Outlander and Sleuth

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Work and School have taken over all my spare time again. And I haven't cooked anything that fancy lately or knitted anything really spectacular (i mean, besides the shipwreck shawl from knitty that I'm in the middle of- I've just got to the beading part and it's making me crazy).

Just kind of blah and busy.

Anyway, now that it's the small little break between spring and summer semester I've been catching up on movies. MovieStop keeps having these four for three sales and I buy terrible movies- I bought some nightmare of a movie called Doomsday that's about a plague in the UK where the government decides to build a huge wall to block off Scotland and the plague. Oh god is it bad. It has a certain amount of punk rock Mad Max thing going on, but god is it horrid.

Outlander was a bit better- space man crashes in the viking times and the space monster he's got in his ship gets loose and then he's got to hunt it down. Honestly I felt bad for the Moorwin- the space monster, more than the vikings.

And now we're watching Sleuth, the remake with Michael Caine and Ewan McGregor. The dialog is so fast and sharp you can tell it was a stage play before it was ever a movie. So far nothing much has happened but I'm riveted.

I'm about half way through the complete Sherlock Holmes and I picked up a complete Conan because I've got one of the books and the new movie looks pretty. My Kindle is wrecking my life. New book, new book, new book.

Worst. Nanowrimo. Ever.

This year's Nanowrimo has been a disaster from start to finish. I couldn't think of anything to write til day one- too much school work- no time to plan events- the story I picked up ended halfway through. I started another story as soon as the first finished but by god there's only so many weekly papers and final papers and Livy a person can cope with before defeat happens.

Besides the not winning part- which I've done before, just not in years- the worst part is feeling like I can't write anymore. Nothing is as good as it used to be, I don't think of the story unless I'm sitting at the computer (no time to think up conversations while I'm at work or driving, apparently), everything just feels blah. I looked at last year's Nano which was a romance novel and I swear to god it's brilliant in comparison to anything I wrote recently but it's no For the Glory of Rome.

Sometimes I'm scared I cranked out my Penultimate Life's Work.

I hate feeling like this.

In other, happier, news:

I've talked to my sister about five or six times on the phone. She's really nice. She has two kids. She wants me to visit.

My seamonkeys are doing great.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson is even more awesome than the movie. I cannot put it down. Even though I know what's happening.

In comparison Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes is no Jurassic Park. I think he must have still been working on it when he died, like it's draft 1.5 or something. It's just not as long as usual.

My friend Lisa has a bunny that she let me petsit. I've never really seen a bunny up close besides in pet stores. They're not very friendly but they are soft. I guess you just hold it?

meh

Wow. I was sort of expecting about fifty flames over that last post.

Sorry I haven't written much lately. Spring semester was a nightmare and there's been some personal stuff going on. Nothing worth writing about though.

Right now it's seventeen days to London. Still have a lot to do before I can roll out. Like pack.

I finally saw Iron Man 2 today. Despite all the "it's not Iron Man 1" hype I thought it was pretty good. I feel a little gypped that Iron Man and Warmachine didn't fistbump in costume- but that was pretty much my biggest complaint. The movie didn't suck and for a sequel that a miracle, right? Tony did his big self-destruct thing which was fun to watch on the big screen. No matter how much they told me the Russian guy was a physicist I couldn't believe it- silver nail polish, dyed streaks in his hair, the prison tattoos. All I could think was "world's smartest hooker". He did have a good villain laugh, though.

On another note I saw Prince of Persia. (Spoilers) I don't even know what to say about it. Lots of parkour stuff and sharp objects and a princess. Mostly I think I feel cheated for the Prince guy since he lived through the whole movie and then went back to five minutes in.

Back to Iron Man- Jarvis could have talked 5000x more in the movie and it would have been awesome. Likewise that Jason Hammer dude could have stopped talking three hours before the movie started and I'd have been happy.

Blah

Sort of stuck in writer's block. Even for blogging.

School isn't going well. In one class I keep having to change seats because mine is constantly taken. I started in seat a, for instance, then someone took it so I moved to seat b, which was then taken, so I moved to seat c... This happens every class. For two months now.

In latin we're learning very differently from how my latin 1 professor taught us which is causing problems.

My art history professor can't get things right. He seriously told us the Roman Empire began in year 0.

I didn't say anything because I'm sure I'd say it wrong- but the next class he'd gotten the dates right, so I guess someone did.

I have hit this stupid diet and excersize plateau. Work more = nothing happens. It's frustrating on a level only writer's block can compare to.

Saw this. Was instantly eaten up with envy.

Nanowrimo Starts in... Ten days!

I'm totally psyched! Except about all the school work I need to get done between now and then. *sigh*

Ok, well, I was poking around the Nanowrimo website and I found this thing about sponsorship. If anyone wants to help the organization out, just click on the link. Thanks!

(And the Kennesaw region is at war with the Cornwall region and the war is counted by word count and donations)

In other news I can't seem to get any writing for school done. I have two papers that need fixing before tomorrow and I just keep staring at them and the teacher's assignments wondering what exactly needs fixing. They're kind of horrible. Blah. One of them, the assignment he gave us has about three different topics in one paragraph and I don't think he wants ten pages to cover the entire thing.

And we're having our first Nanowrimo meeting tonight at the Woodstock Coffee House. My excitement over that might explain the lack of huzzah over Grendel's Mother. Or Charlemagne. Or the Secret History.

Random Holidays

Today was weird. Went to study with Sarah and left with five spider plant babies. And then on the way home I stopped to get a donut- I bought one, the guy gave me ten. How awesome is that?

It's like it was a Holiday just for me.

And to top that off, James Marsters was in Lie to Me. And he looked horrible! Blah hair, blah floppy accent that was English sometimes, blah camera shots, blah suit. Everything was horrible. And then at the end of the episode (SPOILERS) he got shot! Can't help but be a little gleeful about that.

Eager

So, I put up a bunch of Nano fliers around campus Tuesday, and by the time I was heading off campus there were a few of the little tear off bits missing.

I come back Thursday and the one in the Parking Garage has zero tear offs left!

AWESOME!

So I replaced it with a fresh one and checked the others around campus. In a about two days about twenty people took little tear offs. And there's still a month until the contest starts.

wait what

in midieval europe class this morning my professor started explaining about the mystery cults and how the romans were suspicious of them because they didn't quite follow state religion and met in secret where the romans couldn't keep an eye on them.

and he gets to this point about the cult of mithras where he's explaining they met once a week, and had a sacred meal, and the meal was led by a priest, and they drank sacred wine and ate sacred bread, had baptisms, and what does this sound like...?

and you could just feel the sudden hostility in class when he asked that question.

i donno. i thought it was really funny.

Fall Semester

Oh man, second day of fall semester tomorrow.

The first day was kind of a bust- my cell phone has this battery saving feature that if it's plugged in long enough it shuts off, which is really great when it's your alarm clock. All my favorite coffee mugs were in the wash. Parking was a nightmare, and when I got to class it was so full there were no seats so I had to sit on the floor. Some guy showed up about five minutes after I did and the teacher laughed and told him to "pull up some carpet and start taking notes".

However, the classes themselves were great, whatever snags there were. Medieval Europe, Gender in Media (it's a Gender and Women's Studies class- sort of on interpreting books and tv shows), British Literature until the 1600s, and Latin. I've got the BritLit one with a teacher I had a few semesters ago, so it's good seeing her again.

The other thing that was really great? I'm sure some of you have heard how angry I was about the meal plan business the school started up- it's mandatory even if you live off campus and expensive and I don't really like the campus food. Well, they built us a new dining hall which is named the Culinary Center or something pompous sounding like that. To get in you walk under this roof that looks like Lady Liberty's crown, and swipe your school ID card and you're let loose in this mall sized open space that has all these kiosk restaurants. The only thing I can think to compare it to is a really good Vegas buffet, minus the high end seafood. There's a place that does southern food, a coffee bar, breakfast bar, international food (THERE WAS GOAT ON THE MENU ON TUESDAY CAN YOU BELIEVE IT), a diner type place, Italian, and a salad bar... Oh, and a Chinese place. I'm probably forgetting about half the places in there. And there's a bazillion tables and booths and lots of windows and some sort of space age robot dishwasher where you put your plates on a conveyor belt and they disappear to the future to be cleaned.

Only con: I think I saw TWO power outlets in the place. They designed it to keep you from camping. Which isn't really a con, I guess. I donno. While I was eating in there I wanted to work on a story and couldn't.

ALSO THEY HAVE CHEESECAKE.

CHEESECAKE. OMG.

Anyway, I only get to go there eleven more times this semester... Unless I want to buy more visits or something... So I'm going to try and save mine til November, and remember to bring a powerstrip.

Speaking of November, I already put up two Nano fliers on campus. Yay!

Choose Your Own Senior Thesis Topic

It's probably the six cups of coffee I've had tonight but I saw this picture and it's one of the funniest thing I've ever seen- to the point that I now want to write a thesis paper on it. With a title like "DEATH FROM ABOVE: SHARKNADOES IN THE SOUTH DURING THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA". I could even make up lots of primary sources- letters from Plantation Owners about the how the Great White Sharks that year had bitten the corners off the house and the high winds had damaged the old oak tree.

Heeeeeee.

(Pic is a shopped 'Choose your own adventure novel' in case you didn't recognize it. Shopped by iconzicons)

It's Been Weird

Sorry for the long break, things have been a bit crazy.

Started my second summer class which is a snore-fest. It's a history class where we spend most of the time discussing where commas go and "coordinate adjectives".

Began working on a Harry Potter scarf. You know, just in time for hellish summer temperatures and the movie. ^_^

Built an epic lego castle- which isn't epic in a huge, or turrets sort of way, but wins in sheer fury and creative use of clear red 1x1s as blood. (KSU did something wrong with my financial aid that day)



There's this study abroad next summer to London out of Valdosta State and I'm seriously planning on going. It's six weeks and there's a class on Shakespeare and another on London as a Setting in Novels (seriously, that's the class name)- think I'll get an extension on the ticket and stay an extra week or two so I can go to Cardiff and do all the stuff I couldn't do in the two days when I was there last fall. I just spent the last two hours reading stuff for class and babbling in IRC to my friend in London (who's asleep) about all the stuff I want to see/do.

(narg. it's still bugging me. i mean, i write stuff, and i never think to myself, "gosh, i'll put the coordinate adjective here." who names these things?)

London. London. London. It's going to be awesome. Did you know I only took about three pics while I was there? Remember when I dislocated my knee in Florence? That was about two or three weeks before London so I was hobbling around by myself on these crutches and it was like a bad comedy putting a crutch aside without dropping it to get in my bag and get the camera out and take a shot. I think there's one of a "do not put your bike here" type sign in the brownstone-y type part of town I was in, the Gloucester Street Station of the Tube, and me at Platform 9 3/4. The hostel I stayed in, the first night I got there, it was about 4AM when I wandered in and when I got up to my room there were like, six bunk beds and the only bed open was on the top of one, and everyone else is asleep and I couldn't even switch the light on while I hauled myself up the ladder with the bum knee. In hindsight it's insanely funny.

Somehow international travel is much funnier than local travel. I can't think of anything particularly funny about this last trip to Florida, back in May. But I think of Italy and there's the night where we were so punch drunk happy to be heading home from Pisa that we danced in the train. Or the demonic killer cherubs painted on the wall of the hotel room in Pompeii. Or my bum knee and climbing up a bunk bed at 4AM. Or this really nice older lady I met on the Tube while I was heading to Kings Cross and she asked me what else I was going to be seeing in England and I said I wanted to go to Wales and see Cardiff and she got so angry with me she started yelling in the train and I thought she was going to punch me. (Wales is like the boonies to people in London) And she wanted to know if London wasn't good enough for me? Couldn't I just go see Oxford instead- Or was I too good for Oxford?!

Heh. Travel. It's awesome.

Why do people listen to these guys?

Howard Stern on the Columbine Shooting:

"There were some really good-looking girls running out with their hands over their heads. Did those kids try to have sex with any of the good-looking girls? They didn't even do that? At least if you're going to kill yourself and kill all the kids, why wouldn't you have some sex? If I was going to kill some people, I'd take them out with sex."

By 'kids' he's refering to the shooters. He's wanting to know why they didn't rape their classmates while they were at it.


Rush Limbaugh on Feminism:

“Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”

Yeah, if by mainstream he means the right to vote, which is where Feminism started, and went on to equal rights like getting paid the same and not having to hand the money over to your husband or father and hope he'd give you some of it. And when he says the quote on film everyone laughs and then he starts mooing and calling women cows.

Good Knitting Lunch

Knitting outside on lunch break:

Pros: The weather is nice, there's squirrels, male classmates tanning outside shirtless...

Cons: Bees are wayyy, wayyy too interested in knitting in a i-must-get-a-much-closer-look way.

What Bentochan has been doing the last week

-Realized she bought the wrong amount of yarn for a project.
-Went to the Jewish History Museum for class and got lost in the Holocaust section.
-Got really lost in Atlanta.
-Made plans for Coraline in 3D!
-Learned about the Vikings invading England.
-Painted my room and got new bookshelves (that are, apparently, not for books).
-Read more of Circuit Rider's Wife.
-Wondered what happened to Anna Short.

Yes. Bookshelves aren't really for books. They're for photographs.

My mistake.

There's a book sale tomorrow at one of the Atlanta Libraries. Woot!

Books, books, and text books.

Crystal Soldier continues to be one of the best reads I've had in years. It's one of those books you want to hit people with because they're not reading it.

Circuit Rider's Wife has been assigned for Documentation and Interpretation of a Historic Site class (we're going to be working at the Corra Harris house...doing something...) and it's a better read than you expect. Sort of weird, and raw, and her attitude towards the people around her is eye opening, especially for the late nineteen hundreds. This and the book we had three semesters ago of Diary and Letter excerpts are nothing but primary sources- one of my favorite things about being a History Major.

And then there's the textbook that came in the mail today that wound up being topical to the news. Mom says there's some big to-do about having Southern Belle dress up people at the inauguration since it could be seen as racist, but it's the only thing besides people dressed up as cans of Coke that could stereotypically represent the South in my mind. It's Slavery and Public History. I've got another one coming about the fiasco at the Smithsonian when they showed the Enola Gay; History Wars.

Prize winner for weirdest book discovered this week is Bones: Burried Deep. It's for a tv show based on a series of books by Kathy Reichs about a forensic anthropologist named Temperence Brennan. In the show Temperence writes books about Kathy. And now you can get a book written by a guy, based on the tv show, since the books are a bit different from the show. It's so chicken-or-the-egg I was baffled to see it.

Lest We Forget Part Three

This morning I went to the International Studies Office.

Where I was told the problem was I hadn't paid for my study abroad yet.

*sigh*

Pulled out online receipts, printed things, had a chat about how ineffectivly designed the whole payment system is, and after visiting two offices had my hold removed. At which point the lady advised me to go "check it out" online to make sure it had actually worked, so I sat in the hallway (that's how frustrated I get about these things. School starts in two days, I have no classes, and I'm not going to go two buildings over to a lounge where I'll find out I have to come back.) and pulled up the KSU site.

Most of the classes are still showing up red for full, but since I'm looking for upper level history classes it wasn't impossible to get a complete schedule. And since the England to 1688 was absolutly way too full I went to the History Department and got Professor Shealy to write me in anyway. So now the class is at least eight people more full than it should be. Dropped Italian, picked up the paperwork for the Public History Certificate, and now I'm feeling like it all went way too smoothly for this to have been a success.

Treachery is suspected in the Finantial Aid office. It's just lying in wait. I know it.

Lest We Forget Part Two

Having gone up to Campus, receipt in hand for the bill paid, I was met with a blank, dull stare of a Bursar's Office employee.

"What is your problem?" She asks in a mostly pleasant, if bored tone.

I paid this weeks ago and now I can't register for classes and this is the receipt.

"Oh. Ok. What's your student number?"

Blah blah blah.

She types stuff, bobbles her head around a bit, types more stuff. "Ohhh. Yeah. Ok. I removed it. If you still have trouble, which I think this is all clear, you'll have to go see the International Studies Office."

So, I'll be hitting the International Studies Office tomorrow, since I still can't register for classes. (England to 1688 is seven students past full, and I'm going to get a write-in to that class from the Prof, so at least there's hope)

Lest We Forget

I have had a long and annoying enmity towards the Bursar's Office, Financial Aid Office, and Admissions Office of Kennesaw State University. At *least* once a semester I nearly get thrown out of school because the FA office has lost something or not filed something- It's gotten to the point I go up there at least every two weeks throughout a semester to make sure things are running smoothly (and regardless of how many "things are great" reports I get something still goes wrong). And to fix any sort of problem it requires trekking back and forth from Financial Aid to the Bursar's to Admissions, back and forth across the Green at least three times, since each office will tell you the problem is with another office.

This time the thing that went wrong was my Study Abroad. The school credited all my student loan money to the school debit card we're all assigned, and the school debit card (I later learned) has a spending limit on it. Lower than the tuition.

So, while I was over in Italy I tried to pay off my Study Abroad, oh, six or seven times. Each time the transaction would sort of go through, you'd get an online receipt for the purchase but two weeks later it would come back saying they couldn't complete the transaction and could I try again. Which for a while gave me the heebee jeebies that they'd send me home while I was in the middle of Pompeii.

I get home, try to pay again (at the time I thought perhaps the spending limit was because I was in another country) but no luck and another two weeks go by before I know it didn't work. So I head to the Bursar's Office, nest of surliness though it is, with a bill KSU sent me in my hand and explain I have been trying to pay them for months. I get a sort of blank stare and...

"Well, you can pay it in check or cash right now. Do you have the cash now?"

Right. Guess how much is left of the Study Abroad? No. I do not carry around that much money. I don't think anyone does.

She tells me I can use the school ATM right behind me, so I lose my place in line to go check the machine out, and guess what? It's broken. Or off. I tell her so and she's like *shrug* and goes back to whatever she's doing.

So, I head to my bank, find out what the transaction limit is (finally), see if the bank can circumvent it, find out they can't, start a campaign against all the ATMs in the area for two weeks to pull all the cash I need. Mom deposits all of it, then writes a check, and I go back to the Bursar's Office with both.

They take them, I get a receipt. Looks like it's all well and done, now doesn't it?

Wrong!

Since I didn't pay the money back in... September or so, I couldn't register for classes during early registration which was in November. The next registration (btw, classes start this Thursday) starts today. Monday. 10AM.

I log on to check my registration time and hey, guess what, there's a hold on my account because...

I haven't paid for my study abroad.

And I have the receipt in hand. To make matters even more... Whatever adjective you want to use to describe this... The same site I'm on, if I go to the part that itemizes my tuition semester by semester it shows the money I paid as having arrived. With the totals of cash and check and all that. And besides the note on there claiming I haven't paid yet, there's a notice of a fee.

Funny. There wasn't a fee when I went in there and paid the thing in the middle of December. There wasn't a fee on any of the bills they've sent me. There wasn't a fee when I was in Italy trying to pay the thing five months ago.

So, I've got to head up there, bills and photocopies of receipts in hand, will probably be met by employees that are more jaded than third shift waitresses in the bad part of town, do some yelling and paper waving, and hopefully I'll be able to register for classes if this all gets cleared up today. And since this is late registration I'll be happy if I can get into Underwater Basketweaving 1101 and whatever 4000+ level History classes I can get Professor Shealy to write me into.

All Systems Are Go

Despite the drama at school with my student loans, I'm leaving on time. Which is Thursday around dinner time. ^_^

Now that all the ducks are in a line again, I feel all jittery about going and keep sneaking furtive glances at my not packed suitcase. We've got most of the clothes laid out, and we had to weigh my text books the other day... Apparently I only get about 50lbs of luggage and my text books amount to ten of it, which is kinda scary. Clothes never seem to weigh anything until they're wet coming out of the washer or you're packing a suitcase. Then everything seems to weigh too much.

I can't seem to get over that Friday morning I'll be in Frankfurt. Or I'll wake up there, I guess. Fall asleep in Atlanta, wake up at a German airport. We've got just long enough of a stopover for me to get my passport stamped and buy some cheap souvenirs. (hehe. i have a passport! like jason borne!) My Professor warned us we might not get our passports stamped in Italy, since we'll have entered the European Union in Germany, but if you ask you can get it stamped anyway. Allison got me a swank looking passport cover. It's leather and has a sixteenth century map of the world on it- America is correct as far as Florida and the coastline goes, but then blobs out into the unknown on the western shore. There's even cherubs and stuff in the margins, and I'm betting there's at least one sea serpent.

There's a what in the fridge?

Off the back of my Kroger Brand Coffee. In the spirit of the OMG Cholesterol pic. First, I didn't know there was a "wet" section in the fridge/freezer. Secondly, what do you keep in there?

I bought a new French cuff shirt yesterday, nice cream colored thing with a woven-in sort of pinstripe thing that makes little boxes in the fabric. It made me wish there was a Taxonomy of Men's Shirts site. It's got a strange collar/cuff variation that I couldn't spot on Wikipedia- there's a corner taken out of the cuffs when they're folded over and cuff linked in place. Same thing with the collar- instead of coming to a proper triangle point they sort of swoop back like someone took the corner off them too. I wore the shirt with my keyhole cuff links. ^_^

Oh right. Reason I needed a new shirt was that I was really nervous about Fiction Writing class. We were having our first workshop and Aubrey and I did our stories first, and sent them in over the weekend for people to write critiques about. Faced with fifteen random people who'd read something I'd written in three days (it was assigned late Tuesday night, due Friday, had to do research for it...) I was wanting to climb out a window rather than hear how much they hated it. Anxiety shopping is bad, but... Anyway, turns out no one hated it. A lot of people liked it, a lot of people never read fantasy of any sort and were a little confused by the whole thing, a lot of people thought a sort of minor character was a lot more important than she was. There were a few "explain this more" bits, and someone didn't know the word "warren" (did i miss something and it went out of usage?). The teacher was very impressed I did twelve pages in the amount of time I was given, but told me he thought the story was longer than I'd written it; it was, I just had three days and realized I couldn't hack out the 25-35 pages I thought it was, so I wrapped it up where I could. He liked that answer. (another out of usage moment- apparently "jimmy olsen" is a very dated reference- i forgot Superman was canceled in the 1950s.....?). Apparently I need to tell people the story takes place in England because the hints of "sweets", "petrol stations", "football" (combined with) "Manchester" (in the same sentence), "Blackpool", about five hundred mentions of "toffee", and the curse word "shite" weren't enough clues. I did use the word "gibbous" to describe some moons. It was very awesome to do that; I hope Howard could hear me. The best compliment of the night was a lot of people wanted to see more of the story and know where the character was going. The other best compliment of the night was the teacher telling us some quote about how some people have novels inside them and some have short stories; he then told me I have the breadth of novels in me.

Um. Oh. Right. My friend Allison started a webcomic. It's pretty. There's only about three pages right now, but they're really pretty. Maybe you should go look at them? Forewarning, she's got a splash page up right now with a mermaid on it; you can guess why that's not worksafe. Seafoam.