Hello again!

I've been dreadfully un-blogger-y this month, with my last *real* post being on August 7th!  It doesn't feel so long ago.  But I suppose that's what happens when the pages of your life start turning faster.

The week of the 14th involved not one, but two summery picnics.  And the weather here was sunny for both.  The church picnic was lovely as always, and our family picnic was fun.  We visited with relatives we hadn't seen in months, and I met relatives I didn't know I had.  :)  And of course, there was KFC and the most fantabulous salads & deserts. 

Then the next week, we went on a driving trip to the Canadian Rockies, and just got home yesterday.  It was a great vacation, with dry, sunny weather all week long!  I'll be blogging about it soon, so stay tuned for more pics...

In other news, we are getting four new chickens from my aunt--we're actually going over to pick them up today.  I'm not really an animal person, but it is exciting.  :)  We have three hens already, but they're six years old and approaching retirement.  I just hope the hens aren't mean to the newbies...they're going to be separate at first, but eventually they'll have to learn to get along in the same living space.  Two of the hens are pretty mild-mannered; but the third one has no manners whatever.  In fact, I'm a bit scared of her.  :P

Her name happens to be 'Daisy'.  Ironic, I say.

School starts about three weeks from now.  I always study like crazy; but this year, I'm also quite resolved on Order and Method [to quote a certain detective].  Neatness, methodical study, and more confidence.  And, in order to further this goal, I have a list of things to-do in the meantime:

• Clean my desk.  Once I do that, I'll actually have space in my room for writing; and I mean to work on my stories every day, if time permits.


• Clean out & organise my files and folders, on my laptop.  


• Sort through my shoes, and hem coat sleeves.  I love having a variety of jackets (more than shoes or tops), and my mom found several amazing ones for me this summer!  Two of them do need a little hemming, but it's no big deal.


• Lastly, do some pencil sketches, while I still have free time...

We'll see how this whole 'order and method' thing works out, in the light of a ton of homework.  *sigh* 

Oh, another thing I did was solve a math puzzle correctly!  The puzzle is called "Petty Cash", and it's from a book of such puzzles called A Tangled Tale, by Lewis Carroll.  You can read "Petty Cash" here.  I have a whole new respect for Carroll.  The book is much more about logic than math--the math, in fact, is the easy part.  The logic is incredibly complex.  "Petty Cash" is, to me, the easiest of them all, since it involves minimal use of logic.  Altogether, the fact that I figured it out is more due to my reviewing Algebra rules/techniques, than any real talent of my own.  :P  Additionally (no pun intended), I found the answer a bit differently than Carroll, but I think the procedure is similar and equally valid.  If more convoluted...

I love the ending quote:

   “You can do Arithmetic, I trust?” her aunt said, a little anxiously, as Clara turned from one tablet to another, vainly trying to collect her thoughts. Her mind was a blank, and all human expression was rapidly fading out of her face.
   A gloomy silence ensued.

I can relate.

Speaking of Carroll, I'm reading Sylvie and Bruno.  It's part fairytale, part nonsense-fantasy, and part romance.  I really like it so far.  It gives you a better perspective of the author than the Alice books do.  I think that, rather than writing pure nonsense, Carroll simply used nonsense and fantasy as another way to illustrate [or study] logic and the real world.  I do think artists with highly analytical minds will often bury their ideas behind fantasy or vague prose, because,

1. Fantasy is an effective, flexible outlet for expressing complex ideas; and 


2. Analytical people themselves are so used to "hunting for hidden truths", that it seems natural to them to write enigmatically. 

But I digress, dreadfully.  I have a sewing project to post about as well, but I'll save that for another day.  ;)

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To do, this weekend

• ✔  Finish the last math homework problem.  The crazy one about a salt solution entering and leaving a tank of water.  With different salt concentrations.  And oh yes, it's gonna be on the test.  Can I squeeze it onto a corner of a 3 x 5 card?  We hopes so, yes we does. ;)
• Review five chapters of Spanish, for the test and "final conversation" (on a subject TBA). 
• ✔  Write up my notes for math.  
• Fill aforementioned 3 x 5 card as strategically as possible.  An interesting idea: someone else in class took all the important formulas, scanned them into the computer, shrank them down, and printed them up in ant-sized font (as in, half the size I use on my blog).  Microscopic, yes; but it fits on a card and is readable enough. It's pretty clever, actually.
• Work on my story.  If possible.

I have a severe case of writer's block at the moment.  It's not that I don't know what to write about--I just have trouble actually writing. It's aggravating, especially since summer's almost here.  I don't much want to read, draw, or sew either.  Well, maybe after finals are done with, I'll start feeling more like myself.  :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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The return of the school year

It's been quite some time since I've written a sizeable post!  But school started yesterday, and I also have orchestra rehearsal once a week, so my blogging time has been shortened considerably.  Further work on my sewing projects, alas, will mostly have to wait until Christmas break.

I will avoid talking about school, for now.  ;)  Orchestra is pretty cool, though.  We're playing some great music, including Beethoven's 7th, which (to me) is the hardest. 

Yesterday was Hobbit Day!  I was going to do some kind of blog post for it, but never got around to it.  Oh well--happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo!  :) 

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I'm back!

So last night we got home from our Southern U.S. vacation!  It was amazing, and kinda weird, because it's like summer over there (what a Washingtonian would consider as "summer"!).  But it was great...I will post pictures later this week!   Then next week I will start blogging more interesting stuff.  =)

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It's March already?!

Time goes by so fast.  :(  It already seems like a long time since the Olympics started; yesterday, of course, it ended, with an amazing hockey game.  I hardly know a thing about hockey, but it was a really close game, with an incredible second goal made by the US--in the last SECONDS of the game!  Then Canada won during overtime; a bit disappointing for us, but still a great game.  :)

I've had a cold the last few days, and, knowing colds, it'll probably stick around for a week or two.  But it's not too bad.  Then today while violin-practicing, I also managed to stretch my left hand too much, which not only hurt but was very stupid; so tomorrow I got to remember not to do that...

Thirdly, I've been experimenting around with the blog layout...very frustrating work, too.  Ideally, I'd like a double sidebar--one on each side of the page--I know how to find out how to do it, but it'll probably be a while till I get around to it.  Anyway, I have an "Alice in Wonderland" theme going on, I guess.  I love those books.  The new movie looks pretty bad, despite being PG; I'll read some reviews when it comes out, but I doubt I'll be going to see it.  Somehow, Alice wearing a suit of armor and fighting in a battle doesn't seem right, lol.  What do you think of the trailer?

On a happier note, my story is coming along pretty well--about 86 pages at the moment, and I just started Chapter 5.  I've thought it over, and I've decided to self-publish it with Lulu or a similar site, when it's all done.  :)  I'm probably thinking too far in advance, but still, I can't wait!  Hopefully it will be illustrated, too.

P.S.   I should be done with Percival Keene soon, so there should be another book review sometime this month.  I'm reading Hamlet, too...so far it's somewhat interesting, but still not very good, as far as content goes. 

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The adventure continues....

2010 has been going really well, so far. I've been somewhat busy--trying not to be confuzzled with acid/base equilibria, for one. Chemistry is cool, but it takes a lot of deep thought and concentration (no pun intended).  I'm re-reading Heart of Darkness and The Hound of the Baskervilles, too, until the Barnaby Rudge Read begins; my copy of Barnaby is on its way from the UK, and I've never been in any kind of a reading group before, so I'm really excited!

The other thing that is really exciting is that my 18th-century story (doesn't make sense to call it a Sleeping Beauty story, when it isn't based much on that) is now about 35 pages. I'm now on Chapter 2; my goal is to write a chapter a week, and the finished book should be about 260-300 pages. That will be the longest completed thing I've written...not very long, but a step up from my other stories. :)

What did you all think of "Return to Cranford", part 1? I don't particularly like any of the new characters, and I'm glad Mary Smith is still in it. The train ride was cool, too. Overall, it's not as good as the first one, imo.

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Today

Because I can't think of a better title. XD

Well, on Saturday we went to see The Young Victoria. It was amazing. Review coming soon, but let me just say right now, that if a theater near you is playing it and you have the opportunity to see it, do so! Highly recommended for fans of costume drama, history, and/or Austen/Bronte-esque romantic films. It was very, very well done.

I had a lovely Christmas with family, and got some wonderful presents--even a Legolas Ken doll, with the bow and arrows and everything!! Opening it was being like seven years old again. ;)

I also started reading Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte, and so far it's an excellent read. She writes third person just as well as first, and in this particular story you get to see another side of her writing; more humor, with elements of Dickens and Austen (Shirley is actually set in the Regency/Napoleonic era). The history she covers in this story is interesting, and one I hadn't read of before; basically, Yorkshire people without jobs vs. mill owners and new machinery. Like Gaskell's North and South, there's two sides to the situation, and it's easy to understand both.

I'm also working on my new "Sleeping Beauty story". I find it works a lot better to outline a book by chapters--that way, I won't have any doubts or worries about where to end the chapter, or what to write in one. =)

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