nooo!

I had a nice long post all typed up; I accidentally backspaced it all; and then it looked as if the Auto Save deleted it entirely. Aggravating, that!

Does this happen to anybody else?  If it's just me, maybe it means my posts are too long.  :P

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Good morning

{Warning: Randomosities ahead}

• BERLIOZ WAS A MUSIC CRITIC!!!!!1  BRAHMS WAS NOT!  I should have followed my guts.  They knew the right answer to the test question even when my brains didn't.  Argh!
• I want some KFC coleslaw.  Like, right now.
• Found out I got 100% on my second concert report...that was extremely surprising.  Far from bragging about it, I personally thought (and still believe) it was dreadfully written...cringeworthy, in fact.  And it was late.  And it was a few sentences short.  And I used Cambria instead of Olde Times New Roman.  (The font type is not specified by MLA standards, but I've heard some professors insist on Times.)
• Oh, and that reminds me, I have a new loathing for Times New Roman, 12px.  It subtracts at least half a page, in comparison to other, more sensible fonts.
• I plan on updating the blog's (currently non-existent) banner, later today.  : )
• I'm currently obsessed with German Romantic landscape art.  And by the way, does anybody know what kind of hat it is this guy is wearing?  I haven't the foggiest.  Presumably it's from ca. 1820...
• Speaking of tests, 6000 lbs of pressure on a plate submerged in water sounds like a really unlikely test answer to me.  But that's the answer I came up with.  :P  Anyhow, I'll be glad when we finish doing math problems involving pressure, troughs, and corn syrup (seriously). 

   'What do you mean?' he said. 'Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?'
   'All of them at once,' said Bilbo.

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Dickens fanfic challenge

At Dickensblog:  Fanfic challenge: Something new.  Check it out!

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Sherlock Holmes in Middle Earth!

No, seriously; click here and here.

He could play Bard, but I have a feeling he'll be Smaug--so excited!!!

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Greatness

This perhaps is enough for me to say on this particular occasion about these, my parting words, about this, my last mood in my great passion for the sea. I call it great because it was great to me.  Others may call it a foolish infatuation. Those words have been applied to every love story. But whatever it may be the fact remains that it was something too great for words.

{Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea}

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¡Terminé mi tarea española!

Finished all the Spanish homework today.  <3  It's not due for three weeks, but I just felt like finishing it.  Thus begins the end of my studies in Spanish.  *cues chipper music*

Now I must decide whether to resume Latin (or dive into some Old English? Or YouTube piano lessons?) on my own, this summer, or to give my poor brains a break from all forms of studying.  More than once I've said I could never be a "perpetual student"...but that's not strictly true.  I am a perpetual student, an incurable one; insomuch as I am constantly trying to educate myself in some way or other, be it through reading (last summer, the monstrous Moby-Dick) or in experimenting with various art forms, unconsciously staying up until the wee hours of the morning to work on my "projects".  I love studying when the subjects are ones that interest me. 

Subjects I despise (hello, calculus) are a very different matter.  Stuffing my brain-attic with all manner of information and then memorizing it merely to obtain good grades is not my idea of studying; and I develope an entirely new appreciation for the image of "the suffering student" (a la Fanshawe), whom I had heretofore scorned, in my ignorance of the "happy, happy journey" that is calculus.  ;P

The question still remains as to whether I should take a real break this summer, or...not.  Common sense recommends the former; ambition demands the latter.  The self-taught student in me has all sorts of grand schemes and dreams for the summer...but I'm not quite sure if my brain-attic's up to it.  On the other hand, summer is my only opportunity to study on my own.  And I'd feel kind of guilty/sad if I ignored that opportunity, despite good reasons or intentions.

Ah, another rambling post...  Anyway, it's just something on my mind.  ;)

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¡Watson!

{Upside-down exclamation marks.  They make exclamations much more exclamatory.}


I had a wonderfully geeky, Sherlock Holmes moment today.  In music class, we're in the Romantic era; and we just learned about the composer Berlioz, who wrote this famous symphony.  In a nutshell, it's about an angsty guy who has a crush on a girl, poisons himself with opium, but lives to dream about dancing, decapitation, and witches.  {Macabre much?  Methinks the Romantics could've used some Owl City...}

Anyhow, the girl's musical motif (theme) is called the idée fixe, and one of the lecture points was that idée fixe was a medical term.  The professor didn't explain it; but immediately, some "Sherlockian alarm" went off in my head; and I got super excited because I've watched Watson's explanation of idée fixe, some dozen times at least (within the full-length episode, lol).  I didn't jump up, waving my hand in the air, but I sure felt like it.  Yet another instance of how Sherlock Holmes and friends can aid you in the Real World!  ;)

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I dreamed...

...that I was doing math.  Integration by Parts.  Wondering if I had chosen the best values for u and v'.  Crazy stuff.

Got to go finish my yardwork now.  Then I think I'll have a cup of tea and watch a Sherlock Holmes episode.  The two go together, you know.

Maybe I'll do some violin practicing, too.  

Yesterday, I practiced Think of Me from the Phantom of the Opera piano book (intermediate version).  I kind of overdid it, to the point where all the easy parts became inexplicably hard.  :P  

Glad to see Blogger is getting back to normal now...

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So today...

I did math homework for two hours, whilst listening to Owl City, Placido Domingo, and Poe's "The Raven" & "Annabel Lee".  (Not all at the same time.)  Believe it or not, I found Poe's poetry to be somewhat conducive to studying.

Perhaps their creepiness's cancel each other out. 

One thing is for sure, and that is that no one reads poetry like Basil Rathbone. He doesn't just act--he brings the words to life.  Anyone who likes, loves, studies, writes, reads, or even hates poetry, needs to get a copy of The Edgar Allan Poe Collection.  Then prepare to run around (like me), reciting "Once, upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered, weak, and weary"...

Speaking of writing, I started writing that Victorian sci-fi novel, which I was lamenting didn't exist.  I don't have a solid outline, but I have some ideas and I'm pretty keyed up about it.  :)  So far, I've written the prologue, but I can't wait to start Chapter 1.  Also, I went looking for a historical figure, that might help me write one of my protagonists; and I found a historical figure who was already extremely similar to my character!  It was quite a surprise (like this post).  So, it either means that I'm highly unoriginal when it comes to characters, or that I have good intuition.  I'd like to humbly think it's the latter, lol.  ;)

But before I can start working on it again, I have to complete a test, two presentations, and more math homework (it's as plentiful as weeds)...all within the next few days.  Oh, well...the sooner it's over with, the sooner I can resume the novel-writing.  :) 

Oh, and reading.  Checked out Conrad's The Mirror of the Sea, Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps & Huntingtower.  (Like I have nothing else to do.)  But they're short and look like great reads.   

Ok, I'll stop rambling now...

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American punctuation rules...

...stink.  Officially.  Why in the world would you want to include commas and periods within quotation marks, when said punctuation marks are completely unrelated to the other words within the quotation marks?!  Argh! 

Seriously, I understand that the use of logic is limited; but in the case of punctuation, I see no momumental reason why we can't use logic.  There is nothing beneficial, nothing in the least, to putting punctuation within quotation marks. 

It's just sad.  Anyway, who's to say that it's "American"?  The Founding Fathers capitalized the first letters of key words (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness), but nobody does that nowadays.  So who gets to decide what's correct, hm?

*sheepishly climbs off soapbox, stops being a geek*

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Travels in Photochrom

Just discovered the Library of Congress's Photochrom Print Collection.



And I.  Love.  It.

It's photography...but it's also art.



I don't pretend to understand the process, but photochrom is basically a way of colorizing B&W photos.  I think it's quite amazing.  I love the Victorian solemnity and vintage color schemes, with a pink/peach tinge and emphasis on warm colors. 




Forget Blu-Ray--find me a DVD player that plays in photochrom!  ;)  No, seriously.

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I can't wait...

...until summer vacation gets here.  I'm so tired of the insanity that is math; and I really, really want to work on my stories, every day.  I miss my characters, and the plot, and just writing.  

Sigh, groan, cough.  (Unfortunately, I still have a cold).  

I think I'll go make myself a cup of tea.  ;)  Tea makes everything better.  Almost.  My new favorite is Acai Berry by Stash.  Good stuff, that. 

What kinds of tea do you like?

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Under construction

Sorry the blog looks weird right now. I'm in the process of creating a new design. And it seems to be a slow process. :P

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It's the thought that counts...I guess

I meant to blog about Easter, the Royal Wedding, and real life.  I've been meaning to post my reviews of Jane Eyre, Alice in Wonderland, etc.  I meant to take a nap today, or do something useful (i.e. homework), or create something artistic.  But here I am with a cold, just sitting around, and becoming the "most incurably lazy fellow who ever stood in shoe leather" (in my case, wool socks).  Will this post even make it to publication?  Or will it join the 26 posts I have in Draft...aka the Olde Curiosity Shoppe, in which be Unpublished Manuscripts From Antiquity (i.e. 2009-2011).

I miss reading Victorian sci-fi.  (That was random.)  Submarines, hot air balloons, airships, and the like.  I really, really miss it.  So much so, that the other day I spent an hour or two perusing Amazon Listmania for such books.  Mostly all I found was "Steampunk Romance", and "Sherlock Holmes meets zombies and airships" (ouch).  Friends, bloggers, countrymen: there is a severe lack of Victorian sci-fi in the literary world.  I will be left with no choice, but to take every science class I can find and try to become clever enough to write one myself.  Someday.  Maybe.

Third and last random topic for the day:  I wish I had finished writing my unfinished books.  Those books that weren't good enough for the perfectionist in me. Amateurish writing style aside, the stories themselves weren't that bad; and now it frustrates me that I was too high and mighty to finish writing them out.  *shakes head*

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