On Baby Chicks.

So, today marks the last day I got to see my baby chick.

Perhaps I should back up and explain. I am in AP Biology. After the AP exam -- which was a couple of weeks ago -- my teacher bought a bunch of newly hatched chicks as a last, fun project for the year. (She does this every year, though only for the AP Bio students.)

Mine was (is) a little Rhode Island Red chick. She slept on my hand, mostly, and freaked out when I picked her up, and was rather antisocial. We had to do an experiment in which we took away the heat lamp from a group of 5 or 6 chicks to observe their behavior, and they were supposed to huddle together; but my chick turned her back on the others and just fluffed out her feathers.

I named her Imogen. "Imogen" is such a... a chic name, an unusual name, one which conjures up a calm, collected hipster. And if my chick could wear glasses and lounge about at some Paris cafe, listening to Imogen Heap (the music band) on an mp3 player, I think she would.

She had (has) soft downy feathers of a gentle red color, except for the tiniest splotch of black at the back of her head, like some artist had to put a finishing touch on this little piece of work. She never attempted to fly, though her wing feathers always looked long and a spotty brown-and-white and ready to feel the wind between them.

We painted their toenails different colors, to tell which one was our own. Since there are at least a handful of other Rhode Island Red chicks, I painted the middle toenail of Imogen's feet a bright pink. Just the middle toenail, or claw, whatever the proper terminology is, on both feet. Not that this always helped, as -- fun fact! Baby chicks are attracted to color, and will peck off any nail polish you might paint onto their nails.

Imogen also had the tendency, as I said, to freak out when I picked her up. There are still thin scratch marks across the backs of my hands, because she apparently felt much safer perched on the thin ledge of my wrist and the back of my hand, rather than safely cupped in my palms. Still, she was a sweet little darling. When I had her safely to the tabletop, she never left my hand, but cuddled into my palms and trembled just a bit, falling asleep and jerking awake at random.

And of course, I wanted to keep her. But I live in a suburban home, one filled with cats at that, and it wasn't really an option. My teacher assures us they will go to farms where they will be layer hens; they are not going to get slaughtered or mistreated. But I still feel kind of bad, because the entire point of the project was to get the baby chick to imprint with you, and then once you get imprinted they get sent away from their human "mother." I can't help picturing little Imogen at some farm, waiting for me to come by so she can perch in my palms and fall asleep in peace, even when she's big and unable to fit in my hands.

Like the relationship with my cats, I just see -- I don't know. A little spark of something, in their eyes, on their face. I like to think every animal is just as capable of thinking as I am, and judges me on my behavior as much as I on theirs. My baby chick is one of these intelligent animals. I think she does love me, in her little chickie way, and that she would want me around for a long time, just to sit in my lap and rest her little beak on the edge of my thumb while she drifts off. And it wrenches my heart to think she'll grow puzzled at my absence, and then maybe she'll get anxious, and then -- eventually -- forget all about me. As strange as she is, she deserves something good for her, even if it's a clumsy teenage girl just stroking her head and cooing at her in that quiet voice reserved especially for baby animals.

I am not entirely sure why I decided to share this post with you, about my somewhat pathetic empathy for a baby chicken, of all things, but I suppose I wanted to offer up a little lesson. Because, you know, teenagers learn some worthwhile morals that others can benefit from, too.

In the end, I think it's not just baby chicks who imprint on you. People imprint on others, too, and I guess sometimes you imprint right back.

Oh, What a Terrible Week. (On Cats and Life)

This has been a sorry week. It's not just paying $267 in AP fees (for three AP exams). Money problems make me anxious, but I could have gotten over that. It wasn't missing two days of school and feeling guilty for all of that missed time and makeup work.

I suppose I'll have to tell you the actual reason, though I hate to say it: someone ran over my cat.

Now, it sounds like something you grieve over for a few hours, maybe a couple of days. But I love my cats. I love my cats like I love my books. And someone killed him, stole a life. And didn't even care.

It was Wednesday evening. My little brother and his friends are playing outside, riding their bikes along the road -- they're elementary and early middle schoolers, just having a good time. I let my cat, Tenzing, stay outside, because it was nice outside -- warm, blue skies. And a little black car comes speeding along, running over my precious Tenzing, and doesn't even stop to see whether he just drove over a cat or a kid.

What sort of maggot-hearted monster doesn't even say sorry? Doesn't step forward when we drive around looking for him, or when we put flyers up to tell whoever-it-was that he murdered our beloved pet?

(I don't know for sure that this person is a he. I just have to refer to whoever-it-was as something other than it, and saying he puts more of a face to him.)

If there was any faith in humanity left in my heart, it is most certainly gone now. My cat was a strong, healthy, friendly Siamese whom we all loved, even our next door neighbors. If any of my several cats were to die, I had expected it to be Angel, the same age as Tenzing, but who has three teeth and an upper respiratory problem. Or perhaps Zazu, who is older than Tenzing, at somewhere around thirteen years old.

But not Tenzing. Tenzing didn't die from sickness or old age. I can't even really see it as an accident, because if you're in an accident, you stop to express your apologies. This was a tragedy. This was the dark taking of a life without seeming remorse. And perhaps that's spinning it a bit far-fetched, but my cat didn't make it. And it could easily have been my brother. This is cat-slaughter.

I don't understand how this could play out like it has. How no one would come forward and say sorry, sorry they ran over someone near and dear to our hearts. When is a cat's life not worth as much as a human's? Would they have come forward if they accidentally ran over one of those kids playing in the road? I suspect not. I suppose it doesn't pay to have faith in humanity; only faith in your friends, and yourself. But humanity has an evilness at its core, if you could do this to a stranger and not care.

The world, my friends, is looking rather black. The death of my cat may seem like something of a relief, that it wasn't my brother, but it is still a steep price. My cat never hurt anyone. And he's dead. He isn't going to come back. He isn't going to pull some fiction-stunt, where he really wasn't dead and will come back in the end, triumphant; he will stay dead, and buried, and only remembered. He still had a few good years in him; he was strong, for a twelve-year-old cat.

And I still have to trudge through school days, my face blank, pretending like all of this hasn't happened, because there isn't really any way to explain why the death of a pet can rock your entire world off its hinges. There isn't time to let you adjust to your new world. There is only schoolwork, and the teachers' annoyance when I really can't turn my homework in on time.

I hope you have a blessed week yourselves, people. I really do hope you have had a better week.

RIP, blessed Tenzing.

[Insert Interesting Title Here]

It's been an entire two weeks since I last posted. I do apologize for my impromptu hiatus. I would blame my midterm exams, and the review for them, but really it's that I'm too tired from all the review and exam-ing to post anything.

Yesterday was the last day of my exams. I only had one -- in photography. Which certainly doesn't sound terrible, but all of my pictures are awful, I had the most awful migraine, I barely got any sleep the night before. So I considered not posting anytime this week or weekend. Or even getting out of bed. But I'm a tough girl, I like to think; I took a couple painkillers and here I am.

Instead of a nice, relevant post centered on one topic, this post is sort of a hash-mash of what I've been doing these last couple of days. Starting with...

My knitting, my book, and my cup of tea.

1. Knitting. This is one of the weirdest inventions of humankind, in my opinion. It's numbing; exhausting; difficult. But in the end, even the small amount I've managed in the past few days makes me absurdly pleased. Proud, even. It's just loops of yarn and a couple of aluminum needles -- but it looks complicated and amazing, and I made something with my hands. Created something, when I'm normally a passive reader and consumer.
    
2. Reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Anyone who looks through my archives will know that I'm generally not one for literary, popular, or classics -- but The Bell Jar is something different. Depressing, honest, with this sort of bruised, timid, recoiling-from-life sort of mood. Painfully close to heart. And I can't help but connect to it, like seeing a mirror that reflects a sadder, heavy-spirited version of myself.
3. Research. I went to the library and checked out 18 books -- only nine of which were for-fun fiction reading. I'm pretty proud of myself. I don't typically wander into the nonfiction section. But I braved it out this time, trying not to think that the people around me are judging my lack of knowledge in all those numbers on the spines of the books. Of course, these books range from beekeeping to medicinal herbs to forensic sciences and clay techniques and jewels.*
4. Orphan Black. Seriously. It's a Canadian series on BBC (I think). About this woman who sees a woman identical to her step in front of a train -- and so she decides to take this woman's identity. It's a bit graphic in places, but it's worth a watch. (My mother watches it, too. We have this long geek-fest about stuff like Orphan Black, BBC's Sherlock, and Once Upon a Time, which is another of my favorite shows.) My mother needs to stop recommending shows to me.

Yea, I'm not a complicated, dramatic person. But I love my little things.

So, have a blessed weekend. Read some books. Learn knitting. Watch a little TV. It's the holidays, after all. 

Did I mention it was the holidays?

Mary Shelley is helping us with our wrapping paper.

*Not forensic sciences and clay techniques and jewels in one book, obviously -- I mean I got three separate books on those three separate topics. But how awesome would it be to have a book that combined all three of those? It would be a fiction masterpiece, assuming it's even decently well-written.

Life, School, and Internet.

It's been a week. Already. Wow.

It's not that I'm not interested in keeping up with this blog. It's just... I have very little access to a computer. I'm sharing an old desktop computer with my little brother and his friends, my older brother, and one of my little sisters.

And, of course, Nanowrimo has ended. I officially managed to get to 50,000 words, despite a laptop crash, starting three free online classes -- and my regular school day, with its 3 AP (college level) classes, and a photography elective, and an honors Spanish 4 class -- AND my normal diet of internet articles on writing craft. I'm very proud, and very antsy as I try to find something other than editing that draft to do.

So, I've really thrown myself into my free online classes. I'm taking three of them, across two websites -- Coursera and Open2Study. Let me outline the pros and cons:

• Coursera is a website that offers free college level classes. Pro: It goes really in depth -- the one class I have on here requires watching 15-20 minute long videos, has an archive (this is a class on historical fiction; it offers primary sources), and requires discussion in the forums, or at least one question asked of the guest authors he talks to. I have extensive notes on historical fiction now, almost more than I wanted to know. Con: it requires some work, and it's a bit of a struggle on a busy schedule.
• Open2Study is a bit less strenuous. Pro: less work, and no requirement for discussion in the forums. Though, obviously, it's encouraged. Con: less work, and the classes can be kind of easy. I'm taking two classes on there, one on anthropology and one on sociology, and both have easy, 5-7 minute long videos with a one-question quiz after each.

Yes, I am stressed out. It is a self-imposed stress. There are three notebooks beside me, a pen, and the flash drive I use for taking notes in Word has gone missing. I prefer the Open2Study, over the school-week, but over the weekend I can really get back to work on this stuff.

Have a blessed weekend!

Not Impressed.

Hi, guys. My laptop crashed. Not at all impressed.

What I lost by my laptop breaking:

• The first 5,000 words or so of my nanowrimo project.
• The first 10,000 words of my Spike novel (as I dub it. I keep switching between calling it that Spike novel and WR.)
• My entire bookmarks tab on Google Chrome. I use the bookmarks tab as a sort of placeholder for all the articles and blog posts I haven't gotten around to reading. And for the articles I find helpful, such as the link to the Amazon collection of coloring books from the lovely, honest blog, A Little Dose of Keelium. 
• Assorted poems, Microsoft word docs, and wordpad notes on everything from random names and plot devices to a dictionary of weird words (which I have since moved to a spiral notebook, which is in no danger of crashing and deleting itself.)

As you can probably tell, I am a bit upset. So, here is the song I've been listening to over and over. (If you're wondering how I'm writing this, the sad fact is I've borrowed my Mom's laptop. Which is a 2013 laptop and looks TOTALLY DIFFERENT from my laptop made in 2010.)

Have a blessed Wednesday. And, here's hoping your laptop doesn't throw a fit and delete all of your stuff, along with preventing you from even turning it on! 

Guess What? I'm Not Dead.

Sorry I haven't posted for, like, a week. Yay, look at this. I'm not dead.

Normally, I wouldn't post such an obvious sentence, but I stayed after school today for an early celebration of El Dia de Los Muertos. (I'm in the National Spanish Honor Society, by the way. I didn't just randomly decide to celebrate the dead with a group of friends.) Some quick facts:

• This is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. (We had ours early because the end of our 9 weeks is then, and everybody but the teachers are just relaxing. The 9 weeks is about half the semester, if you don't know.)
• Yes, it literally stands for "The Day of the Dead." It's celebrated in Mexico.
• What do they do? They put on skeleton masks, they buy these orange-y marigold-type flowers, they eat candy skulls (calaveras) and coffins. They leave food and flowers for their dead loved ones and celebrate their good memories of the person.
• It's basically that. It's a celebration of the lives of the people who've passed on, and a sort of laugh in the face of death sort of thing.

Yea, so we painted glass jars and listened to music and ate popcorn and Pringles. It was pretty fun. Mine sucked, which is why I'm not taking pictures of it.

So, yea. You now know I do stuff in my spare time, extracurricular stuff so my college application won't read, "And... I do nothing but compose the occasional blog post and read books." That would look sort of pathetic, doing nothing but reading. Ahem. (Not like I did exactly that since pretty much sophomore year.)

Anyways, I've been thinking of future-y stuff ever since Saturday, when I attended an Open House at a local college. Now my guts are twisting as I think of traveling abroad before I go to college, or at least traveling up and down the East Coast, and think of what college to attend assuming they all accept me, and think of what sort of career I'll have besides writing. Big picture stuff I generally avoid, because it makes me anxious.

And will I travel to Mexico one day, and celebrate the Day of the Dead? Maybe one day. Maybe the day I stop getting over my fear of leaving my little county.

Have a blessed Wednesday.

Declaration of Personality

I didn't mention it Monday, in midst of my book review, but I am still quite happy from last weekend.

Why? Our library was having a book sale. You know, where they attempt to get rid of some of those discards, the obscure books, the ones no one wants to read. Imagine a room filled with books, books you've never read: hardcovers, paperbacks, nonfiction, fiction, YA, adult, cookbooks and magazines and classics, all laid out like desserts, on those rickety tables used by schools, libraries, and community events.

(Oh, yea. And did I mention the free Bibles outside the door, in a crate? My mother already owns like, 70 Bibles. And now she owns five more.)

My mother and I went there with $21. We bought around 60 books. THAT IS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. One normal YA book costs between $7-10. The library was selling 10 YA discards for $1. The adult discards were 5 for $1. It took three boxes to carry them all home.

So, here's a list of some of the books we bought:

• The Qur'an -- the holy book of Islam. Not one of the discards -- my mother dug it out of one of the piles and bought it, because she's studying for a Master's degree in Religion. She needs it to connect between Islam and Christianity.*
• Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo -- a book about a boy who is "endowed" with the ability to see photographs moving. It used to be one of my favorite series as a kid, but my copy had a few pages missing, so I bought this one.
• Culture and Value: A Study of the Humanities -- a culture-history textbook, complete with highlighted passages. For those who don't read this blog often, I LOVE history, especially the sort of cultural things they don't teach you in high school level classes.
• Arabian Nights/Aesop's Fables -- this was a 2-in-1 book of both. You probably can't tell, since I don't believe in using exclamation points! and ALL CAPS!! to show emotion, but I am really geeked out about this.
• Savvy by Ingrid Law -- a book about a girl who can hear your thoughts through any ink on your skin. I remember reading it a couple years ago. Pretty cool.
• *Insert 30 more books, most of them fantasy and/or about other cultures*

As I said, pretty amazing weekend. That Saturday book sale goes under my list of "Best Days Ever." Why am I telling you this? What is the point of this post -- is it to give me a sense of power, as I condescendingly smile at your meager attempts to save a lot of money for fewer books? Is it to give some subliminal message about how older books are better than new books? Am I rubbing my hands together while plotting to build my own library, where all of those conservatives who only read white men will be forced to read more diversely with my diverse selection of diversity?**

No. Well, maybe the last one. But that can wait a few decades, when I'm rich and famous and those conservatives are kissing my proverbial boots. (Ha. Ha. I can dream, can't I?) No, this post is simply because I think my blog is suffering from impersonal-itis.

Impersonal-itis: (n.) When a blog, facebook, twitter, or other personal platform becomes cluttered with posts that are not diary-style confession time on opinions of various topics. Or, you know, at least not as personal as the author would like.
Ex.: My blog's last two posts are book reviews. Which are semi-personal, but in a way, they're my way of skirting around the bushes. They're recommending you books, based on my subjective-yet-hopefully-qualified-as-valid assertions about technical aspects like characterization and plot.

So, I want to begin posting more events from my real life, chronicling the (not-so) exciting life of a suburbs girl in the Southeast United States. And perhaps write a few more short spiffs, which I haven't done in awhile.

It's seems odd, posting this on a Wednesday, this Declaration of Personality, to declare and so promise to uphold my duty as a blogger to blog about the life that literally means everything to me. (More on nature vs. nurture some other time.) I feel like this should be posted on a first day of a month, or the last day, or on some holiday or other some other such day that has some importance to it. A plain old Wednesday, middle-of-the-week day, doesn't seem to have any power behind it, but I think I want to stop giving so much importance to the day and more on actually holding to my promise.

So, here's a start: a good Saturday and three boxes of books.

Have a blessed day.


 *I had to edit one of my mother's papers once, because she's so exhausted from six kids and taking online courses that she can barely maintain grammar. And my mother is an over-achiever, so she had me fine-comb it for any tiny errors. We are officially never going over differences between Christianity and Islam on this blog. I've never read the Qur'an, or even really comprehensively read the Bible, so I am not going to write a post that looks quite like my mother's paper pointing out weaknesses in Islam and strengths in Christianity.

**These two links lead to vastly different places: the first leads to Gilmore's words, and the second to a challenge to his words. I think the average, mild reader will prefer the latter. 

So, Life.

Some of the things that have happened in my life this week --

• I finished reading The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango. I don't want to put a review of it up, though. It's a sort-of memoir, about the indigenous Ecuadorian (and part-author of this tale) Virginia Farinango's childhood as an indentured servant to mestizos, the white people. A very, very interesting read, which is mainly fact with some imaginings and details on Resau's part. I don't want to review it because I feel uncomfortable reviewing something near nonfiction, because... well, it's real. fiction is easier to judge, if you will.
• My little sister Nicole, who has down syndrome, walked into some practically-stranger's backyard and started jumping on their trampoline. They weren't home, thankfully, but I've never met these people. I'm pretty sure they're like, the son of one of my neighbors. And it took almost fifteen nerve-wracking minutes to both find and convince Nicole to come back to our house.
• I found a baby snake in my house, brown scales, 8-9 inches long. Not something I see every day. Actually, I've only seen snakes in parks and the biology-lab-place in the Science Museum. And this one was in my house -- wriggling about on our floor -- and... and... *shudders* Snake.  
• Okay, I wasn't that freaked out about it. I found a sort of curiosity in my heart that let me peer at the snake and want to observe how it startled when I stomped my feet. Mom just wanted to trap it in something and put it outside, and then to check for any family members it might be hiding.

So, that's my Friday. How about you? Know what sort of snakes are indigenous to Virginia? Read the sort-of memoir about a girl named Virginia? Have you had strange encounters with animals?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend! 

Photography, Colds, and Writing

Thank goodness it's Friday. Truly.

Do you know that annoying person who doesn't cover their mouth when they cough? And not just once or twice, accidentally; people who cough into the air of their room, go upstairs and cough in your living room, and in your kitchen, all over your food...

Yea, I'm talking about a member of my family. My youngest brother -- who just started 6th grade -- never covers his mouth when he coughs, and now the rest of the family has it. Mostly me at this point -- he's had it several days, then my mom and sister fell sick, and my dad, and now me, the girl whose time spent happily locked up in her room serves a useful purpose.

Except now I've been sneezing and my nose dripping; I've been covertly wiping liquid snot-stuff over the sleeves of my jacket all school day. (Yes, and I am one of those people who goes to school even when she's sick, and so gets everyone else sick. We all have our flaws.) My throat
feels like sand has gritted the inside of that tube that leads from your mouth to your lungs. My eyes are sore and sticky, and I haven't slept or showered since Wednesday. Or Tuesday. But I've finally caught up on most of the school stuff I needed doing.

Thankfully, in spite of the Cold from Dante's Inferno,* I have not had a terrible time. I made my first primitive photograph in photography class. Here's the process:

• First, you have to expose a sheet of photo (light sensitive) paper to white light in the dark room. This means positioning it under a machine that looks sort of like a microscope, except it shines down light on the thing you're doing instead of observing it closely. And it means adjusting that machine to the right setting of intensity, making sure the light is focused, making sure the frame of light is big enough to cover the entire sheet of photo paper...
• Exposing takes about five seconds. You position the photo paper beneath the enlarger (so the microscope-like machine is called), position the object whose image you want to make on top of it, and then you turn it on and white light floods the little area of paper. 
• After that, you dip it in a chemical called Dektol (developer), a soapy-like, basic liquid. Basically, it makes the white photo paper turn black, except for the white shape of your object. You keep it there a minute to a minute and a half. 
• The second chemical you dip it in is called Stop Bath. It's a yellow color, because when you transfer the paper from Tray A to Tray B, some Dektol inevitably ends up in the tray of Stop Bath. Stop Bath actually is an acid, so it neutralizes the Dektol. Eventually, as the effectiveness of the Stop Bath wears down, it turns a purple-y color, thereby alerting you to change the liquid. You keep it in this tray for 30 seconds. 
• The THIRD chemical is a smelly (vinegar-like) liquid called fixer. It makes the image permanent. You dip it in there for 3-4 minutes. 
• Finally, you get to rinse the residual chemicals off the paper by putting it in this large, round sink for ten minutes. The water spins around, so it can wash it properly. 
• Then you squeegee it. You lay the paper on a piece of plexiglass, and use this rubber thing to scrape the excess water off both sides of the paper.
• Next, there's what's called a print dryer. It's a machine in which you lay the paper on its flat surface, pull a stretch of worn, warm canvas over it, and lock it into place. You rub the canvas for a minute, unlock the canvas's metal-rimmed edge from the side of the machine, and turn your photograph over to the back side. Then you lock it into place and rub the canvas for another minute.



Found here, via Wiki/CC. This is what it's supposed to look like!

• And voila! Your photograph is ready. As long as you didn't mess up on any stage of the process. 

So, yes, that's the entire process I went through, to end up with a black paper, no image. Apparently, I didn't expose the paper correctly, though my teacher assured me I did the chemical part correctly.

How was that for a story? Well, not really a story. More of an anecdote of how to make it through a class period when you barely know what you're doing. And, speaking of stories, the third draft of my story is turning out suck-ish, thank you for asking. I'm so sick and busy that when I do get a free moment to work on it, I find that I want to sleep instead of write, and nothing comes out onto the paper. (Metaphorically speaking, of course. I type my stories out on my laptop.)

But anyways, for those of you who didn't know, this is how you make a photograph without a camera! It's an interesting experience. Hopefully, I'll make an image next class. And also hopefully, by next class my nose won't be dripping into the water wash.

Hope you have a blessed Friday and weekend! Get better at the things you love, get over sicknesses, and get a proper amount of sleep!

*You know by Dante's Inferno I mean the h-word, right? The devil's homeplace? I just have a ton of trouble including even the mildest of inappropriate words, in both speech and in writing.

Japan

It's late, and Friday. End of the first week of school and all. Reading a good book nd happily not attending the first football game at my high school.

(On a slightly irrelevant note, anybody care to tell me what people see in football? It's all anyone can ever talk about, teachers and students alike. Why can't we all get so hyped up about Divergent or Harry Potter? You know, have shout outs about it over the intercom during morning announcements and stuff.)

But that's not what I mean to post. Today, I simply mean to post a few notes I wrote about Ancient Japan while watching a documentary.

• Any deviation on a mirror will make the light bounce off it in a different angle; "magic mirror" is a world standard, created by (16th c. Japan). You have the white sunlight that reflects off it, and if it is completely white, it is free of deviations. In 16th c., a copper plate was made and fashioned to the backside of it, seemingly decorative, but was used to manipulate the deviation on the mirror's surface to reflect an image of, say Christ when you use the white-light trick. During the persecution*, a false back concealed a picture of Christ, to let secret Christians know they were Christian, too -- the mirror surface is scraped and polished, creating the deviations, and then coated with nickel to make it look like an ordinary mirror. But it will reflect the backside.
• Clocks --  They were searching for the underlying rule of nature. When an outsider (Westerner) brought a clock to Japan as a gift in the 17th c., they took it apart to see how it worked. Based on the clock, they began all sorts of "magical" clockwork, including clockwork robots. (A tea-carrying robot for the tea ceremony.)
• It takes real skill to unravel silk worm material. It's pulled and twisted into thread, with spit making it smooth. But the traditional silk is getting more precious today.
• Architecture --Built around a central support tree, with lots of horizontal beams. Pagodas -- earthquake resistance, the central tree is not connected to the walls; the walls sway, but do not fall, because the tree absorbs the movements. 
• Samurai sword is tested for balance and flexibility. Each sword maker has their own formula. Carbon is on outside of the steel during the forging stage, until folding and heat force it inside the blade, giving it its flexibility. 
• "Floor that sings like a nightingale" -- to prevent sneak attacks on the shogun, the floor amplified sound and made it "sing." (This is a building where the shogun, or leader, lived or worked?)

This is literally copy and pasted from my notes in workflowy. (Workflowy is a website where you can organize your thoughts into lists. I highly recommend it for writers, or anyone, really.) For reference, this is from a documentary called What the Ancients Knew: Japan. You can watch it on the history channel occasionally.

How about you? What do you know about The Ancients?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend!

*Yes, there was a time in Japanese history where Christians were persecuted. In fact, all Western stuff was persecuted -- this was centuries ago, during the "spheres of influence" thing in China, and they held onto their Buddhist culture tightly. And effectively, since they are islands who can restrict Western access to their ports.    

Happy 1st of July!

I know, I know. When I read the title of this post, I thought I had written '4th of July', as well. I'm too American. But we can celebrate the beginning of July, too, right? July is a lovely month -- kind of purple-y, and really hot, and June's afternoon thunderstorms start to head off.

Of course, it signals the beginning of our annual drought here in VA, but it's not really so bad as droughts go -- it barely affects me, actually. And anyways, I generally consider July to be the bulk of summers, because half of June is spent in school and August is when you prepare for next school year. So, really, July is my summer vacation.

Anyways...

In case you couldn't tell, I am REALLY excited today, guys. I finished the second draft of my novel, Wretched Roads. (I almost feel comfortable with sharing my title. Almost.) I feel a lot more comfortable with the plot now, but I'm going to leave it be for the entirety of this month. In the meantime, I'll write the first draft of its sequel. (Because I really want this to be a quartet, even though I haven't done so much as edit it myself, let alone something like peer-reading or querying agents. Not yet at least.)

I'm almost too excited to write. But I'm going to calm myself down with some music. Well, "calm" is relative... I'm listening to Blackmore's Night, which is a medieval-y Renaissance music group. ("Under a Violet Moon" sounds perfect for Halloween, but it's pretty freakin' awesome in July, as well.) Celtic Woman and Blackmore's Night and Heather Dale help me get back into that fantasy mood.

I'm reading Sweetgrass Basket by Marlene Carvell -- a verse novel about Native American sisters. Definitely a good read so far. (It's amazing what you find in a library as compared to a bookstore -- this book is from 2005, and I've never really seen it elsewhere, but I picked it randomly off a library shelf and couldn't resist reading. Real lovely novel.)

Now I almost feel like doing my AP Lit summer assignment, but it feels like it's too early in the summer. But I know I should, because it's a lot of work, and a lot of reading, and it probably won't even be nearly so bad as I think. After all, I can choose my own book to answer questions about plot and theme and character and so forth. (I'm thinking Sherlock Holmes or Gulliver's Travels. Or maybe even the Picture of Dorian Gray.)

How about you? How's your summer going? Have a blessed Monday (if such a thing exists)!

The Floating Island by Elizabeth Haydon*

*The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme: The Floating Island by Elizabeth Haydon.
(Long title.)

Long ago, in the Second Age of history, a young Nain explorer by the name of Ven Polypheme traveled much of the known and unknown world, recording his adventures. Recently discovered by archaeologists, a few fragments of his original journals are reproduced in this book. Great care has been taken to reconstruct the parts of the journal that did not survive, so that a whole story can be told...
Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme -- known as Ven -- is the youngest son of a long line of famous shipwrights. He dreams not of building ships, but of sailing them to far-off lands where magic thrives. Ven gets his chance when he is chosen to direct the Inspection of his family's latest ship -- and sets sail on the journey of a lifetime. 
Attacked by fire pirates, lost at sea, and near death, Ven is rescued by a passing ship on its way to the island of Serendair. Thankful to be alive, little does Ven know that the pirate attack -- and his subsequent rescue -- may not have been an accident. Shadowy figures are hunting for the famed Floating Island, the only source of the mystical Water of Life. They think Ven can lead them to this treasure and will stop at nothing to get it -- even murder.
In a narrative that alternates entries from his journals and drawings from his sketchbooks, Ven begins the famous chronicles of his exciting and exotic adventures -- adventures that would later earn him renown as the author if The Book of All Human Knowledge and All the World's Magic.
Hailed by reviewers and embraced by legions of fans, Elizabeth Haydon, bestselling author of the Symphony of Ages series, has created an unforgettable epic fantasy for a younger generation of readers.

~Print copy (library), 351 pages
Published: 2006 by Tom Doherty Associates (Starscape)

Whew, that was a long summary.

Of course I have problems with it -- I have problems with most back cover summaries -- but I shall not point out every last detail. (But I will mention the overabundance of hyphens in that thing. I type that stuff all out by hand into this post, you know.)

(Also, I'll say that for awhile after reading that summary that those books were real, before realizing, oh those books are made up famous, not real actual legendary books.)

Anyways, I liked the book. Since I finished it Saturday, and started reading the next book in the series (The Thief Queen's Daughter), I'm just going to make a list of Likes and Dislikes.

What I liked about this book:
~The characters. Some awesome ones include Ven (of course), his curate-in-training friend Clemency, the captain of the Serelinda Oliver Snodgrass and his wife, and the ever-loyal friend, Char.
~The world. I mean, a world that includes Spice Folk (fairies)! And merrows (mermaids)! And species like the Lirin, storytellers who take a vow of truth so the stories don't get mangled over the years! This world is really well thought out.
~How it's written. It switches back and forth between paragraphs of Ven's journal to longer paragraphs of 3rd POV. Well handled, and really does feel like a story pieced together between fragments of old journal.

What I disliked about this book:
~I don't know why, but it was a bit hard getting through this book. It took me 6 days to read 351 pages -- that's about 50 pages a day, instead of my usual 100. But I don't know what it was that caused this; it could have just been one of those weeks, where nothing was too appealing, even reading. (In fact, I felt kind of off all last week -- not physically sick, but more just emotionally sick. Probably a factor in my lack of obsessive reading.)

Really, I did like this book. It says up there that Haydon is a bestselling author and has legions of fans, but I was ten years old in 2006 and not really on the literary scene at the time. So, I can't really tell if this was a super-popular book at one time or another and I'm really late on the pickup; but it doesn't matter. I found it in the library now (well, a couple weeks ago), and I liked it now.

So, I recommend it now. To anyone who loves fantasy, or really anyone who wants something good to read next (as opposed to some fluffy romance that really isn't all that good when you look at it in retrospect. Ahem. Pardon my dislike of romance.) 4 stars.

    

Follow Friday #45

[ugh. My laptop has a virus, so I'm stuck on the family computer. Bad keyboard, no privacy, and bugs that walk across the computer desk. I have to use a jump drive between my laptop and this computer for my writing, and I can't save anything in my favorites to read later. Like I said -- ugh.]

Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.

Q: School is out! What is your favorite summer reading book?

 I wish school was out for me. I have until June. (Can you tell I'm in a bad mood?)

Anyways, summer reading... I oftentimes save heavier reading material -- series, or literary classics -- for the summer. I especially save books I might be embarrassed caught reading in school for the holidays.

Last summer, I read Lord of the Rings. (The one volume edition, which is literally over 1,000 pages long.) One of my favorites to read over the summer though, every summer in a sort of tradition, is Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer). That series is so awesome, but I don't like taking them to school with me. Don't know why.

I have a whole slew of others, but the keyboard on this computer truly is sucky, and my favorite TV show comes on in about ten minutes. So I'm cutting it a bit short.

How about you? Having a better week than me? Enjoy reading the harder classics when you have vacation time? Or do you like frilly romances while at the beach?

Have a blessed Friday and weekend! 

Hi, Sorry.

I meant to do a book review today. It was going to be a good one, too -- The Scorpio Races by Maggie  Stiefvater. But I haven't gotten around to finishing it. Because I haven't done enough reading and writing and I've done too much staring at my ceiling.

Right now, it's like, 9:30 at night and I still haven't done my homework. I'm shorted out on sleep. There's barely enough sweet tea in the fridge for waking me up tomorrow morning. I didn't finish my book. I'm not having too good a Monday.

But, let's look on the bright side... uhmmm... The world hasn't run out of books! And tomorrow I can watch TV all day if I want to. And... my handwriting is really pretty. (Not my blog post handwriting, or computer writing, obviously -- they're digital fluff. There's pretty much the one font for the internet.)

Anyways, this is a post to tell you that I apologize for not doing what I'm supposed to. Even now, I'm considering just taking a C on my homework. Just telling you.

Have a blessed day today/tomorrow! Here's a picture quote, because I feel this post is too short.

Mood: Aggravated

Here's a list of things that aggravate me:

1. The length of my to-do list. Seriously, I made one and had to cut off at least half of it so it would fit on the page.

2. Swear words/overt slang. I hear them every day at school, and I hate hearing such a disrespect to Language in General. (aka corrupting the English language).

3. How little time I seem to have to watch TV, despite the fact that I don't so much more than go to school, come home, read, and write. I don't do extracurricular activities or hang with friends, and there's still no time.

4. That I also can't manage to remember to do chores. Until the laundry's piled so high, it almost touches the ceiling.

Yea, this is a quick post on random things going on in my brain right now. Lovely, ain't it? Not really.

I'll try to post more next Wednesday. It's been a weird week for me -- on the one hand, I got my learner's permit! On the other, I scared stiff at the thought of driving! (I feel absolutely no yearning for a driver's license; I just realize I can't get to the library on my own without one.)

Also, I have a test tomorrow and Friday that I have to study for. And homework that I should have done over Spring Break. And I have to hope to mercy that I didn't miss anything too important in chemistry class and math class. Yikes.

So, have a blessed Wednesday! Keep calm and carry on, as they say. (Or did; I believe that was a WW2 propaganda message, posted in train stations to keep people from freaking out.)   

Spring Cleaning and Cleaner Words

Technically, it's spring now!

I say "technically" because it snowed Sunday and Monday. We actually had Monday off as a snow day. But now the weather's all clear and sunny and sort-of warm, like a real spring day. Yea, our weather's unpredictable. Wouldn't have it any other way -- keeps life spicy.

(I don't think that's the proper expression. Maybe it's "It's the spice of life." Oh, well.)

Anyways, I've finally cleaned my room! A little. I actually found my copy of Strunk and White, and a notebook of Quotes-I-Like. Really, I just took the dirty clothes out of my room, cleared off my desk, and organized that one row of my "reference" bookshelf. (Hint: it includes a book I had to read for a Psychology assignment, a book on cat body language, and a book on ghosts of the American South. Haha, "reference", like it's actual research and I actually read them cover to cover.)

I'm even using sunlight instead of my regular lights. Instead of a curtain, I just have a blanket over my window, because my old curtains let in too much moonlight/lamplight at night and I couldn't sleep. I've pinned it back and it's awesome. It reminds me of those days when I was a little kid, sharing a room with my little sister, and I griped at her to save power.

Now that I'm sixteen, I don't use sunlight much. I don't know why. I can't get past how good it feels to see and not run up the power bill at the same time. And to have a desk that doesn't look like it's owned by a messy five year old. And to actually be able to see the floor of my room.

It's not a really popular chore, but I recommend cleaning. Not like, every day, but like once a month or whatever, when the stuff piles really high. That feeling of accomplishment has me bouncing like I've drunk too much sweet tea. Like I've drunk too much of my version of sweet tea, which has way too much sugar in it.

What does this have to do with words? I mean, other than the fact that I'm using words to write this blog post and not just posting random pictures to get my point across.

I started my fourth or fifth draft of my novel. (I can't remember which. Counting is not high on my list of skills, alright?) The words are just flowing. I forget the homework piled up, the end of the nine weeks being two days away and my math grade still too low, and the stress of the AP exams being a month or two away.

The words feel... cleaner now. I don't know. I started writing a new draft because the plot still didn't feel right and I can't change it without changing the ending, so here it is. Apparently, there's a big difference between kidnapping and going along willingly-yet-reluctantly (don't ask). Perhaps because it's a 4th-or-5th draft that's changed dramatically, but it really makes me happy how easy it is as-of-now.

There'll be hard spots later on, of course, especially in the true middle-to-end of the story, but I can't help feeling tickled by the reminder of why I write. For these days, when I can just let it flow from head to hand to keyboard and computer. It reminds me that writing my first novel isn't so impossible as that little voice makes it seem, and that perhaps I will be published one day. Perhaps people will love my work one day, and there's purpose to these words that let themselves out of my head.

I feel like I'm just waxing eloquent now. I mean, I mean it -- I am genuinely smiling for the first time in awhile -- I'm just not sure why I decided to share any of this with you.

Well, there you go. A blog post on my feelings and just how messy my room is. Next week I'll try to actually plan something out for you. (Do you notice how often I use the word "actually"? Is it distracting you? Because I just noticed it and it's kinda distracting me.)

Anyways, happy spring! Have a blessed Wednesday (and Thursday and Friday)!

   

Poetry and Other Stuff

So, I'm still reading Narnia -- the reason I didn't post Monday. But I'm back now. =D

I don't have too much to say. I've got links to my pinterest and tumblr and twitter -- I happen to repin or reblog a lot of cats, flowers, random-fandom stuffs, and whatever I think is funny. I can have a weird, nerdy sense of humor.

I might eventually begin posting arguments on here. Argumentative essays. I'm taking AP language, and I need to know things like how to construct and deconstruct an argument. So, I'll need practice; and y'all will be my guinea pig audience. (Hopefully you're not actual guinea pigs behind the screen. I kinda imagine this rodent army of guinea pigs staring at the screen, eating my words up. It's kind of a creepy mental image.) Don't worry, I'll steer clear of sensitive topics, or political topics or disturbing social norms or whatever you feel like calling them.

But other than that, there's not much to say. so I wrote some poems the other day, and I decided to share one with you. Don't know why.

Inky Starlight

On a clear night,
When the stars glisten like
Drops of white ink
On black paper;
I go outside,
Sit in my backyard,
Staring up at the brilliant mystery.
And I take my glasses off,
To see the moon properly,
Big and fuzzy:
The friendly moon of my childhood.


(Do they even make white ink?) This is not my favorite work. But it is my work, so I love it. (Wow, I think I just paralleled Stephen Crane there, with his poem on the creature who ate his heart.)

Anyways, I don't... really have anything else to say. Just wanted to let you know I'm not dead. I'm still coming up with writing stuffs. And, have a blessed Wednesday!

Another On My Mind

I know, I know, I've written update after update. Internet's still acting up a little; but it should work better in the next couple days.

In the meantime, this is what has been on my mind lately:

• Our report cards have come out, and since I'm a junior, it includes my GPA and class rank -- my GPA is just shy of a 4.0! I'm really happy. I worked hard for those Cs, Bs, and As.
• I have an AP American History test tomorrow. Meh. :(
• I also have a vocabulary test in AP language. :(
• Tomorrow is Vanlentine's Day, so Happy Valentine's Day, people who celebrate it! I don't. So, really, I just hope one of my teachers does and they give me candy.
• I've been waist deep in AP History homework. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, oh my!
• My writings are wandering and confused. I don't know why I decided to pull griffins into the mix, no matter for how short a time.
• I really want pizza, for some reason. Or chocolate. But I can't have either, because I have no money.
• I wrote a play in Creative Writing. What possessed me to write a play about love? It sounds so melodramatic.
• I'm reading Narnia! Meep! :D I've only read the Magician's Nephew before. Well, really, my mom read me the Magician's Nephew when I was like, eight years old.
• I keep repeating the lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in my mind for some reason.

I've reached about 27k words. I told myself I would have 39k words by today, but I got sidetracked on Monday. I was watching the Next Great Baker on... I think it was the Food Network. I've never watched the show, but on Monday I watched like, six straight hours of it and then the finale. Dang, those people are cutthroat. No wonder I was glued to it.

Anyways, I've learned some interesting things about my writing:

For one thing, I make weird, unconscious literary references. Like when my MC calls everyone "little honey", that's actually the name of a baby in a Netherlands fairy tale, called the Cat and the Cradle. I came across that fairy tale again in a book of cat fairy tales, so when I saw the baby's name, I was like, "Weird. That's just like -- oh, wait. I've read this book before. No wonder."

I use the word "I" a lot. Wow. It starts off most sentences; I really need to fix that.

And, also, it feels really list-like. This is the 2nd draft; it feels kinda like the first, where I'm just listing my MC's actions, and her emotions. It only feels alive when I go into extreme detail. Perhaps you can expect a future post about extreme details in the future; though that subject has been pounded to death by the mallets of much more experienced writers than I.*

Anyways, have a blessed Wednesday. And Valentine's Day. :)

*I don't remember what writers. I think I've been reading too many internet articles and not been spending enough time writing.

 

Quick Update

My internet's being really weird. I haven't had proper connection in days. So, this is a short post on updates.

For one thing: I actually joined Twitter. *whew* What a big leap for me. I haven't actually been on it for awhile, because as I said, my inernet's hates me. But I did it. (I'm not a technology sort of person. Or a people person. So, joining Twitter is akin to leaping off a cliff for me.)

Another thing: Since I have no internet, I've been writing! Sort of. I hope to reach 84,000 words of my re-worked second draft by the end of February. This is also feels like a cliff jump.

Thank you for voting on my poll! I will try to write more on Wednesdays. In fact, this was supposed to be on a Wednesday. But my internet didn't work at all yesterday, so I ended up writing 3k words and listening to my radio.

I don't know yet, but I might post the link to my Twitter. And possibly my Tumblr and Pinterest as well, but those contain pictures of randomness, art, cats, Doctor Who, bad word puns, and possible-future-ideas-for-stories.

I currently do not know about Monday's book review. Or tomorrow's Follow Friday for that matter, but for different reasons. Tomorrow, I don't know how my internet will be acting; and Monday, because I've been reading a book of cat fairy tales, and ignoring my usual reading schedule. I can summarize some pretty interesting cat stories on Monday, if it comes down to it.

Lastly, I plan on trying to up my reading-and-commenting-random-blog-posts. I know, I take on a lot at once (84k and blog reading!?) but I hope I'll manage it. And, at worst, I'll try again in March. (Not the writing; at that point, I hoep to simply be editing, not rewriting.)

So, please enjoy this pictureswhile I wish you a blessed Thursday. =D

 

 

 

 

(this is a picture of my cat, Nala. Ain't she a pretty Siamese?)

 

 

Follow Friday #31

[It's been a strange week. Snow's hit us randomly throughout the week, so we had a two hour delay for school yesterday, and a two-hour early release today (at the last minute; we were informed of that during lunch). Now it's really snowing outside. Knowing our weather, it'll be warm enough for short-sleeved shirts before the weekend's done.]

Anyways... Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee.

Q: What is the last book that kept you up late into the night just to finish it?

I don't know. There's a lot of books that keep me up. I recently read Un Lun Dun by China Mievelle, which was bizarre enough to catch my attention. There's the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini. The book I'm currently reading, Divergent by Veronica Roth.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "kept up late into the night". Books like the ones I mentioned keep me up until, like, 10:30 pm. I've never had a book keep me up later than that; waking up for school at 6 in the morning tends to ruin any chance of reading later. (Not that school starts at 6:00; we're not crazy. It's starts at 7:30ish, but my bus comes at 6:40 and I need a little time to prepare.)

Even over the summer, I don't give up too much sleep for reading. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I spend every waking free moment reading -- including between classes, on the bus, and instead of my homework -- but I don't really feel the need to. I've never liked giving up sleep, so I content myself with reading less. I know a lot of readers (and writers, for that matter) spend a lot of time usually reserved for sleep on books, but I've always managed reading in the day.

Am I going to technical into this? Perhaps you simply wanted a list of books I read recently that I enjoyed.

• The Aviary by O'Dell
• The Butterfly Clues by Ellison
• The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Moriarty 

Plus the books I mentioned above. Basically, most of the books I've read this month. And a couple from last month, since I read the first three Inheritance books in December. And there are a few books I missed, but I can't think of the titles so I assume they're among my lesser-favorites.

Anyways, that's really my recent-books-to-love list. There're plenty of others that I haven't read for a while, but that'd take too long. (I read over a hundred books a year, guys! And I at least semi-like around 2/3s of them!)

What's your list? Or book, if you've had a bad January book-wise. Have a blessed, snow-filled weekend!