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.

I haven't been feeling well since shortly after my return on Tuesday. First, it was a headache. Now it feels like the beginning of a head cold. I took a three-hour nap this afternoon, unintentionally: I meant to lay down for less than an hour. Three hours later, I was tired again (but am finishing homework before I sleep all night). A shower made me feel a little better, as did the dose of mediphenyl and ibuprofen (the former serves a similar function to Sudafed). My head feels worse if I try to focus my eyes on the computer or a book for more than half an hour, and since those are the activities I do when I confine myself to my room so that I won't make anyone else sick, that isn't helping anything.

And a minor complaint: my foot is starting to bother me again. And there are a LOT of people in my neighbors' room chattering away.

How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions
Look at the list and put bold those you have read.

( clicky )

I am a well read and distinguished gentleman.

I've read 36/100. I haven't read 64/100. And those are all square numbers. (I love how 6^2 + 8^2 = 10^2; then, that's the Pythagorean theorem, with the whole 3-4-5 pattern).

It should be noted that a great many of these were school assignments sometime between first and twelfth grade.

Also, stolen from Madi over on her blog.
 

Edit: lj cut added

at school, that is. I had a good weekend, mostly spent at home with the cats, my mom, and my uncle. I went to church and saw most of the people I wanted to see. The minister gave me a labyrinth-pendant that he meant to give me last spring at the bridging ceremony but couldn't find at the time. I like it, though the string is itchy. I interrupted what I think was an informal Executive Committee meeting (which I'm no longer on!) to say good-bye and most of the people in the office lined up to give me a hug. XD It was nice. I miss hugs. Oh, I actually missed most of the service because MICCA was Sunday so the usual nursery helper was away doing band-stuff, so I stood in. That's fine though; the service was mostly affirming and thanking everyone who was serving on a committee, which, again, I'm not this year, so I wasn't involved. And when the heck did our little Josiah start walking on his own? Last I saw him, he wasn't doing that. He is a little more than a year old, but still.

I like having cats around. I also really appreciate the eye-drop prescription Dr. Smith gave me. It helped a lot when my eyes started itching. I'm not used to having to keep my face away from the cats and having to wash my hands before rubbing at my eyes, so I was really irritating my eyes.

I also re-read Mancer 1 and 3 while at home. I had books, but then I was looking at one particular scene, and then I wanted to reread the Hansa/Umber subplot, and then I ended up just reading the whole 200k. I love those two. Just sayin'.

And, the only problem I encountered was when I got home, and found a yellow slip on my chair. Apparently they did room inspection today. And my idea to plug the ungrounded extension cord into a grounded power strip didn't work. They confiscated it. I don't seem to have a fine, this time, just a warning, but I had to go buy a new extension cord at the tech center, because I wouldn't be able to use my keyboard unless it was in the middle of the room, otherwise. The extension cord can only plug ONE thing in, but it's a 15 footer, so I can loop it around from the outlet near my bed to behind my wardrobe instead of using the outlet that has everything else plugged into it. $9.99, too, but I guess it'll have to do. *eyeroll* I made the thing as safe as I could and still be able to use my electronics!

I'll survive. Also, I'm cold. And my room's still messy. *sigh*

I may or may not be online before Tuesday evening. I don't know if we have internet access at the new apartment yet. But! I'll be back on when I get back to school.

Just so you know.

<3 Shauna

I've mostly finished my midterms. Mostly, because two weeks from now I'll have to demonstrate proficiency on the keyboard for a set of exercise which I'm reasonably sure don't need more than half an hour's prep work. We didn't have a midterm for music theory, which is good, because we're doing weekly quizzes anyways. The next one involves being very quick at recognizing and writing major keys in bass and treble clef--the bass clef and most of the sharp keys are where I run into trouble. Also instantly knowing what each note of the scale is for solfege (do-re-me etc).

Uh, started on midterms, switched to music theory. Shows where my mind is. Anyways, I know I did well on the Am. Lit test (wouldn't expect otherwise, considering how much I like the class), and I'm reasonably certain I got at least a B on the Spanish one, which is about average for me. It helped that there was no listening, that I actually knew the words she asked us to define, and that I'm really good at grammar, which is all we had to know for Chapters 1 and 2. For Chapter 3, we also needed all the cultural stuff and vocab, and the former is where I -may- have run into trouble. But, it was only a part of the test, not the whole of it, and I finished early. I think I'm okay.

But I have to study like crazy over fall break for Music Theory. I've been neglecting some of the skills things in favor of getting tangible homework done. I need to rectify that, even if I'm proficient enough that right now I can sight-read the stuff in the piano book. Practice always pays off, one way or another.

...and in other news, I really am wondering if I can drop chemistry. I seem to have lost all confidence in that class since my last problem set came back. Bleh.

But hey, I'm all positive about 2/4 of my classes!

I have been downstairs studying since about 7:30? 8:00? Something like that. It's now 11:30. I got through spanish with some help from native speakers (yay! they told me when I had the wrong tense and when I had a misspelling, which is a hell of a lot better than floundering about trying five different things to see what I did wrong). And I got a little more than half of my English notes for the first half of the semester typed up. My version of studying. It takes a while when I usually have 2 pages of handwritten notes per lecture. I'm not typing the rest, I'm just going to skim it. It's open-notes, and the stuff I didn't get to was within the last two or three weeks (I stopped halfway through notes for 10/9 because we switched from Franklin to Equiano).

Anyways, why am I patting my own back? One, because I studied productively, for once, and got most of my spanish online stuff done; during the break between classes, I can get the rest, or I can do it after class, either one. Two, I socialized, sort of. I didn't hide out in my room from 5pm-11pm. I came downstairs after my Tertulia (which ended at 7), and spent time with people. And I now have reason to be grateful that I'm not taking Biology; there's a big group studying it together and many seem overwhelmed.

I have been having a hard time not just spending the evening in my room, alternately reading and studying. Coming down here actually keeps me from reading, which makes time more productive. And I feel less isolated, even if most of it is self-isolation. Which is something I'm working on, because I can't spend the rest of my life withdrawing every time I'm not feeling my best. Anywho, I'm going to get ready for bed so that I'm not exhausted for my TWO midterms tomorrow.

Nini.

I got a 32/60 on this week's problem set for Chemistry. My worst grade yet. I expected to do badly on the last problem, because I missed the lecture on it. But how the hell did I manage ONLY a 32? This class is so freaking frustrating it isn't funny in the least. Come ON. I thought I could do this. Evidently not. I don't think I'm taking second semester. I'll probably fail this one. 

Squee! Seanan's book arrived today. She has a pretty signature. I can't wait to read it. I'm glad I checked my mailbox again tonight even though I checked this morning. I'm happy. Now I'm debating on two levels: start Rosemary and Rue and ignore the fact that I just started Squire by Tamora Pierce and still have another book in the quartet after that, or finish Squire and/or Lady Knight first and then read R&R, and like it even better for long anticipation. And then, if I decide on the first, whether I want to start that before I do my homework.

I wish I didn't have to wake up at the exact moment I did this morning. I was dreaming about mining (and I'm using the term loosely here) glass/crystal creations that were really beautiful. Even if it didn't occur to me that pictures of unicorns don't occur naturally in crystal (well, my dream self thought glass, but we all know that that is generally created, not natural). But they were pretty! And I was going to keep getting more! I remember I was with my mom and someone else, though I don't know who that 'someone else' was.

Still, I love when I have nice dreams and remember them.

But, I was up at 6:30 so that we (my mom and I) could leave so that I could get to campus by the time my second class happened. We made it, just barely. We were out of town by about 7:20, and should have arrived by 9:30 at the latest, but we spent, I swear, half an hour moving nowhere on I-190 because of an accident. This was just before it turned into I-290. My GPS kept popping up with traffic updates saying there was either construction or accidents on just about every major highway, and the radio said pretty much the same thing. I'm glad I wasn't driving.

My mother could have brought me last night, but by the time the service and dinner finished (special 125th anniversary, in the afternoon instead of morning, which was the whole reason I came home) it was 6 o'clock, and I left early. By then, it was getting dark, it was still snowing, I knew my mom wasn't feeling well (she'd been moving into the new apartment yesterday, and boy am I glad I missed all but the end of that) and I didn't want her to try to drive back by herself, in the dark. I wasn't in the mood for night-snow driving, even if she was the one who would drive. I also didn't really want to have to sleep on the floor so that she could have my bed if she didn't want to go to the uni and back last night. So...this morning I came. Made it to my second class with seconds to spare.

And, I'm not exhausted yet! Yay for going to bed by 11:15, which is a lot easier there than here, where everyone on campus is up all night. Well, the students are. So, early bed tonight, I hope.