Today is November 29th, 2009. It has been so for 30 minutes. So really, it's the 28th since I haven't gone to bed yet. It has been a glorious month. I have gone from writing carefully to haphazardly sprinting through 50,000 words in 27 days. I've gone from being one who occasionally dabbles in story-writing to someone who has successfully finished the first draft of an entire novel. That's a big step. I even plan to write a second draft and then send it through my writing group. That's another personal goal that I never really had a plan for meeting. Now I do: finish Draft 2 of NaNo09 novel by January 31st, and then in February ask Bri and Amy (and maybe others) if they'll read through it and critique it.

*points at Bri and Amy* Hold me to it. Next time I talk to you, I'm going to ask you to hold me to it.

I feel like I'm still coming down off a high. I want to keep writing. I have to find a new project to pick up, and hopefully I can create a habit of writing every day. I think I'd like that. The other thing is, I can't figure out how to celebrate finishing my first novel ever. What would be appropriate? I can't go splurge and buy myself a present. Not really. So, what can I do? I tried to do an impromptu dance party at almost midnight last night, but I can't do that in an apartment building with four other people (only one of whom was asleep) outside of a college dorm. (I will totally dance at midnight sometime when I'm back in school though.) So what do I do? It's something I have to think about.

NaNoWriMo wasn't the only thing that happened to me this month. (Right! Happened to me. I did it! I did it!) I also went home for Thanksgiving break and brought a friend with me. Currently, I'm sitting on my bed in our new apartment. Janine is next to me watching Saturday Night Live. I spent five days in the house with Janine, my mom, my uncle, and Dave.

Dave. I still feel very confused. I came into the apartment, and most of the decorations on the wall were Dave's. Mom says that she told him he could put his stuff up any way he wanted. And then she woke up one day and he'd covered most of the walls with his stuff. And it's tastefully done, although I wish I didn't think that. But it's weird, because the apartment isn't mine and mom's any more, it's theirs and his. And his furniture? It's good furniture, comfortable. But he doesn't want the cats on most of it. I'm sorry, but you can't suddenly tell the cats that they can't curl up on the kitchen chairs or walk across the coffee table. They've always been allowed to do it. And keeping them from scratching said furniture? Not going to happen for long. I hate that he isn't in love with the cats. Mom says he likes Mischief because she doesn't get into things. She doesn't, because she's an adult cat. Chaos isn't. She's "adolescent" if such a stage exists for cats. She's playful. She's curious. She likes to cause trouble for the sake of causing trouble. You can't hate her for being the age she is. It just isn't right.

And it's frustrating me, just because I'm getting conflicting emotions. I like one thing about him, but just about everything else drives me nuts. Partly, I think, it's because I'm a "creature of habit"--it's been me and my mom for so long that the addition of Dave feels like an invasion. Uncle Danny joining the household isn't a problem. He stays out of the way, he's been there before, he's unobtrusive. And he's my uncle not my "father". It's not the same thing. There's no plurality between him and my mother. No "we" did this. It's "I" did this, and "he" did that.

What else is the problem? I don't know. I just don't know. I say that a lot regarding Dave. I can coexist, I think, but not precisely peacefully. Resentfully, maybe. I don't want to spend winter vacation at Trav's house, in part because...well, it smells like smoke. Our place doesn't because smoking inside will set off fire alarms. Also, my cats are here, not there. I like sleeping with cats at night.

*sigh* Well, at least I'm not sobbing because he's suddenly here. I'm just...tired. Tired, and slightly uncomfortable. And wondering if it would be worth offending my mother to sleep at John's sometimes. I'm comfortable, mostly, with both him and Lisa. And MiKayla, of course. (She has lots of aquatic pets, did you know? I spent probably 20 minutes being introduced to all five hermit crabs--well, four; she couldn't find the last one--two turtles, two goldfish, a sucker-fish, and probably some I've forgotten. That's not mentioning Hammy the hampster, the four dogs, the four cats, and the bird.)

Hmm. More things to think about. Maybe if I write every night, it will come out there and I won't have to bring out quite as much of my frustration here.

NiNi all.

I wrote 6,000 words today in order to finish early so that I can dedicate my weekend to homework and such.

I can now have a social life again.

I am ecstatic that I finally finished a novel and won NaNoWriMo. It's my third try. I love my novel, although I have a lot of re-writing to do. The first step is to write an outline of what I just did, organize it a little, and then divide it into chapters and re-write in a more cohesive fashion.

And then I will, I promise, ask some people in my writing group to read it and give me feedback. Because that is my other promise to myself: that I will send some of my fiction writing for critiques. This is it, this is when I get the courage to say, please read this and tell me what you think.

And then, maybe I'll give copies to some of the people who have asked to read it, who I don't expect to do much more than say "I like it" "I hate it" or "I didn't end up reading it. Sorry."

Congratulations to myself. I've entered a new phase as a writer.

P.S. to the aforementioned writing group: If I don't give it to you sometime in February, kindly point me to this post and make me hand it over. <3s to all.

So, remember how I was pulled over last night? Well, about an hour ago I was juuust sitting down to write, when what do you think happened?

My mom got a phone call. From my brother. Saying "come get me now and bring Shauna with her license." He was pulled over because the light over his license plate on the work van was out. His license was suspended. He tried using his roommate's. That was suspended too. *facepalm* So my mom and I drove out, and picked him up in my car. I drove my car, my mom drove the van (which had an expired registration, but they didn't tow HIS; nice cop). And now we're home, 15 minutes of midnight, and I haven't written a word today.

*sigh*

The insurance people did their job, and in a timely manner. My car is now re-registered. I even have new plates since they couldn't reach the officer to find out where they are. And I didn't have to pay anything. One poor girl spent her morning going back and forth from A-Affordable to the RMV (they're right next to each other) to get various things the RMV decided they needed to transfer plates and get me a new registration. We showed up a little before noon, just in time to sign the papers the RMV had just decided they needed our signatures for (my mom and I co-own the car).

The insurance lady also had a check made out to the tow-company so that we didn't have to wait for reimbursement. So, all it cost us was time. The insurance company paid for the towing and the registration/plates.

So, I'm happy to have the car back with a minimum of fuss.

Now, if the officer would just dismiss the charges against me so that I don't have to appear in court, that would make my day even better.

I was pulled over today by a statey in Massachusetts on I-190. I saw him tailing me. First he was driving just next to me; not in my blind spot, but just behind it. Then he was behind me. Then I saw lights and heard a siren and pulled over.

It was a total WTF? Because I was doing the speed limit, or lower, the whole time. I handed over license and registration. He may or may not have been surprised that I had a license, because I do look around fourteen. Or thirteen. Not college-age, that's for sure.

Then he asked me why I hadn't been keeping up on insurance payments. I said I thought I had. (I have.) My registration was revoked because of a lack of communication from the RMV (this is according to the insurance lady) that some of their notifications of insurance hadn't gone through properly--something about the fact that there were two names somewhere and only one elsewhere, or something.

So the cop took my license and registration to his car, and we must have been waiting about ten minutes before he came back and asked us to exit the vehicle. I went out through the passenger side on the grounds that I was too close to the edge of the highway to exit safely from that side.

Then a tow-truck pulled up. I had the cop talk to my mother, but he wasn't willing to wait thirty minutes for her to bring proof of insurance to him. So, ugh. I have a citation that should be cleared up soon, and I wasn't arrested. I was also very glad I wasn't alone, because that would have freaked me out more than I was.

And I <3 my mom for coming to pick us up at the gas station where the tow guy dropped us off. Her car was vandalized. She has no driver's side mirror. It wasn't fun driving for her. She's also the one who took a detour so that we could talk to my insurance company today (it was about 4:50 when we got there). So, the insurance company will give me a letter stating that I was, indeed, insured at the day and time I got the citation for being unregistered and uninsured. That shouldn't go on my record. (It wasn't my fault! for real.)

Me and Janine are both safe at my house, and all our luggage (with the exception of my car, which the tow company still has, and the plates which are at the Barracks, and the registration, which is somewhere) arrived with us.

So, I'm very glad this is over and no one was arrested (me) or stranded without knowing anyone (Janine).

And, I can say it wasn't my fault with complete truth.

Kennedy is my RA. He's also from Kibera, Kenya, the second-largest slum in the world. He taught himself English, and was the first to leave Kibera for a four-year university. He is, in a word, fantastic.

And this is what he's done for his home.

sólo está trabajando una vez en dos. Por eso, lo siento. La Red no estaba trabajando bien esta tarde, tambien.

Erm, just got back from a Tertulia. Here's the short version, without airing every frustration with it: I can only sign onto AIM about half the time. The other half, I either get on, and then it immediately stops working, or it won't work in the first place. Adium doesn't seem to work any better. This might suggest I have a computer problem that I need to take to the tech center; I don't know.

Also, my internet was slow this afternoon, but I think it may have been a system problem, because the same thing happened when I tried to clock in at work.

So, technical difficulties. If you don't hear from me, that's why.

Schedule planning for Spring semester, I mean.

Right now I'm enrolled in:
CCIV/HIST/something else "Medicine and Health in Antiquity"
Intermediate Spanish II--I just noticed that I apparently have the more difficult teacher. Oops. At least I don't have to be up at 9.
Tonal Harmony (2nd semester of Music Theory)

And that's it. Contrary to my expectations, Contemporary Psychology was filled completely up--and that's with 80 spots for freshmen alone! So I have to hope I can get in a spot someone else drops, or just take it next year. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what else to take. To that end, I sketched out a four-year plan and realized that starting next year or the year after, I need to take five classes at least per semester instead of four. That is, if I do a double-major with Music and anything. I put in English, because that's where I'm leaning, but I think most other majors have about the equivalent of required credits that English does (10). Music, on the other hand, needs 14 PLUS either a senior thesis or an Honors Project (1 or 2 credits, respectively).

...That's a lot of classes, particularly if I go for the General eds so that I can do honors. Which means, I either need to find an SBS class for spring semester, or I need to be able to take two of those next year.

So it's a toss-up: do I add an English class (Shakespeare would be my choice), a Music class (History of Rock and R&B and/or a performance class), or an SBS? I think it would be a good idea to assume I should do one of those and get rid of the rest of the (admittedly interesting) choices.

Hmm.

Yesterday was the halfway point of NaNoWriMo, in which every writer is expected to be at 25,000 words. Or, well, that's where we're supposed to be if we're doing the 1667 words a day and managing it.

I ended the night with over 26k. I am proud of myself. One, I made it past 20k, my previous record. Two, I made it to the halfway point and am still going on. Determination and plenty of sleep are wonderful things. Somehow, I mostly manage the sleep.

I am totally awesome. I'm on a high of good feeling today, partly because of my writing and partly because my room is clean and because I finished my homework for today at just past 9pm last night. How awesome is that?

It occurred to me just now that it is, in fact, November 11th. Veteran's Day. On this day for the past several years, I went to a ceremony at my high school for Veterans. Two years ago, this fell on a Sunday and our bellydancing service at church, which I consequently missed. But you know what? I might have hated that I still had to get up and perform on a day that I did not have school (because we don't have school on November 11th in Mass public schools), or that I missed a fun service, but I actually miss standing there in my uniform and with my instrument, honoring the men and women who have served, continue to serve, and will serve in our armed forces. Because it's important.

So here's to them, the veterans of our fine country and others. *salutes*

For Christmas this year, I would like a gift card with enough money on it to go to a place that either makes custom shoes or helps fit shoes to the person. Or at least a hardy pair of shoes that will support my feet in all the right places. If you do this, I promise I will believe in you for a whole year.

Love,
Shauna


Okay, at least it isn't my arch this time. The ball of my left foot hurts now. And my shoes are falling apart, so I need a new pair anyways. :P *sigh*

So! It's been an entire week since I stared writing this thing. Or it will be in about 30 minutes. In that time, I have started a novel, and then rewritten the beginning so that I could get the plot moving in a way that makes sense to me. I have written as few as 615 words in a day and as many as 3727. The minimum for achieving 50k by November 30th is 1667/day, and I have not yet fallen behind. Even on the low days, I made up enough words before them that it didn't put me under expected word count for the day. And now, I'm actually ahead. Monday's word count should be 15,003 words. I stopped at exactly that many tonight.

It feels good to be achieving a goal. Even when I have pain in both arms because I've given myself Repetitive Stress Injuries between schoolwork, internet, and writing, I enjoy it. Although, the pain is slowly going away. It mostly bugs me when I'm not using my hands, now. I am also getting over what seems to have been a sinus infection. I'm halfway through a bottle of Amoxicillin and feeling tons better. But I've been able to cut back on decongestion and ibuprofen both (the latter I was taking in doses of 800mg for a while between headaches and wrists).

And tomorrow is a new day in which I have a lot of homework to do. Have a wonderful evening/day/morning, whoever is reading this!

I find it a little disconcerting to find myself casually looking at guys and thinking, "wow, he's cute" these days. I have never in my life thought that way. Why am I suddenly doing it? It's not something I usually think about. Not a normal thought-process for me at all.

And it's not like I'm horny. So what the hell is going on?

You know, I've hung out with several different groups of people. Today I spent time with Janine, Stephanie, and Sandy, who are fellow Questbridge students. I ate dinner with them, then a little later Janine dropped by my room (which is a mess, but at least I managed to get rid of most of the trash before she got there) and then went to the first Ono (Onomatopoeia is an all-female a cappella group) concert of the year with all of them. After, spent a while talking, and then I ended up at my dorm. Where some of the people I like most in 200 Church were. I have no idea why I'm most comfortable among Juliana, Vero, and Ague (not like the illness; it's short for Agueda, and put the spanish pronunciation on it), and Diego, and anyone else who joins them.

I don't think they realize how much I like them, but they let me join them. At the time I joined the group, only Juliana and Ague and a girl-whose-name-I-can't-remember were in the common room. Then Juliana went to Vero's room, and Diego joined our group--we were speaking variously in English and Spanish, with German I didn't understand mixed in. By the way, I'm getting better at understanding Spanish, just not at speaking it, not yet.

But we all ended up in Vero's room eventually, and we were piled on top of the bed, and I was craving human touch, even the small things like pressing against someone like we were all doing. It made me feel...something. Indescribably. I NEED human touch, but I don't get it enough. I just don't make friends easily enough, and I'm not one to just touch someone without feeling a sense of comradeship or getting an invitation (explicit or implicit, doesn't matter). But in high school, once I had my group of friends, we all hugged each other in greeting and leaving, or just because, and I miss that. I get a sense of comradeship--and that may be what I'm responding to with this group. Vero, Ague, and Juliana all went to an international school together before they came here, so they already have a close-knit group, which they've opened seemingly to anyone who wants to join. I like that feeling. It's comfortable. And right now, that, more than anything, is what I need. Comfort.

I couldn't have gotten that at the dance party I had an invite to. I'm glad I stayed here tonight.

And now for my 1667 words, even though I'm ahead, because I need to keep writing or I'll just stop. It might be after midnight, but I still count that as 'today'.

My Lit professor finally passed our papers back. As I pretty much expected, I earned an A. The only iffy thing was that my paper wasn't quite the required length-it was just under 4.5 pages out of the required 5. But! This is the comment left on it:
"Shauna--
Excellent. You argue the case against the Euro. perspective even as you deal with its repressive force. Keep up this style of reading against the grain. In whose interest is history written? Or syllabi constructed? What are the alternatives?"

Wootness! and Fishes.


Yes, I adopted that phrase from Amy. I like it. :P


P.S. I'd like to thank my AP US History teacher for giving me the tools to write this paper in context of history and my AP English teacher for making us write a lot of "medium-length" papers of 4-7 pages. Those classes did a lot to prepare me for this course.

So last night, I decided that I was mostly floundering around trying to fill in every event and all exposition before the plot of my novel started. And I came up with a new first sentence that I think will help. "She was going to barf." That's right. "She was going to barf." Yeah, I'm essentially starting over, but with a difference: I'm not deleting everything I've already written. I'm merely going to rewrite it in a way that's more conducive to moving on than random scenes that skipped around the timeline were. So. I have 450 words out of the 1325 I need to stay on track for today (my goal to do 2.5k a day failed when I realized my wrists hurt too much to try it, so I'm just keeping up with the 1667 and hopefully I'll get ahead again over the weekend).

And I like this a lot better already. Yay. Let's go. Bye, going to write.

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, it's National Novel Writing Month! Where you write 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1667 word per day. I stayed up past midnight (not hard to do these days) and wrote just over 2k words, and then went to bed. I woke up at almost noon, which after I realized that Daylight Savings Time ended, was actually almost 11.

I played dress-up last night as a wood nymph (or mother earth, or a tree, any of the three) in a completely green outfit. With a green feather hair ornament. It was fun. I didn't go out to parties though, just to see Prometheus (fire-twirling group on campus) in regular clothing. It was raining.

Anyway, I meant to say, I'm now the owner of a wireless mouse, courtesy of my Staples gift card (thank you UUSG!) so that I don't kill my wrist. Ergonomic keyboard doesn't really fit with a laptop, so I just got the mouse, but it works. Now if only the headache I've had off and on since Tuesday would go away.

...I also tried to put a "Leechblock" add-on for Firefox, which would keep me from spending too much time on Facebook, but I couldn't get it to download. We'll see if I can get it to do so later.

So, happy NaNoing all!

Haha, that was awesome. I'm so glad I went. I ended up sitting by some guys from fencing and chatting before everything started. The film was hilarious to watch. Not just because all the body language was so exaggerated. We had a team of students playing Faust and music from the musical version of it (Andrew Lloyd Weber). There were musical jokes, fake "hoof-beats" and even someone meowing when the cat appears, although I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be there or an audience member provided the sound effects.

Everyone clapped when Christine figured out that her Master was the Phantom of the Opera. I'm feeling pretty high (as in natural high, not drugged) right now. Better than I have since I woke up this morning, actually, although a little tired.

Whee!

And I have the soundtrack from the Andrew Lloyd Weber Phantom of the Opera playing now. Just 'cause.

Because I love music, and Tales From Band Camp once again has some fantastic links to share. For example:





I've never heard this spelled out quite so clearly before.

looking for the movie version of Go Ask Alice since all of the book copies at the Russel library are missing or never returned. It was on videocassette, not DVD (duh, it was 1998), so I didn't get it. Instead, I started looking through the CDs and left with five of them, plus the book I had on hold. This was not intentional. I now have soundtracks to Wicked, Dracula, and three other CDs, including a Cat Stevens one. I looked for Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing but both copies were checked out, so I put it on hold instead.

It's like I suddenly rediscovered popular music, only I never discovered it in the first place, and a lot of it isn't stuff my generation listens to anyways. Oh well. New listening material, and hopefully some of it can be added to my NaNoWriMo playlist.

Next time, I have to see if they have Peter, Paul, and Mary since it just now occurred to me.

Why did I never think of looking through library music before? It's not like I can afford it any other way.