Author: etoiline

Halfway

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(here’s a fangirl moment: HARRY POTTER! Squee! And yes, I will be dressing up for the showing. How much so, I haven’t determined yet, since it will likely be cold. But dammit, I have a costume, and I’m going to use it! I made a skirt, for heaven’s sake. Only twelve hours before I get to see it…)
I just thought I’d inform you all that I have passed the halfway point for NaNo. I’m actually 52% finished, and it’s only two days past the Ides of November…this weekend will be pretty crazy, so I’ll be lucky if I get anything written tomorrow (must remember to bring the laptop to type while waiting in line for the movie!) but hopefully I can make pages (to quote Laurell K Hamilton) later in the weekend when I’m not helping my parents out with the two (count ’em, 2) art shows this weekend. Eek! Gladly I will accept your ideas about angels and put them in the story, no charge. I’ve already plundered my apartment and garden and Forest Park for the story, why not your ideas?
everything’s going to change, isn’t it? Brownie points to those who know what I’m talking about.
{ETA: I forgot to mention that, surprisingly, I aced my latest lab practical! Largely due to the fact that I got all the bonus questions right, but it’s always a very happy thing to see the ‘X correct out of Y” with the X bigger than the Y. At least I can remember some things…}

Waiting for Harry

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Yesterday I bought my ticket to see the fourth Harry Potter movie on Friday. I’m begging off work early and will have to leave literally as soon as we finish the second part of the study. Hopefully it will be good, and people will appreciate my costume (I actually like costuming better in the winter…usually costumes are so hot, it’s nice to have a reason to wear all the paraphenalia and not look like you just jumped in a pool), and I will get some writing done while I wait for entry. Here’s hoping that I can make it in time to get a decent seat. Alas that I couldn’t make it to the midnight premiere, as much as I would like to, since I’m being practical and giving myself a few more hours of sleep. And woe that I couldn’t make it to an IMAX showing (since when did the theater I’m going to get IMAX?) since it would be cool to see this one in IMAX like I did with the 3rd movie. Though I recall that I said I wouldn’t have wanted to see it for the first time on that big screen…too much to take in with such a huge surround screen.
This weekend will be hectic, starting with the fact that the very moment I get out of the movie I’ll have to rush over to Parkway South to help my mother set up for her show. (You should come visit us.) Then two, count ’em, two shows on Saturday. And Sunday, right after the writer’s meeting for NaNo, I’ll have to rush off to P’Way S. again and help with take-down. Joy.
Of course, that’s not even counting the sleep-deprivation I’m in for this week, as there are three studies this week (again) and wednesday’s will be particularly brutal, given that it starts at 6:45 am. *shrieks* My poor little not-a-morning-person-self. Boo hoo. And the writing. Oh ho, the writing. I’m still about 3k behind where I *should* be, but I ought to be able to make it up. I’m ahead of where I was last year, anyway. Whoo!
Here’s a reason to stay up late, though. Lord knows I did. I rejoice in fast, but good, reads, and this fit the bill. It’s an inspiration for NaNo, I tell you *sighs at feeling the need to justify staying up too late to finish a book*
Happy Monday.

Bye, Bye, Busch

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They started the demolition of Busch Stadium today. Apparently it was a bit anticlimatic since not much of the actual wrecking could be seen. It was decided that the stadium couldn’t be imploded for safety reasons. It would have been spectacular. Ah well. Better safe than sorry.
I’ll miss the old beast, even if I didn’t really spend much time there. It was just such a quintessential part of St. Louis, and soon it will be gone. But out with the old, in with the new, etc, etc.
I wore my “I write books” pin (courtesy of the folks at NaNo) and no one noticed…until I was walking down the hall to deliver the tracers for the study tomorrow, and who did I encounter but one of the fellow StL NaNo’ers. Small world, innit?


My blog is worth $10,161.72.
How much is your blog worth?


did you ever get the feeling
that we started in the middle
or have you ever have the sense
that we were lying just a little
i mean come on
its not like we knew ourselves that long

eight thousand

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I’m somewhere in the vicinity of 8000 words right now. Depending on which program I’m using, I have 8400+ or 8500+. At home I have more. I like that counter better. I’m still behind, though. I should have been at 10k last night, so I need to work harder. I did write almost 3500 words last night, though, so it can be done. I just have to get my butt in gear and do so.
I have a new computer at work. It’s very pretty, for all its PC-ness. I had to remember all my passwords and programs that I had on the old one, but wow, it’s fast. And in eight months it will be obsolete. Wow.
Guess I should get home and write some more…it’s sad to see my potential progress go down on the meter, so I would like to make it go up…
see you on the flip side. (11 days to HP 4!)

procrastination

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Not much to do today. So laugh a little. I passed 8K on NaNoWriMo…but I’m still behind, even after writing over 3k last night…gotta work on my muse. Too bad I didn’t make it to the 7500 goal before the writing group yesterday. I missed out on chocolate.

Do you know why they ask whether you want “paper or plastic” at the checkout?

Because baggers can’t be choosers.

i-b-o-o-k spells relief

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Yay! I got my iBook back yesterday instead of today (or later in the week) and it was just fine. They said the main logic board had failed, and was replaced, and since it’s still under warranty, it didn’t cost me a thing! Sweet.
Of course, the silly thing is, even though I got the laptop back last night, I still only wrote about 730 words. Unfortunately that’s less than half of what I needed. Behind already. Alas. But I’m working on it. I have more ideas still! I was just busy studying…you know, for that class I’m taking? We have a quiz tomorrow with twice the questions that are normally on the quiz, and that means I have to know all the parts of a skull. I’m screwed.
Oh well. I’m just glad that the comp is back and in working order. Of course it came back fine, but I don’t trust my luck enough to not worry about it. And man was it weird to not have access to one for the weekend.
This week starts off a very busy month at work…lots of important studies going on. Unfortunately I can’t take off work the day that the fourth HP movie comes out, nor can I attend a midnight premiere the evening before. Because while I can live with three hours of sleep, it’s probably a bad idea the night before wielding sharp instruments. I might be able to finagle it so I can leave early and catch a matinee showing on opening day, but that night I have to help my parents set up for the big Parkway South Craft Show. Saturday I’ll be at one of two craft shows, if my mom gets into the second one, so I might not be able to attend that day either. Sigh. I know that it’s silly to be attached to a fandom like this, but I really do want to see it, and I hate waiting. Did I mention how I’m very much pro-instant gratification?
Wish me luck on NaNo. Bad idea to fall behind on the first day, but at least I’ve got the time to make it up 😉 I must remember to actually cook something for dinner tonight, though. It’s been too long. Pasta here I come!

So it begins

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Another year, another November, another NaNo…With my lack of computer, I only wrote some outline-type things last night after midnight. Hopefully I can stick with this story…don’t know how it’s going to work out, but I’ve got some good ideas. Feel free to hop over to Artist of Heaven and check things out…but you’d have to comment if you want to read the good stuff 😉 Well, I hope it will be good.
Unfortunately I could only go down from my stellar performance on the first A&P exam, but I only missed two this time, so yay. Still good. I should have studied levers more carefully.
/*soapbox
And any of you liberals out there who are PO’d at Bush’s stupidity and malleability, please go sign this petition. The Supreme Court should not be dominated by any one political party.
end soapbox */

iBook-less

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It’s weird to be without a computer. There are days when I don’t touch it at all, it just sits there resting quietly on my desk, the white light of sleep pulsing slowly…then there are days when I spend hours on it. But when you don’t have it, you think of all the things you do with it, that you’d really like to do rightnow and can’t. Like I would have told my story to some friends on AIM. Or wrote down a few ideas for the story. Man my hand is going to be cramped for a few days.
Sounds like I’ll be lucky to get the comp back on Wednesday, since I got to the store too late yesterday to have it shipped off to the repair depot that day, and it will probably take them about a week. Wednesday is not too bad, it’s only the 2nd of November, but it’s still two days where I can’t write at night. Cece has volunteered her laptop, but I can’t monopolize it for the 1st week of NaNo if I don’t have a comp. Sigh. Anyone have a spare comp they’d let me borrow for a week?
Also have to cross your fingers and pray that the hard drive doesn’t get wiped. Apparently the repair place is like an assembly line, they run some diagnostic tests and then send the comp to wherever the repair for the crucked part is. And if the diagnostic test finds that something in the hard drive is corrupt, it might get replaced or wiped, even if that’s not what was originally wrong, and that’s not cool. The genius at the store (that’s what they call themselves. Not joking. They certainly know more than I do about Macs) said it was probably a logic board problem, something with the video output, which has nothing to do with the hd, so I’m to understand, and only 1% of computers come back with a wiped drive, but still. *sniff* I still have the old computer with all the OS 9 stuff on it, hard as it is to read, but I really don’t want to have to transfer it.
Just to make me feel better, I got a notice today from Yahoo! that my account (which I’ve had for years) was deactivated due to violation of terms of service. You know me, I don’t send out spam, I don’t post lewd pictures. I don’t use my Yahoo Mail account anyway, so I couldn’t do that through email.If that’s happening, it’s because someone else is using my account fraudulently. I listen to LAUNCH, I use Yahoo Groups and am on a few mailing lists through Yahoo. I play games there and look for movie information. If that’s an inactive account, I’d hate to see an active. So hopefully that will get taken care of, but I’m still waiting for an answer to the email I sent back in reply.
It’s never easy. But then again, if it were easy, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.