I Get Parental Anxiety

Feeding Bach has become such a routine lately that a lot of days the drudgery of the activity leads me to forget whether or not I've actually fed him yet that day. It's one of my greatest fears that I will overfeed him and come home to find him floating belly up because of my negligence. Is this what it's like to be a mother?? If so, it is too stressful for me.

I'm a little stressed out about my Writing Fiction for Publication class because it has become clear that everyone there took Creative Writing together and therefore are adhering to unspoken rules that I am unaware of. Like, for instance, last class they all got out critical responses they'd written up to give to the person who had handed out their short story the week before, and when I asked if that was a requirement, they all looked at me like I hadn't listened to anything that had gone on in class thus far when I know for a fact that no one mentioned writing response letters at any time during the class, least of all the teacher.

Another thing that makes me unsure about that class is that so far every short story I have read is about some who is crazy or is going crazy. I wrote my short story about a twelve-year-old boy. Next week when we go over it I'm afraid they're going to tear it apart for being too boring. I'm ridiculously nervous. I love reading other people's stories but I am not sure about other people reading my stuff. I still have the feeling that my writing is a part of my private self that I never show to anyone. It seems indecent to put it in the light. In fact, the more I think about the story that I handed out, the more uneasy I get. Maybe its because I'm afraid that since I so rarely share my writing that my thoughts won't be transferable at all.

Or it could just be that I have this bad habit of selectively remembering only the negative parts of a given memory (maybe that's why I can never recommend dramas/movies to you because I'm remember everything I didn't like about them and nothing I did like).

Speaking of movies I didn't like, though, the other day I went to see Seeking a Friend for the End of the World because it was playing for free in the Union and it looked interesting. Well it wasn't interesting. It was stupid and everything that happened was predictable and sad. Steve Carrell and Keira Knightly actually made for a pretty cool couple, even though their roles were very specific cliches, but the screenplay was written in such an awkward way that I couldn't even like them.

After I did that, I needed a pick-me-up so I went and checked out a small pot to make an unnamed dish involving the Basmati rice Mom sent me for my birthday, carrots, and a potato. It was around midnight when I finished it, but that made it no less delicious.

I also had crackers and gouda cheese, also courtesy of Mom. Thanks. :D

I was reading Elise's blog today and she mentioned having new pens and it being awesome. The problem with pens is that there is never enough ink in them. I take all my notes in pen and I doodle a lot in the margins and in my journal, so basically I run through a good pen about one every month. And good pens aren't always easy to come by. Taeream gave me a set that I loved so much that I've used one up already doing things like drawing octopi,

 

or the logos of whoever I happen to be listening to at the time:

You know, important things.

-Amy

Sunday, With Jellybeans

12: 27 - The best thing about Easter candy is that Starburst comes out with about a hundred different types of jellybeans, all delicious and prone to coloring my tongue a sickly browny-green combination of colors.

I got a late start on the post thing today because I wasn't actually planning to write one since I'm sure there's only so much Amy babble you can tolerate at one time. But then I saw this video, and I decided to write one anyway. Because it is relevant to my life in at least two ways. Also it is funny. But there are expletives, so beware your virgin ears, or whatever.

So I mentioned to you that I had started watching this show, King 2 Hearts. At the moment, it is a close second to City Hunter in my List of Shows I Heartily Enjoy That Are Also Really Well-Made. The premise is a little strange (mostly because it's about the Korean royal family, when I wasn't even aware that Korea had a royal family), but what makes it so good is Lee SeungGi, the main guy who is (well, was) the co-host of Strong Heart. Maybe it's just because I can't resist a man in a beret. Or one of these:

Anyway, he's cool in the style of LMH, and I'm not even exaggerating when I say that. He's super good at making you simultaneously love and hate his character (because he is a self-centered son of a gun, but he has good moments). Anyway, I'm enjoying it but it just started airing so it will be weeks and weeks before I'm able to finish. Which is okay.

12:45 - I was going to do that crane legend assignment for Literature for Adolescents but the chair of our group already sent us all an email with a rather long, super well thought out legend that he wrote all about this crane's journey to heaven through acts of godly benevolence or something, and now I've lost my will to try to one-up him. It was a pretty good story. All we have to do now is shorten it (it took me fifteen minutes to read, and we only have five to present it). I'm also all for adding an element of hilarity to it, but I don't want to be too overbearing. I already one-upped his music video suggestions (Knockout met with general consent), so maybe I should back down.

1:02 - My friend Kailea came by with a whole bunch of fliers for a politician who's coming to UCM to speak tomorrow. I felt bad saying I couldn't go (I have class) but to be honest politics have never interested me and it is almost impossible for me to feign enthusiasm.

1:33 - I'm drawing a storyboard of this graphic novel venture, and even though it's slow work, it is pretty fun. I've never done something like this before so I'm sure it's all very rough and clumsy, but I feel good about it myself.

2:30 - Today is not a dance day, but a dramatic day. I have a playlist called 'sad and awesome'. It is inspiring when I'm drawing things.

2:54 - I decided to write that legend anyway, just so I have something to show when I go to that meeting tonight. It is filled with wonderful morals and a just sense of karma and comeuppance. It also involves imagining a crane and stork to be the same bird, but that's not too much of a stretch of the mind, so hopefully all will be well.

4:28 - I went to Wal-Mart today, and it is hot as anything outside. I just assumed the AC in my car wasn't working again, so I didn't think to try it until I was halfway back, sweating like a pig. And it worked. Life is tragic sometimes.

-Amy

Maybe the Longest Post Ever

5:40 - For my Literature for Adolescents class, my group has to make up a Japanese legend starring a crane (which brings health and enlightenment to all, and also oversees reincarnation). We decided to all write one separately, then come together and decide on which one is the best (or put them all together). I have until Sunday to make it really good. I think I'll make it funny, just because we've been known to be funny as a group in the past (It was mostly just our leader and the other girl in the group - as the maknae, I lack charisma, but I can try my best). Anyway, since writing is my strength, I hope my story makes the final cut.

Here's one of the things that annoys me the most - when teachers hand back writing-intensive tests with the grade and a two-or-three word note. I understand that they have a ton of tests to grade and they can't spend a whole bunch of time explaining why I got the grade I got, but really, if I get a bad grade, I want to know why. I got 87 on my American Literature midterm for "ideas not fleshed out enough", even though I spent the entire class period trying to flesh out as many relevant thoughts as I possibly could in the test booklet. I thought I did super well on my World Literature midterm too, but I got it back today with a 92, which I know is an A, but the only thing the teacher wrote on it was "explain your words". What's that supposed to mean? What am I supposed to take away from that? If there are only two tests in the entire term, and they constitute the entire grade I'm going to get, I want more of an explanation for a less than spectacular grade and, more importantly, suggestions for how I can get a better grade on the final test.

The student teachers in my Adolescent Literature class are pretty cool though. There was one assignment we had with the Eclipse group where we had to write journal entries from the perspective of an assigned character - mine was Edward, and I really hammed it up. Even though I got full points on all of them, they still took the time to tell me what I did right ("You did such a great job of showing Edward's passion for Bella!" and "I think it's important that Edward realize just how restrictive he has been to Bella"). I feel confident of their future success as teachers.

Yeah, that whole Strong Heart episode sounds pretty sketch, I don't know if I'll be able to bear watching the whole thing when it comes out. I think part of what makes it so painful is the awkward translations, but still. I mean, dang. If you've lived and worked with someone for like seven or eight years, you should 1) have at some point or another seen each other with your shirts off without being weird about it (they're guys, for goodness sake, and they change like twenty times every concert), and 2) have enough mutual respect to not dish out all these dirty details on national television. Sometimes I think Big Bang members must have really uneasy relationships (or else they're magnificent trolls).

Wooooah, that Jason Derulo MV was pretty legit. He has fancy footwork, plus the backup dancers were cool. Like I said, I'm not a big fan of him but he's definitely gone up in my book. It's true about the lip syncing though. If you're going to lip sync, at least sing as well so it actually looks marginally real.

Chris Brown - Chris Brown is pretty intense. I mean I don't like his voice hugely, but I have the same view of it as I do of Taeyang's: doesn't sound great, but he has awesome control and is super versatile. Plus I can never resist men dancing in suits. What's with the animal suits though? Is this Chris Brown on acid? At one point there was a guy with a panda head in the background, and I lol'd. But yeah. The man can dance, especially in the Gene Kelly getup. I like.

B1A4 - Aww, that's a pretty cool video. They are all super cute except yeah, the girl was scary. I like the guy with the long hair. The video of theirs I watched the other day that I thought was so awesome was Beautiful Target. Literally every second of it makes me happy. I was going to mention a few specific things but I couldn't point out anything without wanting to point out everything.

NU'EST - is that their only song? It is pretty cool, and yeah, that guy seriously looks like a girl. The blonde ponytail isn't helping his case at all. And the end - ENGLISH. I feel like they're doing that thing that BAP did, debuting with a super intense song and dance that sort of surprises everyone into liking them. And instead of Zelo they have a girl.

7:00 - I can't stand LMFAO, really. I liked "I'm Sexy and I Know It", but their music videos are pretty inexcusable. I feel like there's a point, as a musician, when you should step back and question whether or not you're actually making music that people enjoy for more than just a catchy beat.

Beast - I have seen that video, but I didn't realize the first time that KiKwang was singing in English at the beginning. "I'm hurrsick" made me laugh. As the Arms, I feel like he shouldn't have such a ridiculously pretty face. As always, YoSeob is my favorite. The outfit he's wearing at the end is hilarious.

2PM - Yay Thailand! Yay Nichkhun! They are pretty funny unscripted. And Chansung is pretty tall. I don't know how, but I'm sure that the second I post this post I will forget his name again. I don't know why I always forget his name, but by now it is a regular occurrence. If these making of/behind the scenes films are to be believed, all these groups are basically just messing around having fun all the time. Which seems pretty cool, but I don't think it's true. Anyway Wooyoung on the keyboard is pretty funny.

I would pick yellow, because Wooyoung, or pink, because Nichkhun in a lace button-up and pleather vest is too hilarious to ignore.Though black is close too, because those backup dancers are pretty cool, and you know how I feel about black. Yes to the cornrows; no to the suit jacket with no shirt underneath.

Gotta stop this, seriously. I have other stuff to do! Though I'm proud to say that I wrote my two literary analyses with a vengeance last night with time to spare before bedtime (though lately I have been sleeping very badly).

You're going to Jeff City. Even though I'm not crazy about the city itself, the Capitol is pretty cool, and you'll probably have a grand time with all those people. Experience being a minority!

-Amy

Dear Michelle (wherein I write a post that for once is shorter than yours)

I wrote that title to keep myself in check, because I am fully capable of writing a post that is long enough to also wipe something up, like my sweat after I go to the gym this afternoon (can you believe it?)

I get that school is just one of those things. I go through cycles of thinking that school is the easiest thing ever and I hardly even have to try to breeze through it with all As to feeling like I'm being swept mercilessly against the cold forbidding rocks of academia by tidal waves of dead-eyed cynicism. That analogy kind of got away from me. Without school, however, I will become a pretty useless excuse for a person. Well, with school it's entirely possible that I will still be useless, but my chances at succeeding in life are at least a little bit better.

I really like dancing but the truth is that I have little coordination, so sometimes I look at a dance and I'm like, I can do that, and then when I actually try it it turns out I can't even move my hands at the same time as my feet. It's pretty humbling. But I can accept that dance isn't something I have natural talent at. But the way you were describing dance and what it means to you reminded me of how I feel about language, sort of in a lot of ways. I mean, I'm really linguistically oriented, and anything that relates to linguistics really fascinates me. And the thing is, I have an alright aptitude for things like that. Like, I can actually have a completely autonomous desire to learn things about language and linguistics. I don't think I've ever had that kind of motivation with anything else. Like with writing, I did all the research and work and exercises and the worldbuilding without anyone else telling me what to do or how to do it, and it was actually fun. The same goes with Korean. I frigging love deciding to undertake something on my own and then it turning out that I'm perfectly capable of doing it well. Which reminds me that my next question for the Korean girl in my choir is what the difference is between 이용하다, 활용하다, and 사용하다, because everywhere I look, they all mean "to use". I need to know this because that's a really important verb and I don't want to say the wrong one at the wrong time. I'm so paranoid about that kind of thing. It pretty much goes without saying that I'm going to end up offending a lot of people when I speak to them in Korean just because I've never had to think this much about customs and propriety before.

It's pretty awesome that you got that part in Beauty and the Beast. Initially I wrote that as "Beasty and the Beast", and I'm suddenly realizing that that could be a pretty good story. Anyway, I know what you mean about feeling like being put into mezzo soprano is somehow an insult to your singing skills. I feel like I could be a pretty awesome alto, but I, too, am a mezzo soprano and we seem to get overlooked a lot. It's okay though, because if there's one thing I'm good at it's staying in the background. And that's important in a choir. Anyway, about sounding operatic, a lot of it comes down to really good breath control, which is something I've never been good at but I'm sure with practice you can totally kill it. Plus you were always better at swimming so your breath control is probably better than mine to begin with.

I could be your piano teacher. I don't know how good of a teacher I'd be, but we seem to see piano playing in sort of the same way (play what you want, when you want), so I guess that could be pretty good. But I'd have to turn into a bit of a slave driver because, not to be mean or anything, your musical motivation is usually at a pretty low ebb.

I should like go do school or something. I just had to pause this whole post-writing thing for a little while because I was listening to "Breath" by Beast and basically every time I listen to that song I have to stop everything and wait for the moment when YoSeob does this incredibly strong sustained note that has exactly the perfect amount of vibrato at the end of it and I think it brings a tear of admiration to my eye every time I hear it.

Anyway that's my story. I really failed at the whole writing a short post thing, didn't I?

-Amy

Bundling

Now that fall is pretty much just over, I am starting to wear hats. Today I'm wearing one with earflaps, because it's windy. If it gets any colder, I will wear my fuzzy hat with earflaps.

So I pretty much have a lot to say about The Hunger Games (not least the casting choices for the film), but my hands are cold right now so I'll probably just wait until I get home tomorrow. I'm thinking the second book would be a good Christmas present to ourselves (I could buy one half, you could buy the other). Heheh.

So the other night I watched this Thai movie called Raging Phoenix. It was an action movie. I think it kind of had too much of the same kind of action. It got a little boring after a little while. I can only watch a hundred-pound girl beating up thugs with tae kwon do for so long. It was pretty fun though.

This morning my roommate said that she hears me talking in my sleep almost every night. She told me that last night I was going "hahahaha... wow." over and over again in my sleep. I don't know what it's like to hear a sleeping person laugh, but I'd guess it's a little creepy. Sorry, roommate.

Anyway, library class is over so I must away. I decided to try out NaNoWriMo this year. So far I have 4,000 words (on top of the 20,000 I already had). It's going pretty well, I guess. I killed off one of my characters, so that's good.

Keep it classy,
-Amy

So Much to Do, So Little Time

The thing about being in college is that you can choose what you want to do. Since the only things you're really required to do only pertain to some classes that you take a couple of times a day or a part-time job, the rest of the time is free for you to be beholden to no one but yourself.

I'm in love with this aspect of college.

In fact, this is one of the primary reasons I avoid social obligations. I don't want to let anything encroach on the time I have to pursue the things I'm interested in. There are a few problems with this (besides the obvious, potentially socially stunting problem). Firstly, the more time I have, the bigger my list of interests gets. It started out with writing, which is something I've been interested in since I was eleven or twelve. But once I got writing, a whole new vista of possibility stretched out before me. Writers can't just write - they have to write about something, and usually in order to write about it, they have to do research on it. So pretty quickly I started pursuing knowledge in international politics, corporate crime, small firearms, swordplay, desert topography, Middle Eastern culture, kudzu growing habits and state government. Soon there were so many that I couldn't really get in-depth on any of them. So I had to pick and choose, narrowing my research down to one writing project and then throwing myself into one thing at a time. The topic I've settled on to focus on at the present moment is virology (specifically smallpox). It's interesting and fun and I get to put a lot of the informtion I find into my story, so that's good.

That's just one example of how quickly things can get out of hand and how drastically I have to rein myself in (otherwise I'd just be a frazzled mess who skipped class all the time to read up on the science of gecko's feet so I can derive from it for an alien race I'm writing about). Another example would be TV. As you know I like to watch a lot of shows, and a lot of the time I'm not very picky about how critically acclaimed they are. As long as they're about something that interests me, I'm good to go. Recently my love for TV led me to start watching some Korean television. Korean film is extremely new and often extremely derivative, and a lot of the time it's hit or miss. But the thing I like most about it is that from what I've seen Korea is very proud of and relishes its culture, and its television uses that culture to set itself apart from other Western shows. I was really intrigued by what I saw so I started to read up on the culture and customs in Korea, which led me to reading about the language, which was really intriguing, which led me to learning basic phrases and sentence structure and the alphabet and whatnot.

Age of information? Yes please.

This process of exponential interest growth has happened to me countless times and begins with the simplest things, like hearing a really great song and wanting to find the sheet music, or watching a really great video and wanting to get a camera to do my own videos, or seeing an awesome hat and wanting to learn how to purl so I can make one too. The problem is finding the time and energy to actually invest in these things (and developing the ability to let some things pass by for the sake of my sanity, no matter how desperately I'm interested in them). Here's how I've had to narrow it down. Everything I research/do has to

1. Pertain to something productive (learning or practicing a relevant skill or making a useful product), and
2. Only use available resources that don't cost extra (library, internet, piano, and technology that I've already purchased like my laptop, camera, and flipcam. This also means no printing, driving, or purchasing materials of any kind).

Obviously this doesn't narrow things down all that hugely, but it's a start, and with writing, virology, French and Korean, I've pretty much got my hands full.

This post was obscenely long and not very interesting, but I was in an introspective mood (when am I ever not in an introspective mood?) and I had to get it all off my chest. Next time I promise I'll try my hardest to say something funny.

-Amy

P.S. I discovered a band called Klaypex. They're like the Glitch Mob only they're more consistent about making you want to dance every second. I listen to them in the early mornings so make myself feel good about the rest of the day.

Illegal Blog Post

I accidentally left my gmail signed in in my library class computer ALL WEEKEND. I didn't realize it until I got here and IE signed me in automatically. It was scary! Thankfully no one took the opportunity to send embarrassing emails to everyone on my contacts list (at least, I don't think they did...)

The reason this post is illegal is because I'm in library class right now. I'm acing this class while slacking off . That should tell you a thing or two about how useful a lot of college classes really are.

So I have a thing or two to say about the water here at UCM. As you know, my immune system is pretty awesomely equipped to deal with public bathrooms, door handles, and the illest handshakes. It is for this reason only that I haven't gotten sick yet on the water here. You've heard about Drexel water, and how in concentrated form it's a festering brown sludge. I'm sure all water is like that to some degree or another, but it's not often that water in the US starts smelling foul after you've left it in a cup overnight. I didn't actually notice it until one of my LIB classmates pointed it out, but now I can't stop noticing it. So I cleaned out my electric kettle the other day, and I found out that the inside was covered in a film of grayish scum. Gack! I still brush my teeth and shower in it, but I think from now on I'll only drink the filtered water from the cafeteria, or water that I've boiled (it's still gross, but at least it's more sanitary).

Otherwise, life here is pretty good. I learned the days of the week in Korean, plus other things that are more useful (they have two completely different number systems that they use interchangeably. WHY), like "what?" (bo? or uey?) and "yes" (ne) and "no" (aniyo) and the alphabet (19 consonants, 10 vowels, 11 SUPER vowels), the common honorifics (really super important), and other sundry things about sentence structure and how yes doesn't exactly mean yes and no doesn't exactly mean no. It's extremely different from anything I've tried before but at least it makes sense (the more I study other languages, the more I realize how screwed up English actually is... sometimes I'm truly sorry for the rest of the world that it's one of the global languages).

Yesterday I started my classroom observation. I got 7th grade Language Arts. Public school is pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be except about half as interesting. The teacher is good and all, but boy am I glad I was homeschooled. I think I would have withered and died in public school, just from the absolute intellectual wasteland that is a byproduct of mass education. After I started taking my Foundations of Education class, I realized that I actually have really strong views on education. The fact that I as an individual teacher probably won't be able to change the royally screwed up education system in America is probably going to drive me crazy one day, but as long as I truck along believing that I can make at least a small difference, I ought to be all right.

Anyway, I'll see you later. I'm so excited about the care package you said you sent yesterday that I almost want to skip class to go see if it's in my mailbox. But I won't, because it's biology, and I need a better grade in that class ( I know 92 is already an A, but the class is so easy that I pretty much have no excuse for getting less than a 95 at least).

Keep it classy,
Amy

P.S. Have you ever been on TV Tropes? Every once in a while I rediscover it and then can't pull myself away for a good hour or two. It came to my attention again lately when someone made a link to this page, which made me realize that I'm actually writing a character exactly like that (also, it made me lol).

Blagosphere Confessionals

I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I'm really depressed about being in college and realizing that it's an intellectual wasteland, I go watch videos of Asian-American people playing pretty music and making clever skits about life and the human condition. It makes me feel better for some reason.

I was able to get my camera working (as long as the battery is more than half-full, it'll turn on almost without fail), but sadly I cannot say the same for my bike, which is currently inoperable due to a problem with the chain that I know is an easy fix but requires clever hands and a tool that can unscrew screws, neither of which I possess. Because of this, I did not go to Wednesday night worship last week because it's a fifteen to twenty-minute walk to get there. This week, I figured a long walk isn't a good excuse for not attending worship two weeks in a row, so I made the walk and it took even longer that I thought, and when I finally got there several people came up and introduced themselves to me, saying that we'd met before at fondue night or in a class we shared, and I pretended to know them as well. I hate that I do this, but I put people in little categories in my mind, so if I was in a small group with someone in one of my classes and I learn their name and a little bit about them, I still will not recognize them if I encounter them in a non-academic setting. In my subconscious, that person only exists in the classroom, and every time my conscious mind suggests that perhaps that's not true, I get an acute sense of how ludicrous it is that said classmate continues existing once they step out of the classroom.

Anyway. I'm coming home tomorrow, so at the moment I'm counting down the hours. I have a lot of stuff I need to remember to grab while I'm there, mostly warmer clothes since the weather got cold a lot quicker than I thought it would. I could wear hats if I wanted to! I rarely do want to, but still. Also my birthday is soon. Nineteen sounds like a horrifically transitional age. For some reason I never encounter people who are nineteen. It must be like Purgatory, a purgatory that you can never admit to being in. I'll make sure to make the most of my time as nineteen, but I can't help but think that I'll spend the entire year with a vague sense in the back of my mind that I'm in some kind of limbo.

I've been thinking a lot about writing lately, mostly because I've been doing a lot of writing lately. Anyway, I was thinking about how I'm pretty sure I'm best at writing comedy or parody, but for some reason I don't ever actually spend any time writing comedy or parody. I think it's because I really enjoy reading dramas and thrillers and things, so I end up mostly writing dramas and thrillers and things even though I can't really write them well. So my new resolution is to start writing what I'm good at and see how it goes, and have at least one comedy project on the side going while I write what I love to write (it's currently dystopian America 40 years in the future).

...or maybe I should make future dystopian America into a comedy. Wouldn't that be fun?

Anyway, off to Biology again. See you soon.

-Amy

On Writing - Practical Things

Rather a generic title for a post, but the simplest things in life are the best. Incidentally, writing is also pretty cool, too.

Michelle and I are writers of the decidedly amateur persuasion. The problem with being an amateur writer is that you can never be sure when you graduate from being amateur to being "professional", or some other word with a similar meaning, like "freelance," "self-employed," and "full-time," all of which are thinly veiled titles for the same general meaning: poor. In the words of Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and Through Painted Deserts:

"Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more."

I have the feeling that this will become more true to me with every passing year. I want to end up having writing be a big part of my life, and hopefully a part of my livelihood, and as far as I've heard, the first step to supporting yourself with your writing is accepting that you're going to face rejection first and then crippling poorness because no one ever pays you what your writing's worth (well, it may not be worth anything at all, but the time and labour you spent on it is hopefully pretty valuable).

I probably shouldn't start talking about writing on such a dismal note, but probably the purpose of this post was to build up to this, a post by John Scalzi, who's a science fiction author and has a blog filled with delightfully scathing messages to the bigoted, unwashed masses of people who have nothing better to do than sit around reading blogs that do nothing but intellectually punish them. Don't worry though, he's pretty nice, interesting, and helpful most of the time. And he does book reviews too. But the best thing about his blog is that in it, he talks about writing in an honest, say-it-how-it-is manner that sometimes hurts. But it hurts so good.

It's like midnight. Michelle's in the process of having a birthday/costume party, and since the caffeine and sugar is beginning to flow like the promised land, it's probably time for me to go to bed and think about how at least I can get a full night's sleep, suckers. We went to Skies tonight. It was totally awesome. But I'm tired now so I'm going to hit the sack. My next post is going to be about NaNoWriMo, methinks. Unless something extraordinary happens, like a fourteen-year-old girl dressed up as Robin bursting into my room at 3 in the morning, yelling something about holy bedclothes, and running back out. Then I would be inclined to write about that.

-Amy