1) Tickets to New Moon. (No, I'm kidding, it was actually kind of okay. Except that NO ONE HAS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. Actually, I take that back: Edward has more facial expressions than everyone else. I CANNOT HELP BUT FEEL THAT THIS SAYS SOMETHING.)

2) Cute Underwear. (But who feels guilty for that? It is so cute.)

3) Assassin's Creed II and Dragon Age: Origins. (.... I got nothin'.)



It was great to wander around with Neek again, although far too bloody hot for it. XD Damn summer!

Currently trying to convince myself that I should NaNo instead of playing video games. Since I have, y'know, this week to catch up. >_> And I'm still not halfway. Sigh.

x-posted from http://cheloya.dreamwidth.org/447170.html || comments

Writing went surprisingly well this weekend, for all that it is so loud in that place I can hardly think. I think keeping ahead of the wordcount is a good way to beat Week Two-itis. I suppose we'll find out now that it's officially Week Two.

I'm certainly remembering - or realising, I suppose - more about this story as I go, which is what usually happens. I think I have a good two hundred words of notes as to where to go next and the explanations behind things at the bottom of every section.

I have to be at work super early tomorrow to make sure something is done for QE... may actually drop back in the evening if I don't manage to finish it in time. Sigh.

And now the ABC has actually made me ill by broadcasting a few minutes of someone's hideous remix of Strauss' music so I need to go to bed with real Strauss in my ears and not this awful remix. ;A; Aaaaaauuuuuughfjdshdj.

x-posted from http://cheloya.dreamwidth.org/442990.html || comments

How 'bout that? Go, Dreamwidth. :)

Today:
- Finished all the work I want to finish for the QE doc bundle due tomorrow. :D Will move on to my (suspiciously MIA) minion's assorted duties tomorrow.
- Bewildered and alarmed Dazzled and amazed with my eloquent hand-gesture dance.
- Fixed the rest of my F-11 installation, which broke my inbox in the night.
- Made it out of dependency hell with the assistance of Rudi and Jeff. \o/ I really, really need that Linux Essentials course next week. >>
- Made an epic tactical error by telling Susan to keep up with my NaNo count. Watch as she proceeds to wipe the floor with me. XD No, seriously, I'm dead. Only my insomnia will save me.



I am pretty sure I will never know everything I want or need to know, and this makes me sad.

I was considering the abilities of Holmes as listed by Watson earlier and thinking, well, at least he'd worked out what he needed to know to do what he wanted to do, and set about achieving that knowledge. By the time he's, say, twenty-five, he's already refining that knowledge further and taking it in new and interesting directions.

Not that I'm expecting to be like Holmes, but I am finding that being genuinely interested in pretty much everything makes it incredibly difficult to pick a direction and be satisfied with it. And it's not that I do not love, love, love writing down to my bones, because I do. Giving myself permission to write and to concentrate on writing for the duration of November is more of a relief than removing your ridiculous but awesome high heels. (I mean that. My big toe is still raw from these fuckers, but they are awesome. I do not usually feel this way about shoes, let alone shoes that hurt me.) It's rewarding in and of itself - fiction and nonfiction.

But being in this job has really recalled that, actually, I really enjoyed programming. I'd barely touched a toe to the tip of the iceberg, mind you, but I am genuinely interested and I just do not have the time to act upon that interest.

I really love drawing and painting, too. And the violin, and the keyboard, and maths, and physics, and biology, and singing, and videogames, and sleeping, and cooking, and... do you see what I'm getting at, here? The need to get better at these things that I regularly enjoy is incredibly frustrating because I just do not have the time to give all of these things the attention that I want to give them. I just really love things. Lots of things. All the time. And it's annoying as fuck that there is really only time to give maybe two of them adequate attention.



This post brought to you by random musings on satisfaction and a conversation about generalists vs. specialists a few days ago.

And now I am going to make tea and write NaNo and certainly not watch Zombieland because that would let Susan get even further ahead of me and we cannot have that.

x-posted from http://cheloya.dreamwidth.org/441468.html || comments

By which I mean my lovely daughter has spoken, in a poll, on IJ. I AM SO PROUD OF HER.

NaNoWriMo 2009: Book!Verse
...and for 48hours, Rocfall.

I SUPPOSE I'D BETTER HURRY UP AND FIGURE OUT WHAT BOOK!VERSE IS ACTUALLY CALLED, HUH. Once again, a 'verse with no native female characters, orz, why do you do this to me brain.

Poll #4331 NaNoWriMo 2009, Take Eight Million
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should I write for NaNoWriMo 2009?

I'm counting stickers for NaNo, and I have 38 cat sponge!stickers, many many lots star stickers, and only 25 frogs. And I'm bored of stars, so I'm going to have to do some truly odd word goals for those cat stickers, or just set the sticker goal at 2k. Which is kind of useless since 2k is more than the daily wordcount goal. -_- kuchibue is buying more for me, thus solving the dilemma. :D

Of course, I still don't know what I'm writing because the bloody poll is tied. If I remove my vote, it's Book!verse; if I count my vote doubly because I am the one who has to write it, dammit, it's Rocfall. And I still can't decide what to do. XD Also, I think I've worked out enough of CC!verse that NaNo will actually help, so I've added it. VOTE PLEASE. You may need to go to my Dreamwidth to do it. PLEASE SEE ENTRY FOLLOWING, THIS POLL IS BROKEN.

WE CANNOT TIE-BREAK AGAIN. I'M COUNTING ON YOU, PEOPLE.

Tom started today! I may call him Four Grand from now on. (No idea if I'm getting it or not, but it would make a nice addition to the house fund. XD)

No, seriously, answer the poll, I cannot be expected to make decisions for myself.

Five Things That Are Awesome About This Morning:
1. It's Monday! :D ...no, really, that's not sarcasm. XD
2. The bathmat came out of the dryer just before I took a shower, so they were still fluffy and warm when I got out. X3 Little things, guys, little things.
3. Mummy made me a delicious sammich. I only call her 'Mummy' when she spoils me like a small child.
4. New Guy #2 starts today, which I guess should go under point #1, but whatever! I assume Isaac will be buddying him.
5. I'm running early, which is a minor miracle. (We will ignore that I woke up at 5am.)

Poll #4283 NaNoWriMo 2009
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should I write for NaNoWriMo 2009?

Rocfall is the 'verse with Delan and Ilario and the perils of having white magic in the fractured states to the north of a prosperous kingdom, and in which the heroes are the bad guys and the bad guys are the heroes and it's all very grey, morally speaking.

Book!verse is the 'verse with Lucien and the Golem and the Thief, who is actually in charge and should go first, and who stole his name from the Book of the Dead eons ago and is now bored enough to want to put it back.

There are other options, but these are the most sensible. I probably won't be posting them, either, so I suppose it's just a matter of what you'd rather hear me babble about all November!

1) I am still alive!
2) I have spent a RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY.
3) I am having fun. :D
4) I have been primarily without internet for the better part of this week and busy with NaNo for the last few days of last week so didn't actually update much. XD Oops?
5) I did not win NaNo. :( But I did write 31.5k in four days, so that was pretty awesome. XD 5k, 5k, 4.5k, 15.5k. Not that my writing is erratic or anything. XD
6) I have to go now because the pub only gives you an hour of free WiFi. :D;

[EDIT]

Delicious dinner by Squeaks and comfy conversation with Lauryn's parents have left me in despair incoherent. No more words tonight. |D; I BLAME ROCK BAND.

So last night the girls and I dedicated some time to working out what I could possibly wring 50 000 words out of in the next five days.

( Tina should be happy with the results. )

Are you scared yet, Tina? Tina?

I don't think F&F was a good plan for NaNo. *sigh* I just can't make myself care very much. I certainly can't make myself write quickly. It's just another Thing That Must Be Done. Fic really isn't meant to be like this.

Today I... played through to the end of the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time! XD; Holidaying with friends is amazingly similar to lazing around at home; it is awesome.

I wish I could write shit, though.

Someone tell me that I'm not allowed to make Aeris a zombie.

No, really.

I kind of want to. I hate the way she walks in. She needs to have something wrong with her. I don't like magical resurrection where everything is sparkly!

Again, just saying.

(I wish I could stop thinking about Havemercy for five minutes at a time. I spent my whole shower, kuchibue, thinking about the repercussions upon group dynamics were Balfour/Adamo to exist. ( Spoilers. )

Anyway. Off to work I go.

....TWENTY NINE HOURS TO GO.

...just saying. :3


[EDIT] TO DO TONIGHT:

- feather_qwill birthday fic
- FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. Food? Food??? Food. ;_; PLEASE, FOOD.
(Translation: I am not sure what time my mother is getting home or whether she expects me to eat with her.)
- re-timeline F&F for NaNo
- re-dot-point F&F for NaNo, or at least locate all your notes on the subject, which are probably far away and/or hidden under heavy things
- bed at nine or so yyyyeah. >>

My little storm dragon is hatching practically at the speed of light, and Facebook is amazing.

Why?

Because I just discovered that a friend from primary school is a uni friend's cousin.

And she works with my cousin.

So we both know each other's cousins.

It is like some weird incestuous fate thing, like in a CLAMP manga.

My essay is not finished AT ALL. In fact, I have no words yet. But I have most of it, er, structured out. Kind of. So I should be able to burn through the whole thing tomorrow.

PREFERABLY WITHOUT THEME SONGS IN MY HEAD, KTHX.



P.S. - STILL CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT NANOWRIMO. It is like being told that your next fix is three days away, just saying, don't focus on it or anything.

*EYEBALLS NOVEMBER POINTEDLY AND EDGES CLOSER TO IT*

- get up at 7.30am
- shower
- breakfast
- clean desk
- clean room
- wash sheets
- dry sheets
- research Jackie French
- determine argument for essay
- draft structure
- start writing essay
- scan and email kessira's line edit
- scan and email Annalies's line edit
- endeavour not to kill your hands

[EDIT]

- stop staring at this and wondering how in fuck you are ever going to finish F&F

21,692 / 200,000 (10.0%)

- try to avoid shrieking FOUR DAYS FOUR DAYS FOUR DAYS

( It won't be done for a while, but here is a Thom/Rook snippet. And yes, those names are the right way around. )

Because surely no one can have objections to Professor Awesome being on top? I think I am in love with Thom for being a quiet, mild-mannered professor type with big manly hands, help, help.

[EDIT] sjhfhdjhdfjdjsdjhsdjhsfs IS IT NANO YET OH MY GOD WHY NOT SERIOUSLY T__________________T I want to write, like, EIGHT MILLION THINGS RIGHT NOW-- which means it really is exam time. XD This only happens when I'm working hard on things that have nothing to do with writing.

Things I Want to Write Concurrently During NaNo:
- Faith and Feather
- White!verse
- Crystal Coast
- Epic Incest Fic of Epic Incest Angst Threesome Crossover Epic Epicness Epic Epic

Which is only, what, five hundred thousand words? APPARENTLY IT IS POSSIBLE. There was that crazy woman on the interview panel a few weeks back who wrot like 425k during NaNo last year. That's, like. That's more than 16k every day. EVERY. DAY. Holy fucking shit. XD There's no chance of my doing anything like that, but holy fuck. ONE DAY? XD Am I that crazy?

(Hint: Yes.)

S-so these eggs might be a little bit on the addictive side. I. I finally realised today that, since one of my eggs hatched, I can have another egg! XD I think I'm going to stop picking eggs and just breed this lot, now, but you never know. I wouldn't mind, you know, a massive doom!clutch with which to take over the world.

Home alone with Chris for a few hours, since mum is having a pedicure? XD Sure, Ma, whatever. I'm trying to burn him a watchable DVD but only time will tell whether this is possible. (Given that the DVD is taking an hour to encode, it had goddamn well better work.)
I have been listening to A Band of Bees for a while, and they are my kind of music, I think. Sort of interesting and upbeat. The cheerful version of Elbow, I guess. ^^

Japanese exam was... er. Okay. I don't think I got below, say, 80% on it, but I don't think I can hope for much higher than that. XD; This is what happens, children, when you are as hung up on grammar as I am and you cannot for the life of you remember the correct way to say something was too sweet. Or how to gossip, despite discussing it with tainted4life earlier in the day. Sigh.

Talked about The Book Thief in class today and was rather saddened by the number of people who did not like Death as a narrator. (Am amused, though, because all these people read the first chapter of The Conductor in Novel last semester and told me they liked it. AREN'T THEY IN FOR A SURPRISE, OHOHO.)

Got my last shot of the cervical cancer vaccine, so if I get cancer now I'll just, you know, laugh a lot.

Alsooooo, today's Gunnerkrigg Court is cuuuuutejkrafskdshfas.

(Also: NINE DAYS TO GO.)

Who's ready?

(I know I'm not. And won't be. Until about November 15.)

So far, the NaNo Filter consists of feather_qwill, ignite, howl_for_words, kessira, kuchibue, leviathanmirror, narnizzle, pinkumbrella, selenityshiroi, squeakelala, tainted4life and teacupscientist. Comment now if you want on the NaNo Filter! I KNOW THERE ARE MORE OF YOU OUT THERE. Especially since I'm writing F&F this year. 8DDD

(Considering writing Crystal Coast at the same time, too. Eh heh. Eh heh heh heh. :D;;; 200k fic + 50k novel + -[two weeks] ≠ profit. But. Epic projects of epic and impossibility... so tempting...!)

I need FF7-themed NaNo icons, Y/Y. THERE AIN'T NO GETTIN' OFFA THIS TRAIN WE'RE ON. JUST SIT YOUR ASS DOWN AND WRITE YOUR @#$% 1667. BUT TO ME, THIS LOOKS LIKE A GOLDEN SHINY WIRE OF HOPE! Help me think of more appropriate quotes, guys. And not to make Vincent the NaNo loser of all time because he slept through thirty rounds.