Hello, readers.

When I left you last, it was warmer outside, though the leaves were beginning to fear the cool breaths of fall, and I was looking forward to a brief but blissful Japanese adventure before returning to the Hell that was the fiery second half of Engineering III. I'm back now. It's spring, I have a job, I live in Kelowna, and this is a categorical update on my life.


WRITING

I was reading an internet comic recently that introduced a man; to sum up, it stated several mundane facts, then promised he was "the most interesting man in the world," very much à la Dos Equis. One of these mundane facts was that this man's four most recent blog entries consisted of him promising he'd get back to writing more regularly.

Well, here I am, but I'm a rum and coke kinda girl, so I make as many false promises as I want, and back them up with my cutlass. Point is, I am going to try to get back to writing - hopefully in shorter but more frequent bursts. Why? Because I miss it when I don't do it, and because a book about editing that I recently bought insists that if I have several writing projects on the go, I won't hate editing as much.

As I mentioned earlier, I read a book. Yup! It was a book about editing, which I'm currently getting started on for Orion's Shoes, my most recent NaNoWriMo endeavour. I managed to keep it much shorter than my previously-finished nano, and I think the plot's somewhat more discernible. It still needs work, of course, but I think I'm more prepared to do it properly this time! :D Also, I generally think this story is more interesting than the last. Maybe I will post an excerpt later, but for now, that's pretty much all I have to say about writing, except for this sweet photo of my storyboard!  Mwaha!  Don't peer too closely if you haven't read the story and have any intention to.

ART
Let's just say I've been very slow-moving in this regard, but here are some new pieces for your perusal anyway:


Sam LaFontaine, a character from my current novel-flavoured work-in-progress. He's 30% cutesy Christian, 30% evil genius, 30% billionaire romeo and 10% desperately mannish glasses. I'm 100% pleased with how this one turned out :D


Sam again, though this one took me substantially less time to draw. I roughed him up a bit because he wouldn't leave me alone.


I have been meaning to repaint my xbox for a while, with new colours and whatnot. Voilà a peeek-churr.


JAPAN
Last summer I went to Japan for my second time, and this time I took Erin with me! It was fantastic, but you don't get to see any photos, because I'm currently extremely lazy.  You'll have to come see them HERE, if you want to see them at all.  HA!

My other friend Erin (Erin J!) is going to Japan for a karate tournament this summer. I am not going with her (booooo hoo!) but I have been helping her learn some Japanese stuff before she goes. I've also been listening to my Japanese mp3s while running. Not thrilling for you, but I look like a crazy person talking to myself at the gym.


EVERYTHING ELSE

Lo, we are come to the much more boring section.

School
September through December, the second half of Engineering III, was lame, but not as hellish as the first half, at the start of 2009. I had much less money to spend (thanks, East Asia and Walmart), but I did generally better in my studies - was a lot happier than I was during the previous semester, and I did pass everything. Although there is definitely one big giant "however," and it goes like this: However, I did piss off a lot of my friends, and for that I officially apologise, even if there are only one or two of you reading this. I really depended on everyone this year to help me get through my homework, and I know I put a lot of stress on a special few of you. I won't do this again - and if I do, you can slap my face as hard as you like. Promise.

Work
This spring, I managed to get a co-op job and - lucky me - it's even going to extend until September. While it did take me a long time to get the job (hired January 27th, started February 1st), I'm quite pleased with the office - everyone is really nice and super helpful, and the work is interesting enough. Can't ask for much more.

Other
Otherwise, life is good but not adventuresome, and if any blog entries follow this - as promised - they will likely be about writing or art, or about movies I've been watching.

 

Happy April my wonderful friends.

[mood]: goot.
[music]: coffee shop tunes... not the greatest, but I think Curt and I are the biggest nerds this place has ever seen.
[msn]: Pirate

So.  Here we are.  It's August 13th (just missed Friday) and I haven't written in a while.  I can't say the updates are going to be spectacular... let's just say that working at Walmart has taken most of my soul.  What remained after Engineering Year III anyway.  That seems morbid.  I'm not in a sulky mood, trust me!

Anyway.  I have 5 days until I leave for JAPAN again :D  and I am obviously looking forward to that.

...otherwise I honestly don't have that much to update you all about.  I drew something else since my last entry, so you can see that I suppose:

About this one... I'm quite pleased with it.  It's not often I draw two people (though it has become more common recently... and by that I mean I can think of one other I've done within the year) and I think I did a pretty good job :D  Also the wheelchair was THE hugest pain in my ass, and I have to check out a reference online for it.  Yeah.  So for a while I had some cool wheelchair pics on my desktop.  I like wheelchair-boy's socks. ^^

...and yeah, they're both dudes.  Suck it up.

And I also finished that painting I showed you (I think) a few entries ago (and no, I'm not gonna go check, so if I didn't show you a few entries ago, I actually don't really care that much, so HA!).  Anyway, here it is finished:

Putting these two arts in a line like this really makes it look like I have a thing for leashes... For now you're just going to have to deal with the fact that I'm weird and so is my art, and to remember that these didn't actually get drawn at the same time, nor in order.  There are stories behind each, but for that you'd have to dig through my external.  And for that matter there's no story behind the painting.  That one's just a painting.

Also... er... forgiveness for the background and still-life objects in this painting.  This is why I draw people.  PEOPLE I SAY!  Because objects are boring and do not hold my interest... therefore they become BLAH when they exist.

Ummm I also sent off my manuscript semi-recently.  Again.  To DAW.  If you don't know what DAW is, it's a publishing company that's part of Penguin (which you HAVE heard of, and if you haven't, don't bother telling me).  Here is a link to their website if you'd like to peruse it, since I'm sure you'd love to open a new window and check out how awesome/not awesome their company is:
http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/daw/index.html
I sent them a postcard and they're supposed to send it back when they open my manuscript box.  Or when my manuscript is "logged in" or some nonsense like that.  Well, I mailed it on... ...actually I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I still have the little mail-slip thing... somewhere... anyway!  Some time near the beginning of August/end of July.  Going with end of July.  That means it's been a couple weeks.  So assuming my giant box of paper actually got there... woot?  Anyway, here is a picture of my gigantic manuscript:

DAW requires submissions to be double-spaced and single-sided.  Seven hundred and seventy-seven pages of goodness (yeah, you read that right; 777 pages).  And yeah, if you have Facebook, you've already seen this image... too freaking bad for you.

Umm...what else?  Oh, time for a syntax shift up.  Yeah, I learned something from author guy I visited at school.

I went home recently, had a pretty pleasant trip there though the trip back blew pretty huge chunks of gook.  On the way there, on my first plane, something pretty hilarious happened, and I will describe as follows for your amusement:

Al drove me to the airport because he's such a dear, and when I got into the waiting room I was texting him as I sat down.  Out of my peripheral I could see what I thought was Cheng, one of our professors from second year (for me, anyway).  I didn't dare look up until I was pretty sure he wasn't looking in my direction. 

Yup, definitely Cheng.  I begged the universe not to make him sit beside me, and then we all boarded.  I sat down in 4F and Cheng sat in the front.  The girl who sat beside me was pretty cool, and we started chatting/making fun of the people getting onto the plane, since LOADS of them were apparently totally inept at putting their luggage into overhead compartments.  Cheng, meanwhile, seemed REALLY agigated; he kept moving around, looking at things, and just appearing generally nervous. 

Soon, a lady got on and said that Cheng was in her spot, so the professor, stammering his apologies and wondering aloud if he'd read his ticket wrong, moved towards the back of the plane to a different seat - effectively removing himself from my view. 

A few minutes later, people were still boarding, and Cheng suddenly got up from his seat, clutching various small, black articles of luggage, and forced his way off the plane, still agitated.  I glanced at the girl next to me and we chuckled, supposing he was terribly afraid of flying.

People stopped getting on and I took to looking out the window, bored with nothing more to make fun of.  As our engines started, I was staring outside.  There, running across the tarmac, was Cheng, still clutching his luggage to his body, frantically moving towards a different plane that boarded only a few minutes before ours.

I had a good chuckle.  Upon relating this story to my family, they speculated that maybe the attendant who had boarded him had been a previous student.

Sure.  Enjoy your conference in "Seattle", professor...

I found that amusing.  What else?

Oh, bad news.  Hermes has perished, to I suppose no delicious hermit crab for me.  Crabbington is still alive and I suspect foul play.  There will be tabloids written about it.  According to sources, Crabbington's stomach was making the rumblies...that only CRAB could satisfy.

Har.  Anyway.  It was a sad sight.  He was all dried up and half-fallen out of his shell.  He didn't die of lack of water, though, because there was still lots in the dish.  I made sure to soak that place before I left for home.  Ergo the foul play assumption.  Dried corpses are Crabbington's MO.

Onward...

Recently I have been wondering what to do for Nanowrimo this year.  Also, Myles has a nano shirt that makes me extremely jealous, but I have no moneys for such frivolities this year.  Maybe later.  Anyway, about the writing.  Now that I have submitted my manuscript again, I again feel weird about it, just like last time.  I have taken to writing shorts about Zenith, but nothing spectacular.  So here are my considerations:

Zenith: would be a prequel to my current manuscript on submission, probably with more of an M rating than my previous story as well... though I don't really have a lot to happen in it.  Although I think it would be fun to write because Zenith is so deliciously EVIL, and I'd get to destroy lots of stuff and be freaky.  But I would have to think of some nature of global plot.  Which I probably could.  But there would have to be plot, because otherwise Zenith isn't a super exciting character on his own.

Orion/Sebastian/Pius: the characters I think I wrote a bit about in my previous entry.  A modern story, which I have sort of proven to myself I'm not good at, so I could use the practise.  Also the characters are pretty fun (they have pseudo-super powers, are pretty interesting peeps on their own) but... again not a lot of global plot.  I have things to happen to them but there's nothing earth-shattering, and I don't think the story of their lives would be particularly interesting to read about.  I need something BIGGER.

Something else: so yeah... I'd have to invent this.  Been thinking about a pirate novel for some time now, which I could do.  Plot is pretty huge so it would be pretty spectacular, but would require some recherche (en français!) because I'd want it to be more historical fiction, no fantasy mumbo-jumbo.  Ergo it would be more difficult and time-consuming.  But the plot is fully there, as are most of the characters.  Problem: the main character is mostly insane, so I might have to try to write it from someone else's POV or something... which could totally work as well... hmmm.  And of course there are other things inside my brain but these three ideas seem to be the most prominent.

One more thing.

Tanis: new character I have been toying with in my brain.  She's an alien, and I'm having a lot of fun playing with other-world type stuffs in my head.  Story is, she is sent to earth to learn about humans.  Her race can take the shape of anything they want to, and they live forever.  I would have her in a modern setting because I think that's more fun.  I just don't really know where to go with the plot on this one either.

Anyway!  Now that you're all bored... I really have nothin else to regale you with.  I am excited to be off to J-pan with Erin, and I am somewhat excited for school to start again, even though I am also very NOT looking forward to that.  I always get this glimmer of hope that tells me maybe it won't be as bad as last time... but I'm trying to prepare myself to be crushed again.  We'll see.

Thoughts surrounding January are vague.  I need to take Transportation again, but I am considering trying to find out if I can take it elsewhere in the summer (maybe Vancouver?) because then I could move somewhere else and still take the course... depending on where else I can get a co-op job, of course.  We'll see.  I am trying to think about it somewhat but also trying to keep those thoughts as far from my mind as possible.  I like them there.

Completely unrelated, I watched Brave Story last night; an anime that was really popular in Japan last time I went.  It was pretty good, if childishly drawn.

With no other art and no other stories to tell you... I bid you all adieu.  With some writing?  No, not this time.  Maybe next time.  Maybe.  Otherwise, there will be stories from Japan.  Even if it annoys the shit out of Erin that I take time to update peeps.

<3

/mads

 

PS pay no attention to the title; it is as nonsensical as it can be. ^^

[mood]: gudder.  sort of like udder but with less curd.
[music]: random coffee shop tunes.
[msn]: Pirate-Slave

Thai wraps are delicious, and night shift is weird.  Bananas are the blasphemous sons and daughters of tree-headed kelpies.

Yeah that's right.  Chef Brian/happy noodle boy moment for you.  If you don't catch the reference... read more nerdy comics.  Back to my original subject:

Night shift is interesting.  Sleeping during the day is surprisingly easy, but...feels so damn inefficient.  Like, why am I sleeping now when I could be cleaning or buying groceries or editing or playing a game? 

The only time I've found it difficult so far was on Tue... Wednesday, I lie.  I woke up around 3pm to a giant SMUNCH noise outside my window (which I try to leave open so that my room is nicer, and then I try to drown out traffic with my high-powered fan, which ends up drying out my sinuses... it's awful, really), so I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.  Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and stared at the dash... yes, dash, of one of the vehicles that has been totally smash¨¨d on High Road right outside our house.  So then, of course, what followed, were:

Woopwoop!!  Weeeeeeeooooooooo!! Weeeeeeeoooooo!! 
of the cop cars, and then:

Weeooweeooweeooweeooweeooweeoo!!!! of the ambulance, and THEN:

HONK HONK!!
WEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! of the fire truck.  And then there were some other noises, most of vehicles that had to stop/wait along High Road, which suddenly became a single-lane traffic area, which is asstastic because it's such a busy road.  And then there were tow trucks and etc.  And eventually it all went away, but it was surprisingly slow, damn it!

And the accident was just retarded.  Here is a graphical representation of what I saw:

First some explication: Blue thing I'm pretty sure is a truck.  Reddy is a van.  The not sleeping house would be me.  This intersection in question is USUALLY blinky green for the east-west path, but if somebody coming from the north-south road is turning left, then it stops the east-west path.  The dots represend the fronts of the cars.  And the smashy bits represent the smashy bits.

So, I ask you this: how did this happen?  Reddy was turning RIGHT and apparently SUCKING at it, because bluey smashed him?  Or bluey freaking sucks at watching the road (this is the straightest part of High Road, so no WAY did he just turn a corner and ZOMG reddy!!).  I can't think of any other way this could have happened, unless they were going WAY faster than they were supposed to and actually spun way around.

I guess reddy could have been turning left, but that means bluey ran the light.  Still retarded.

Anyway.  Ridonkulous, I say.  And it disturbed my BEAUTY REST.  Grogtastic.

Otherwise, night shift is pretty cool.  It's pretty easy to stay up, and only yesterday did I actually find myself pretty tired.  So far it's been alright; there are some REALLY cranky old people working there at night (like... really cranky.  I won't get into it, but yikes!) and there are also some really cool people (the girl I worked with last night was telling me about a trip to Denmark that she took; was pretty cool).  And then there are people who just don't matter to me in the slightest.  I considered giving you some character profiles, just there, but the internet is pretty big... so I'll keep my opinions to myself.  Let's just say there's a girl who doesn't know who Bilbo Baggins is, and I had to explain my Pi Day shirt like 3.14^¦Ð times (you called it, Al).

Ummm oh!  There is, however, a cool Brit guy and a guy from Ghana that I feel really bad for - he is super interesting and really, really smart, but no one likes him (direct quote) - probably because they can't understand him!  It's awful!  He has a pretty thick accent but it's no where near impossible to understand, and most people at the store just totally ignore him because they can't understand him.  It's nuts.  Maybe I just have a thing for understanding accents... but... I dunno.  It's annoying!  Everyone understands the Brit!  Flah!!

Anyway, he's pretty cool, did some degree in physics at Virginia Tech (and now works at Walmart..?!) and seems to have led a pretty interesting life, even if no one else listens to him about it -_-''''

Ummm... otherwise there is a girl named Natalia who speaks French, though I haven't spoken to her much yet, and a guy named Dan (Brit is also named Dan, annoying) with bleach-blond hair and really, really dark eyes.  He is hilarious and always has something smarmy to say.

Mostly I have found my co-workers enjoyable.  There are some of them who are just totally ridiculous cranky... but that's probably because they are old lifers working at Walmart at NIGHT.

Speaking of lifers, EVERYONE there asks me, "So, what did you do before coming to Walmart?" like it's... the end of my life.  It's SO creepy and weird!

"Er... I'm... a student..?"  (and this is a summer job, coughcough).  Yesterday I was working in one department with a little old lady who is really cute because she tries SO hard, and she was all like, "Oh you should apply to this department because I'm leaving soon and they'll probably give you a raise because you'll be working by yourself, blah blah!"

...yeah, not sticking around, folks.  Haven't told anyone that yet, of course, but... Ho-lee.  What did I do before coming to Walmart?  Well, last year I was making double the wage I am now... and the year before that I was making 1.5 times the wage I am now... and the year before that I was making almost the same wage, but I was also in highschool... yeah...

Anyway.  Then I tell them I'm an Engineering student and most of them are like "oooh la-dee-da" except I get the feeling that most of them don't really know what an Engineer does... the girl I worked with last night actually asked, and she was really cool about it because she just... straight up asked and didn't just let the conversation die with "oh that's interesting" or "oh I bet that's hard" or "oh so lots of math..."

Yeah, "oh so lots of math..." has been the most popular so far.  I don't tell them much about "oh so lots of making up bullshit reports to suit the needs of your class that really have nothing to do with mathematics at all", but I'm pretty sure they're not interested at all.

Anyway, aside from the people at work, the job is actually pretty interesting.  Stocking is boring as SHIT, but store setup, which is actually what I was hired for, is cool.  I got to learn how they move those giant shelves at Walmart.  And no they do not tear tham all apart and move them piece by piece.  While they could, that would be extra LAME for those of us who actually have to move things.

...and I'm not going to tell you how!  Gwaha!

And, aside from the job and the people, during my "lunch" break (Erin insists it is supfast, because it is between supper and breakfast, at 3:oo am) I have been reading The Alchemist (yeah that should be underlined, not italicised, but this is not an important document, so fuck you) by Paulo Coelho (may have spelled that wrong; will check later).  So far it's awesome!  And there are a few people who I really want to read it... namely Erin and my momsy, because it's really... just good.  So far.  Not finished yet, of course, but... it's very inspirational, and extra nice to be reading at Walmart.  And I am learning things. :D

Further, here is a picture I took at Curt's pool.  And yes I built this.  Pool genome: discovered!

Mwaha!

Ummmm... otherwise I have been staying up VERY late today (it's 4:oo pm!) and editing, but now I am writing this instead... very poorly.  I should have apologised at the start.  I am at my 20-hour mark, and didn't get a load of sleep yesterday.  Anyway.

Thank-you very much for reading... I hope that picture I drew of the cars worked out; it's not showing up in my actual blog-writer thingy...

THAT IS ALL.

<3

/mads