldn't use my real name since last names are selected from a drop-down menu. I like my last name. And Cherie Lee is not the same as Cherie Eel (one of the options I did NOT select). I ended up with MeiLing Greenwood since the first is my Chinese name and the second just sounded nice. I was tempted by the name "Darcy" which was available, but I didn't like how it sounded with MeiLing as much as I liked Greenwood. There were no sensible Chinese surnames or I would have chosen one. My dear friend Punya would likely find this sacrilegious, but she's free to snap up the name Punya Darcy in Second Life. It's probably still available.

The average SL resident is too cool for me, though. So this is my avatar. I tried to keep her as toned down as possible, but I couldn't resist giving her radiant green eyes. This is not so much because I don't like having brown eyes, but more because the poor girl couldn't look as beautiful as me no matter what I tried, so she needed something to console her. I also kept on her lipstick because I couldn't make her lips naturally as dark as mine. You can adjust both shirt and pants, but this is as far as either would go to cover my avatar. I guess Second Life didn't get the memo that midriff shirts went out of fashion last season. At least she's wearing chain mail, though. That's cool, I guess. It was free, which is why she's wearing it.

The fact that I spent most the time designing the appearance of my own avatar, and that was mostly in an effort to make her look quasi-respectable since the default appears to be "preppy teenager", also makes me dubious of Second Life as a serious or professional environment.

So on a whole, I still have to agree with the First Life website.

All Bets Are Off

Grad School doesn't start until tomorrow and yet I'm already behind it would seem since I was not paying close enough attention to the hundreds of emails flooding my school inbox. So I already have a lot of work I need to do and thus will have to stop the deal I have had with my sister about blogging every day. This does not necessarily mean that I will not blog every day, so I would appreciate it if everyone still checked my blog from time to time. This is obviously something I enjoy doing, some nice me time, and I would like more than anything to keep it going. So I will blog whenever I can. I will even still try to blog every day. I just can't promise anything. I definitely cannot promise to read a fanfic if I miss a day unless that fanfic is assigned for one of my courses. So I'm sorry Chrissy.

I may be able to reinstate this deal, however, once I get used to grad school. Or I may drop off the face of the Earth for a while... But that doesn't mean I don't still want to hear from people. Knowing I still have friends may be the only thing keeping me going at times, so please still say hello from time to time if you can.

Also, one last random piece of fun news before I may not have time: They've actually based a TV show off of commercials.

Now don't get me wrong. I admit I did like those commercials. But I still think this says something about the state of modern TV, and it's probably a big part of the reason I don't regret no longer watching it.

Words, Words, Words

I wrote 20,130 words in the month of August. This is rather shocking since it's more than I expected and more than I wrote in either June or July. Especially amazing since I admittedly had to skip two days when my jet-lagged brain just couldn't do it. I did, however, write some by hand in my journal on the plane just so I wouldn't waste good thinking time (my laptop was, and still is, on the fritz). This proves my newfound dedication because I hate writing by hand. Not that I particularly like being a slave to this devil machine, but my handwriting is positively dreadful and rather depressing to look back at. I can read it, though, which is better than some people I guess. But I also prefer the computer for the ability to move text and go back and smoothly add things. Plus, if I write something by hand, I know I will have to type it later, and I hate typing possibly more than I hate writing by hand. I don't mind typing (or rather finger-pecking) what's in my head. But typing stuff already written is the most menial thing imaginable.

I know this fact is rather contradictory to the lovely picture I have here. By the way, I did NOT draw this picture. It's something I found on the internet a really long time ago and saved. Mad props to whoever did draw it, though. Obviously this is what I wish I looked like while writing. Writing by hand certainly looks more romantic than slouching over a computer. But I'll bet anything that serene fairy has programmed her quill to word-processor capacity.

I also added 1,330 words from my notes. Proving how I like to move things about. These are either from the previous draft or things I write on the fly and later edit into my story, so I don't recall when I write them (though maybe I should start keeping track.) I have, however, recorded when I add them. The reason I don't record their initial writing is because sometimes I never add them, so they can end up being more like mental exercises than strictly countable story progress. Not that thinking about my novel isn't progress. I just always fear becoming one of those people who thinks very hard about writing but never actually does it.

So right now my story is 90,766 words and a few paragraphs more than 139 word-processed pages. If I wrote normal sized novels, I'd be finished or less than a month from finishing. Unfortunately, I do not, and I couldn't tell you how much longer this will take. But if I can keep up the pace, there is a hope of me finishing before the year is out. I certainly do not plan on making this one into the monster the last draft was. But I don't want to impose a length on it either. Very difficult, really.

Brotherhood 2.0 Review

The following is the newest video in a long series of videos. I used this one because the still frame was pretty good, and it's a pretty funny video without too many in-jokes. If you want to watch this series from the beginning, though, this is their first video. And you can go here
for more of their earlier vids. They start at the bottom and go up.



I've been meaning to do this for a long time but haven't gotten around to it. The trouble is that it's gotten to the point where I'm not really sure what to say. I'm simply baffled that everybody doesn't already watch these guys. The majority of their videos are under four minutes, so it can't be short attention spans.

Anyway, I guess I'll just explain who they are and what they do. John and Hank Green are two brothers who have decided not to textually communicate for the full year of 2007. Instead they will only communicate through video blogs and the telephone. I thought the telephone kind of made the whole thing too easy, but they say they almost never use it. They do a video blog every weekday (they get weekends off), and if they miss a day, or are seen to textually communicate, they must be punished. Punishments are decided by the brother not doing the punishment, but they can vetoed by their wives.

John is an award-winning young adult writer and Hank is a notable ecologist and webpage designer (but not notable enough for Wikipedia.) They are also both absolutely hilarious. My kind of people--which means they're nerds and proud of it. Their videos are what reality TV should be, real people who are fun to listen to.

Because this has been going on since January, and they've developed a decent fanbase, there are some in-jokes you won't get if you don't watch it from the beginning. Nonetheless, I thought a good idea might be to dedicate a video to each person that has commented recently in my blog (meaning on this first page here). I'd like to do everyone who's ever commented, but there's no way I'd remember for certain even though it's not that many. However, if you'd like a video dedicated to you, just comment here, and you'll get one.


Becky and Brian: Yeah, you guys have to share one but it's a good one and the part about bears sort of reminded me of you both and what Becky mentioned about the exciting sights at your trip to Iowa. And a quick explanation of in-jokes: "Nerdfighters" is the name of their fanbase and, yes, John really did eat (and video blogged for our viewing pleasure) a blenderized Happy Meal as a punishment for textually communicating with Hank. Since he was going to have to be punished anyway, he asked their fans to donate money to his friend's political campaign to decide how bad his punishment would be. He also waxed a leg and licked a cat.



I should also note Becky is my friend of the week!


Heather: This is John being punished. These are the sorts of punishments Cherianity will be doling out to those who incite our wrath but don't quite merit burning to a crisp. Study it well. (Incidentally, it is also where John eats the blenderized Happy Meal that I mentioned earlier so either close your eyes or don't watch on a full stomach.)




Sarah: Licking a cat. I thought it was funny...




Tim: In which you see the awesome Neil Gaiman and Hank sings a song about Helena Montana. Dedicated to you since you once lived in Montana.




Chrissy hasn't commented in my blog recently, but I know she reads it everyday, so she can consider the video at the top dedicated to her since I thought it was funny and she might too. The trouble is I've shown her most the other ones I really like. Or she can have the Neil Gaiman one for a different reason than Tim does. Some of you may be saying, can you dedicate videos you didn't make? I say: absolutely.

My Paper Towels Tell Me What to Do...

...Or rather, they have trite inspirational phrases like "Reach for the Stars" and "Live Life to it's Fulllest." Perhaps I will. But for now I should really Do My Laundry and Clean My Apartment.

Heh, Cute.

Pimp My PowerPoint

Some of the PowerPoint presentations I've been seeing at my grad orientation have just been normal, but the others are friggin' awesome! One was actually at visiting days that almost made me interested in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), despite my terror of compsci. But the other was yesterday with hilarious pictures.

One was this picture....

















The other was not exactly this picture but one much like us to inform us that no food would be allowed in the computer lab.

Also, if Becky's reading this, there is an Imposter Becky at my SI orientation. She looks like Becky but, of course, she is not. She is also, undoubtedly, only a pale shadow of Becky's awesomeness. Though she may be a nice shadow so I should probably get over the weirdness of it and say hi.

Anyone who reads this post may notice I'm in a better mood than I was during the last one, but thank you to Tim for his concern about my pathetic loneliness and I also realized I forgot to dub Heather Friend of the Week! (It doesn't matter that she commented last Saturday, she's going to get a full week of friendness, which means her friend week will end next Wednesday.)

Neil Gaiman's Free Advertising Agency of One Returns

Big Empty Apartment

Makes Cherie sad. I'm pretty lonely and pathetic at the moment. Whenever I hear a weird sound I become scared someone's here who shouldn't be. I guess it's been way too long since I've actually been on my own.

Belle

Just so my sister won't think this is random, consider this a "What Cherie's Listening To" post.

I have a huge playlist on YouTube of music videos which I'm listening to right now, and I have the song "Belle" from Notre Dame de Paris both in its original French and in Russian because it sounds awesome in both languages and the Russian video is actualy quite cool to watch. It's more fun and more cinematic than the French, because the French one is just ripped from the musical, which might be fun if you're in the audience but less so if it's just a tiny vid on YouTube. However there is one part of the Russian one that cracks me up because I think it looks like Phoebus's pants are on fire. Of course, considering his personality in the musical, I would say this is an apt representation. It's actually just supposed to look like he's surrounded by fire. Probably suppsed to represent the fire of passion or whatever. If that's the case, though, one could make an argument that it's still coming from his pants.

Anyway, here are both vids for your viewing pleasure:
French
Russian

Jet-lagged

The jet-lag seems to have hit me harder today than it did yesterday. I feel like going to bed early rather than later, though, which seems weird, but it's probably for the best.

Just Can't Keep Away

I have my very dubious half-dead laptop jury rigged to work and kudos to Michigan for setting up a relatively decent internet network. If it'll work with this computer, which doesn't meet several of it's MINIMUM requirements, it's pretty good.

This also proves that Cherie finds one day without the internet intolerable and that desperation and being really lonely in a big empty apartment are powerful tools.

Now there's also something very cool on youtube I want you all to see. At least, I think it's cool. But I may be very biased. If you don't know who the vlogbrothers are, then you may want to fast forward to 00:43 seconds of the following video to see what I want you to see: http://youtube.com/watch?v=la2WVpjq5-U

However, I highly recommend watching their other videos. The previous one won't make any sense to people who don't already follow it, but these two should be hilarious to anyone with the ability to laugh:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xy1M5VHF3no
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QDEm5qPYTq4

The only background that might be slightly helpful for the first video is that the guy int the video, is award-winning young adult novelist, John Green. Most notably, he wrote Looking for Alaska and An Abundace of Katherines. This way you know why he's so awesome but also why he has author editions of those books.

I've really been meaning to give these guys a good review for months, but I'm a bit too tired today for a proper one. So, for now, here's the short version: they're awesome. Go back through the videos and watch them from the beginning.