NaBloPoMo

The aroma of cooking potatoes fills the air and in the kitchen my mother is cooking.

I have to apologize to my blog and my readers. I signed us up for something: National Blog Posting Month, which happens every month, but at the end if you've posted for the whole month you get prizes. Which is my excuse for doing it. Maybe I'll even share the prizes. Either way, my readers and I are on a zany trip through soul-searching and self-revelation and nights of insanity and pointless conversations.

February's theme is "want." I may write on the theme, I may not. I think you get brownie points for writing on it. But I digress.

First Impressions

Mike Frame is my professor of introductory psychology. He's a friendly middle-aged man who likes to make the class laugh. There are online quizzes, making for easy grading and easy access to the computer. We have some research requirements to fulfill, but my first impressions are of easy class.

My second class is conducted by Lorie Jacobs, a woman I couldn't find anywhere on the UTA web site or on the site she gave us, it giving us a "Error 404," whatever that means. Technical Writing, a course which is based on boring exercises, is where the teacher is supposedly teaching us how to write. (A writer who knows that only one person can teach you to write.) So we'll learn "how" to write memos and other random "workplace" modes of communication. Furn, furn. I just made up a new word....say it with me....furn.


So overall things did not go to badly for a first day. Tomorrow should also go smoothly, with the addition of my books and I'm wishing I had a locker or cubby to hide my stuff in while on campus. Maybe they should add lockers for students. When they put out student comment cards, I think I'll fill one out.

Question of the Day: If you could go back to college or if you could do it over again or you want to go to college, what major would you choose? Answer the question in the comment section below the post.

A Separate Peace

I've been reading John Knowles a Separate Peace lately and I've found out several lessons.

1. Don't let your reader distract you, come back to the main point.
2. It's ok to summarize. That is helpful to your reader who isn't paying attention anyway and is probably drooling over the book anyway.
3. Don't be congineal and friendly, you get pushed out of trees.

That last one take with a grain of salt, I just noticed what the book was really about. And we want people reading it! Sometimes.

Well, I didn't finish NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month for skipping a couple days this past week, but I've been keeping it going with NaNoWriMo. It's getting difficult to not just finish it, in the beginning of the novel. I feel I have less and less to write about, but my characters keep living and functioning and most of all doing things. So I keep writing.

So amazingly bad.

It's odd how I read a bad book and I can put it down right away. But a bad story I'm writing...because it's nano I have to keep writing. I can't just put it away and say to everyone "let's never speak of this again." Although that might happen once this is over, but it's like a baby, I take it out once a day and coo over it and feed it, and it grows, regardless of how actually ugly this baby is. And it's ugly, no transitions from scene to scene, random conversations that don't really contribute to the plot...you name it, I've got it. Want to read it yet?

The no plot, no problem is actually kind of an issue

So I'm writing and I have no clue what comes next. It's like I am writing on the edge of the abyss, not knowing which words come next...and no, not the abyss in the Bible from whence come the dragon. More like the edge upon the abyss of reality. Which is scary place to be for me. But it that's how I write: so be it.

Sort of licensing writing above any other project I have going on is probably not the best idea. So I need to set down some ground rules for NaNoWriMo.

Writing does not come before sleeping, eating, or any member of the family, including the cat. In fact, those are my ground rules.

Oh yeah, if I turn insane over this horrible piece of writing, everyone must say that I "went insane for my work." Thank you. That is all.

Also, I find this highly amusing. Notice the white kid on the right. I know one kid who's parents will be voting for McCain.

Today was rough

I spent all my time up til midnight fidgeting away on the internet, all unknowing of the task I would have to undertake. I think many writers must write naked for that is what we must do of soul, strip ourselves down to the bare bones and build ourselves up again. It wouldn't do any good to try to write dramas with our clothes, on, they wouldn't be true to life, to our birth. Where we came from the womb immediately put in a fuzzy blanket to comfort us. While when someone reads they want to take off that blanket and face the world as it really is, passionately fancy-free.

The failing at life

I didn't take my physics test today. That's how I like to describe it.

1. We have a new professor and the tests are not the tests given to us in the science study lounge.

2 I brought two mechanical pencils and both stopped working.

3. I forgot to bring a scantron.

4. I didn't get half the problems on the test anyway.

Basically, I fail at life. I didn't go to the review. Even if I make a hundred on the next test, that only averages out to a 50.

I just think there's something seriously wrong with me that I fail at life. Maybe I should go to community college next year. Maybe the material there would make more sense to me.

How we get picked up.

Looking for writing jobs all day is draining, with expectant mothers to be of articles, newspapers and magazines yowling at us, conveying their every whim. I think they should institute a new way of working on projects. Like Mexican workers, we should stand on street corners and when a prospective employee drives by we should jump in the back of their truck, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I'm BAD.

I think we don't realize how much this word affects us as little kids. That we were a bad person merits change or at least remorse. But what if you're just bad at something: Something you've poured your energy and thought you were good at. Well, hell, what if you were just "bad at life." Which is how I feel about my recent job experience.

I didn't feel I was bad at it, my employer did. So do I take her perspective and hang my head in shame, or do I take the perspective of a gangsta. and say "Yeah, I'm Baaaaad!"

Password: Denied

I seem to have difficulty punching my password in just right the first time. I wonder if any other people have problems like this. Akin to test anxiety or perhaps a type of uber-anticipation, my finger or brain seem to be uncoordinated with each other. Either I don't remember the password, or there's a mini finger mumble-jumble. I hope that soon I can recover from my affliction. It is frustrating and annoying at the worst, but imagine what one could do with the saved time. Godspeed and coordination fingers and brains.

Hi everyone.

I've been doing a "word of the day" thing which I get from my google gadget. I love learning new words and using them in sentences.

Right now I'm unsure as to the direction of the blog. It's my personal blog which I want to reflect my personal life and what goes on. However, seeing as I'm not always at my most interesting, I'm not sure everyone wants to hear about my day.

I have several ideas: I could make this an idea blog, like Idea province. I have so many great ideas that never see the light of day.

Another idea is to make it a word-of-the-day blog. Which I'm not sure would appeal to anyone...

I talk to myself about getting readership and RSS blogs, but really, I'm a bit flummoxed about getting people reading my blogs.

There's the option of collecting all my contacts from facebook.com and promoting my blog that way. However, do I really want to annoy all those people.

First, I must choose a direction.

You can vote on a direction by sending me an e-mail. I've e-mailed my family to see what they think because I value their opinion. Send me your ideas. I thought of blogging for my classes, posting notes and stuff, and that's another idea. The thing is, most blogs need a gimmick, something that unifies them all and I haven't discovered mine yet.

Volte-face

An about face. I'm not sure as to the origin of this word. It seems rather strange that a volt, which is used for electric potential should be used. But I can imagine a soldier screaming, "Volte-face!" and the troops obeying his command, with a swift turn in the same direction.

Word of the Day: Littoral

Used in a sentence: The lighthouse was littoral.

This reminds me of going to the beach when I was little. I remember the sand and the back of the car open, with our camping equipment and a cooler. The funny thing is I remember a lighthouse, which makes me think it was a dream. Just goes to show our memory is not always accurate.

Donnybrook

I had a donnybrook today with myself. Whether I would be sad or not and I think I won. Because I'm awesome. And I have good self-esteem. Donnybrook means a brawl or dispute. I'm not sure you could use this one in a conversation, but if you want to make someone go "huh?" Definitely try it.

Slugabed

The reasoning for this word is rather simple. Slugs which are slow, a for the a, and bed for the lying in bed. I used to be a slugabed, and love staying in bed till a late hour. I started this practice when I was young, so if you don't want your children to be slugabeds teach them to get up early even on the weekends. These good habits will follow them throughout their life.

Fettle

State or conditon of mind. We have to few words to describe ourselves and how we work, as if the knowing can make us love ourselves less. I often hear the word, mettle, or worth of a person. But to understand fettle, the condition of the mind, we must first be willing to give up a practice which has grown old.

Why do you write?

Writing seems to the most complicated means of communication and, yes, technology. It's a time machine to transfer ideas from generation to generation, transferring itself through time and space and creating ideas where there were none before.

I am sad today.

And I wish I had the tao. The spiritual force of the universe which understands and completes everyone and everything.

My essay lies undone. I don't even want to finish it, the difficulty level is too high. I don't even want to go finish it, because I'll put all these laws and expectations on it, that it should be the best essay ever, and I can't. I'm completely unable to type that next word, and analyze that bit of poetry. Maybe it had to do with that spurt of inspiration I had to write the outline the other day. Now that it's gone, nothing else can compare.

I believe that one has to be inspired to write. Must be an adventure.

An English major on Laundry

I was washing my clothes, when suddenly, out of the blue, I think... flannel is probably not considered REAL clothes, when I realized that I was an English major. Only an English major would do such an in-depth analysis of clothes. I even sort them out, putting the whites and delicates aside. Careful analysis of clothes that is only matched by the perfectionist English major doing ho-hum chores.

The Butterflies

Why did God make monarch butterflies so lovely to look at? Most people aren't sure. Some people just enjoy the beauty of them. I, for one, think there must be a purpose. Like machines, they are made of pieces and parts stuck together and animated. Spindly spider-web thin legs, and paper-machete dusty wings, painted a vivid orange color. As if he wanted to get our attention. Then he put them there for a reason-like a thousand tiny flags waving, saying "Here I am, here I am."

This is lovely to behold, when the monarchs migrate. But maybe it's just nature's way of fooling us. As if to say, "the best things in life aren't yours to keep." Ephemeral. It's a word. Use it. That's the moral of the story.