Cut It Down

So, I went to see the Hobbit part 2 with my parents today.
And I was disappointed.
Honestly, my hopes weren't that high to begin with, considering how the first movie went. And considering they're stretching that poor book out into 3 movies.
They could have cut out half of that movie, and then it would have been great.
(Billbo was great though).

It all has to do with something we talked about in my creative writing class.
A story is not done when you've finished adding stuff. It's done when you've cut out as much as you can. When you get rid of all the fluff, all the unnecessary details. and have streamlined everything, that's when it starts to get really good. (One of my Red Seeker chapters suffered greatly from this. I deleted a few pages, and now it sucks less)
People don't want to read pages about the description of a character's eyes.
And I'm guessing that most people don't care about a 20 minute fight as a bunch of dwarves are flushed down a river with an elf stomping on their heads and shooting things.
And they just had to add a totally random romance in there. (Yeah, I hate half-ass romances.) You know, in order to make up for all my complaining about romances, I'll go and search out my favorite pair.
I was also really looking forward to Smaug, but I was disappointed in that too. Sigh. TT^TT Just too much. Too much of everything, everything was too long.
Why shove Sauron and Lagolaas in here?

Lesson: Don't stretch stuff out. You'll lose all of your fans that appreciate actual quality, instead of another fighting or fake romance scene.

Oh My Gawd, PUPPIES!

So, tonight was a party for my creative writing class.
I thought I'd go down for a while and chat with people from my class, eat some food, maybe talk about writing a bit. Maybe come home after about an hour.
Didn't happen.
Because I overlooked one very important fact.
Roberta's golden retriever had puppies 10 days ago.
So, I spent over 3 straight hours sitting in the bedroom with ten little puppies, whose eyes weren't even open yet. I ventured out after a while, because I really wanted to get my camera. Kim had arrived and I went "why on earth are you out here when you could be in a room full of puppies?" And she joined me for the rest of the night.
And several other people came in to hold puppies. Alan probably stood there a good half hour, just staring into the box of fluff. (By the way, he just self-published a book on Amazon, and he asked me to help proof-read his next book. I'll definitely post on those once I finish reading them).
After the party ended, they had to move the puppy box back into the other room. So I scooped five of the puppies onto my lap. You know, just to be helpful (oh my gaaaaawd, lap full of puppies!!!)
Aww, maaaaan. I was one happy camper all night.
I'll have to put a puppy picture up. But I'm tired now, so I'll do that tomorrow.

If everyone got to spend time with puppies like that, all wars would disappear.
^-^

And here's photos~

Balloons!

I just finished reading a book about writing.
And there was some very fascinating and helpful stuff in it.
And I thought I'd mention of few of the topics I liked.

Apparently writers form groups to help each other with writing. But in these groups, they don't offer advice. They only meet to tell each other what they like about their writing.
Apparently it's really important for people to hear what they do well. It gives them confidence and energy to continue working.
So people meet for the sole purpose of giving each other positive feedback.
I don't think I've ever seen so much praise about, well, praise.

And another thing she mentioned was something I've thought about a lot (mainly because of some DA journal posts from artists, talking about family/friend problems). I've been pretty lucky in this category, and I wonder what makes it difficult for other people.
What she says is to surround yourself with good people, and try to avoid "balloon poppers." Balloon popers are people that bring you down by popping the balloons that keep you afloat. So, stay with people that make you feel flooaty, not with people that bring you crashing down.
There's a lot of ways that people can be balloon poppers. If they're self-centered, greedy, insulting, or insecure it can take some of your float away. Even simple little comments can pop balloons. Perhaps they don't like how some people are happier than they are and they consciously or unconsciously decide to make you sink. Some people might do it on purpose, but others probably don't even realize that they're bringing you down.
I suppose it's impossible to always avoid balloon-poppers, but do your best. Keep people around you that give you energy and make you feel floaty.
Yaay, floaty!

I think I'll talk about the last thing tomorrow. Because it's all about procrastination (That's why I'm putting it off until tomorrow. Or maybe a few days later. Hmm).

Merry Happy Christmas!

And now that Christmas is practically over, I pop in to say MERRRY CHRISSSTMAAAASSS!!!!!!

(This image has popped into my head a few times today).

I get to order a bunch of books from Amazon cause I got gift caaards~
I feel slightly bad though, because yesterday I read a chapter about how important it is to order from independent bookstores. Next time I want a new book, I'll have to go to one.
I already ordered a book about Tibet. And there's a couple other really nice books that I saw in Portland (big hardcover expensive picture books) about Chinese gardens and Japanese gardens. I might try to get those - or at least one of them. They're excellent references for my stories. I've already got a collection books about Asia.
Come to think of it, I wonder if I can find a copy of that book about Chinese clothes...

Bleh bleh

I just sent the first few chapters of Red Seeker to some friends to read.
And now I wish I hadn't. Because my cousin Sean read it during our family Christmas Eve party and made it clear that I still have a lot of work to do on character development. TT^TT
I wish I could try to fix it some more before having my friends read it.
Well, I guess I'll see if they have similar comments.
And I'm still worried about the opening scene. The first sentences of a book are the most important, because that's what hooks a reader and makes them read on. I re-wrote the first couple pages again. I still don't know if it works well though.
Blehhh.
The never-ending problems I've been trying to fix since I started writing this story.

It's funny how I was somewhat confident about that excerpt until a couple comments from Sean. I suppose that's not an uncommon occurrence though (To make it clear, Sean was in now way mean and is really interested in the rest of it. Though I'll have to fix it up some more. Sean is part of my target audience).

And on a random note, I rented the first season of Sherlock. I've been hearing about it for months, but I'm in the middle of 6 other TV series. I wanted to finish some of those before I started any others. But I'm almost done with 3 of those series, so I grabbed Sherlock when I saw it on the shelf. After all, the books are fantastic. I read all of them.
My parents watched it with me. And it's definitely awesome. Their portrayal of Sherlock and John is a lot of fun, and their interactions make me laugh.
And as always, no matter what he appears in, Sherlock Holms is amazing.
But curses for nasty cliffhangers!

Can't There Just be Friends?

This is another topic I posted about a while ago. I've thought about more I want to say about it.
It seems like there has to be a romance in everything. If there's a guy and a girl, odds are they're going to get together. Everyone has to have some sort of romance.
So when there isn't one, it's really kind of nice.
Like in the TV show, Warehouse 13. Pete and Mica are partners and friends. But as Pete said in one episode "Mica would never kiss me. Not if her life depended on it." Heheh.
And even better, is Claudia and Steve. Claudia and Steve are both very fun characters. I love their best-friends-forever relationship. It seems even sweeter since I know they'll never hook. This is because Steve's gay.
Which makes me wonder... do they now have to make someone gay in order to ensure the viewer that there won't be a relationship? (I'm obviously not saying that's the only reason they'd have a gay character. But I appreciate their relationship much more knowing that they're not going to spring a romance on us at the last second)
And I started thinking... are there any Disney movies without romances?
I don't think Finding Nemo had one. Lilo and Stitch didn't really have one either (though I guess Nani and David were together)
I guess Frozen didn't technically end with a romance. But it's not like there was an absence of romance.
In Treasure Planet, Jim doesn't have a girlfriend. Though there is a romance among other characters (Though that was more fun than most Disney romances).

Studio Ghibli movies don't always have a romance. There are always male and female characters. And occasionally there are hints of something (that's what I do. I hint at things). I believe that Howl's Moving Castle was the first real romance? At least the first actual kiss.

I watched A Girl Who Leapt Through Time with Ellen one night in Japan. And Chiaki's goodbye was a hug and a head-pat.
And it was a very sweet farewell (I already have plans to steal it for one of my future stories XD ).
Ellen was right in saying that a kiss there would have ruined the mood.
Not the case in Epic. In that movie, the hug would have been perfect. But no. They had to add the kiss. Whyyy? They just had to stick it in at the last second, didn't they? It felt so forced and unnecessary.
Sigh.

And then another note about shipping (deciding which characters should hook up). I don't like shipping. I never really cared about that with anime and such. But then I learned that people actually ship real-live people. Which just seems really disrespectful... Not to mention uncomfortable for the subjects.
Maybe that's why I don't like shipping with fictional characters - it's just a small step from fictional characters to real people. And to me, fictional characters always have their own life.
And I started to wonder why some people are so obsessed with shipping. And I did reach one possible conclusion. Maybe they just don't understand that all different kinds of love are equally important and powerful. They think that the only love that matters for a relationship is romantic love.
If people think that, then they're going to miss a lot out of life.


In other words, I tried to find some interviews with Idina Menzel. And I did find a couple. But I didn't really find enough to let me make my decision. So, until further notice, I will continue to love her singing, but I don't know whether or not she's my favorite actress.

~Let It Go~

I went and saw Frozen with my Dad today. I wasn't really sure what to expect, and I think my expectations were rather low.
But it was a lot better than I expected! It was a lot of fun too (Though the snowman's kinda weird looking). I had fun whispering predictions to Dad, most of which were right. Very pretty animation too (even if it is similar to Tangled).
By the way, minor spoilers coming up.
Do you remember when I posted on my blog about the season 1 finale of Once Upon a Time? During that, the "true love's kiss" came about because a mother loved her son (instead of boyfriend/girlfriend). Well, they did something similar here. Which was nice, especially coming from Disney. This time the "act of true love" was a sister protecting her sister.

I actually got very excited at one point, though it really had nothing to do with the movie itself.
There's one song called Let it Go.



The whole scene is awesome. I want to keep watching it...
The first time I saw it, I started thinking about how the character Elsa was similar to Elphaba from Wicked. And then I started thinking how this song is very similar to Defying Gravity.
And then I started paying more attention to her, and realizing that she sounded familiar. And when the credits rolled, I found I was right. Elsa's voice is the same actress as Elphaba! No wonder she's such an amazing singer!
She really has an amazing voice. I just love listening to her voice, no matter what she's singing. There's not many singers like that for me. I'd never seen her in anything else, so I got very excited.
And on the way home, I started thinking. She might actually be my favorite actress. Since I started planning my blog post about female characters, I've been thinking about female characters/people that I like. And I do love Elphaba. She's awesome. And now I think I might have my favorite actress too.
Though I want to go find videos of interviews with her. I like to choose my favorites based on what they're like in real life in addition to their acting/singing skills.
My favorite actor falls into that category too. I first saw Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. And I liked him, but didn't single him out among the other X-Men. Then one day, Mom calls me downstairs, to where a version of Oklahoma was playing on TV. Lo and behold, there was Wolverine on stage, singing. Which was so unexpected after seeing him only as Wolverine. I started to take more notice of him after that (what can I say? I like singing along with people).
I also love watching the making-of films, and interviews of people involved in films (not just films, but anything). Those making-of things are very inspiring to me. The Les Miserables ones were fascinating, and I wonder if there's any I missed.
These interviews are where I discovered that Wolverine was a really funny, nice person in real life. I don't think there was an "aha moment" where I discovered he was my favorite actor. It just kind of happened gradually. Though Oklahoma was a major turnign point. It's fun to have a distinct moment for discovering my favorite actress. (I did have an "aha moment" for discovering Kenshin as my favorite character though. ^-^).
So now I must go and find some interviews with Idina Menzel. ^-^
As I try and fail to get this new song out of my head... Or maybe I'll just listen to it several more times. After all, I can only ever get songs out of my head once I've learned them.

Last Days of Classes

On Thursday, I read another chapter for my creative writing class. I skipped way ahead to an out-of-order chapter, just to confuse everyone in class. I kinda jumped around with my chapter readings... Anyway, I didn't want to read chapter 5 because Katani's a jerk. So instead I read my third Kazuhi chapter. Just because I read his other two chapters during class already.
I don't think I'll be able to sign up for creative writing next semester. Though I will go and visit whenever I can. Since I have friends there now.
And I don't think I'll be able to do band next semester either. One of my grad classes is at the same time. I've never not been in band. Not since I started middle school. TT^TT I'll try to go to the first couple classes. I'll need to find other motivations to practice. Maybe I should do some more lessons with my teacher.

On Saturday we went to see Finding Happiness again (the movie I was an extra in). It was at a different theater, nearer home. My grandma, aunt, and uncle came too. It's the first time anyone else in the family has seen it (including Dad). They liked it. Rob especially appreciated the cinematography and such, since he's made documentaries before.
It's out on DVD too. Do any of you guys want to borrow a copy?

Off to go add more stuff to Red Seeker. There's still a lot of stuff that isn't clear enough, and more things I want to add. That's not even including all the character stuff I still need to sort out.

Female Characters

So, as I was writing that post about moments that I can't get out of my head, I realized that none of those characters were female. I did a bit of digging, and found that Midna fit into that category, but it got me thinking again about how nearly all of my favorite characters are male.
There are several tough female characters, but I don't think it's just a matter of making strong female characters. They seem to be lacking... something. I'm not sure how to put it into words though.
Maybe it has to do with so many charcters just fitting into certain slots. Like this person is comedy relief. That guy is the brains. Maybe this is just stickign more to female characters now thatn it is to males?
I think I covered some of this "character awesomeness by gender" in a previous post, but this Youtube video got me thinking more. Especially about how very subtle sexism influences us without us even being aware of it.



And as I think of this, I keep thinking about how I can make my female characters deeper and more interesting. In Red Seeker, the main character is a boy. But I have a lot of heroines in other stories that I have planned. In fact, I think most of my main characters are female.

What do you guys think about this? (Trying to bring more people to post on my blog...)

Home from the Snow

Got home today.
It's so much quieter here. XD At my aunt and uncle's house, there's lost of people. My three cousins - Two teenage boys and a younger girl who gets really hyper with company. And I'm company. She loves playing with me, so when she's home I don't get anything like quiet time. She was in school though. There' a little dog too, and they have two foster boys who are also teenagers. And my cousins had friends over pretty much every day.
So, yeah. Lots of people. And we did lots of stuff too. We went somewhere every day (Yaay for the City of Books!). I got a red Tibetan-style shirt. Now I can match Katani!
And yesterday it snowed! I was sooo excited, since I usually only get to see snow once a year. And yesterday was probably that day.
Sera took the day off from school so we could play in the fresh snow.
Yaaay~

I did get some stuff done in Portland, despite there always being stuff going on.
I read an entire book on the drive up (though it wasn't a big one), and read another book during the week. The second book was written by a vet about her experiences in vet school.
I did some more black + white sketches from Twilight Princess. I'm still going slowly through chapters of my Midna fanfic, and every time I finish a sketch from one of the chapters, I edit that chapter and put it on fanfic and DA. It's a very slow process since there's so many pictures I want to draw, and so many other thigns I want to write. I think I accidentally may have skipped a chapter too...
I also did most of the lineart of the next Retriever pair from Red Seeker. This time it's Garrett and Nase. I had to redesign Frilled Dragons, so I now have a much better idea of what Nase should look like.
Read a bunch of a manga that someone recommended to me (The title translates into Animal Land). Manga is easier to read than a book if the TV is on.

I did some more touch up work on Red Seeker, of course. There's a bunch of stuff that I still need to add to make things clearer. I have a very long list of those things. Plus more lists of stuff I'd like to research to help the story along.
And my cousin, Tashi, is helping me put Dominic's song to music. I've tried to fix some things about it to make it fit to music better. I should go through the lyrics again. He's going to continue to help over the internet. He's good at writing music. I'm not. --_-- I've written many poems, but have no idea how to put them to music.

I did start 3 blog posts... and I only finished one. But at least they're started!

So, there's my general update of stuff.
I should actually talk more about books I read than movies I watch. Considering this is supposed to be a writing blog. ^-^'
Aww, man I'm tired. I had to get up early this morning, and my brain is reaching the shut-down point.

Images That Don't Leave my Mind

I was thinking about what I mentioned in a previous post.
Every now and then, there will be a small piece of a movie or manga or something that gets stuck in my head. The only way to get rid of it is to go back and watch/read it a couple times.
I tried to list out all the ones I could think of. I wanted to figure out what they had in common.
Turns out they're all pretty similar. I'd never tried to link them, so I never realized how much they had in common. And once I found the reason, I was able to fish out some more things that fit into that category.
And there are spoilers involved, so if you notice something you don't want spoiled, skip it.

The one I mentioned a little while ago was from the Les Miserables movie - the non-musical one.
When we see Javert tied up in the Revolution's camp.

Another one is from a TV show I've been watching with Mom, called Fringe. In Fringe, there are these guys called Observers, and the main one is named September. This one actually takes place through the course of a few episodes (they travel through time, hence the confusion of the timeline). He shows up, shot in the chest and nearly dies. Then we see him actually get shot later on and he collapses.

Then, surprisingly, there's one in the Pokémon Adventures manga. It took place during the finale in the Ruby/Sapphire series (around chapter 263-265). But Steven dies, I think? And Wallace carries him around. (Then they take it all back by saying that someone went back in time and saved everyone... bleh. They don't have the guts to do any lasting damage)

And then in season 2 of the Merlin series. Arthur lets himself be drugged, so that he'll look like he's dead. And then he flops down to the floor.

In Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess when Midna gets hurt and almost dies.


Pretty obvious what these have in common, huh? Characters getting hurt or almost dying.
But not just any character. It seems to go with the tough characters. The ones that seemed like they were always strong, and always above getting hurt. The unflappable ones. But if they do get it, and it's done well, I go "Oh mah Gawd! Oh mah Gawd! He's dying! He dieeed! TT^TT "

There are some other instances that fall into this category. Like in one of the Legend of Zelda manga (the short one in the art book, about the very first Link and Zelda).

And some that should fit, but don't fill all the qualifications. It doesn't seem to happen as much if I know what's coming. For example, Jean Valjean at the end of the musical film. And there are plenty of character injuries/deaths that make me very sad, but don't hit quite the way these do. Like in X-Men. Lots of injuries/deaths there.
Or if I've seen them enough to be desensitized. Like Mik at the end of Crocodile Dundee 2. Or Han Solo frozen in Carbonite.

Portland

So, got up at 5:00 AM this morning and drove for about 12 hours with my uncle and grandma to get to Portland. I tried to go to bed early to prepare... which kinda worked? Maybe? I still want to go to sleep right now though.
I'll be here for a week with family.
In the meantime, I have a few blog posts that I've been thinking about. Except I forgot a couple of them so I'll have to dig them up. >_< And I'm hoping to use some of my free time here to smooth out some more stuff on Red Seeker.

Second Draft

So, at 12:20 AM, I finished my first edit of Red Seeker, Katani's story.
Took me long enough. XD
Yaaay!
There's still a ton I need to fix, but it feels good to get my first edit completely done.
And now I'm of to pass out...

Mooovies

Okay, I did another long environment post.
So now I'm gonna do one for fun.
(After a brief, disbelieving comment about Wednesday. Would you believe it? On my way home on the train, after my last day of class. And for the third time this semester, the train stopped and everyone was kicked out. And I got kicked out at THE EXACT SAME STOP as the other two times. What's the deal? This never happened the four years I was in college. And now 3 times in one semester? I had to take the bus home... Maybe there's something near that train stop that's calling to me. But I walked around there a couple weeks ago, and didn't find anything)

Anyway, moving on.
I like writing about new movies that I see. I've been trying to avoid it, since I don't want to comment on every new thing I see, but I'll go for it tonight since I've been going on an involuntary movie splurge.

I saw Catching Firs yesterday. I've got to say, I'm really impressed about how the Hunger Games movies stay so faithful to the books. Usually they love to add and change a bunch of stuff in movie versions (I'm still really dubious about the Hobbit movies for this reason).

Today I went to see The Book Thief with Mom and her brother.
Another good movie.
I like the snowball fight in the basement. ^-^
You know, Geoffrey Rush is great. I like him more every time I see him in something.
He makes an awesome pirate.
He's in Finding Nemo (favorite Pixar movie).
His version of Javert in the non-musical Les Mis is a bit different, but still great. Every now and then, I get random scenes from movies/manga/ex stuck in my head. And one of them is the scene where Javert is captured by the Revolution. Valjean walks in and sees him tied up. When Javert talks to him, the defeat and hopelessness for some reason really hit me.
He's great in The King's Speech.
And I really liked him in this movie too.
The main family reminded me of Anne of Green Gables. His character was kind of like Matthew. Hans and Matthew are both great characters.

Habitat Destruction Plot

Finally starting another environmental plot post. The first one I did was about deforestation. This one will be about habitat destruction in general.
Forests are mentioned the most when people talk about protecting habitats. But forests are definitely not the only habitat that's being destroyed by human expansion.
Wherever people build new homes or clear land to grow crops, some area of natural land was destroyed.

It may not seem like it, but deserts are incredibly fragile areas. If something disturbs desert land, it takes an incredibly long time to heal. There aren't many plants or much rainfall to re-sculpt the natural landscape. In areas of Nevada, such around Reno, housing is spreading deeper and deeper into the desert hills.
Perhaps you've heard of the Dust Bowl? This happened when farming expanded into the Great Plains. People took their machines and tore up the grass and thick layers of sod beneath. The problem is that this tangle of grass roots was holding the soil down. And once the grass was torn out, that dirt was free to blow away. And it created a huge cloud of dust over much of the country. Let's not forget the huge dust storms that came with it. Houses were buried. Yeah. Not fun. And try breathing with all that dirt blowing everywhere. A lot of people had to move.
Tundra is another one. Oil drilling is a big problem up there (a lot of oil is in wildlife preserves, which are supposed to remain untouched). The problem is that these factories and the massive pipes used to transport oil are right in the way of migration routes. Migrations of hundreds of thousands of caribou travel across the tundra every year, and when a huge pipe cuts across the land, it makes it hard for them to get to their winter and summer homes. And with the melting ice that comes with climate change, many arctic animals have enough trouble surviving as it is without the threat of oil leaks, roads, and pipes.
Wetlands are also in danger. There is hardly any pristine wetland habitat left. A lot of it has been filled in to build houses. The problem is that wetlands are homes to thousands of different species, and are often important stops for migratory birds. They are also essential for cleaning our water and providing buffers for storms that come in from the oceans. Some of the fish we eat, like salmon, use wetlands to get big and healthy. Wetlands are also excellent carbon sinks - even better than forests. That means that they can hold carbon out of the atmosphere, so there is less carbon in the air contributing to climate change.
I'll cover other water habitats in later posts. But rivers, lakes and oceans all suffer if the surrounding habitat suffers (from erosion, runoff, litter, and so on).

The fact is, there are too many people, and not everyone can live in their own separate house with a yard. There's isn't that much space on the planet for humans, let along all the other species that need land to live.
Multi-story apartment buildings do save a lot of space. It's actually a very environmentally-friendly way to live (especially if it's built sustainably). I took an eco-footprint test once, and had a very sustainable lifestyle, except for housing (even though I live with 2 other people).
People need to stop developing new land whenever they run out of space. We can't expand forever. We need to learn how to compact our development, and reuse space that's already within cities. We need to reign in developers who want to build on every spot of land they see.

Farming is another big cause of habitat destruction. Try to avoid buying food that was grown on cleared land.

As for how to use this in a story, I think a lot of what I mentioned in the deforestation post applies. You can twist things around to fit the habitat of you're choosing. And all of the consequences will vary as well.

Hoot is a book/movie that talks about stopping a development that would destroy burrowing owl habitat.
And there's all those movies and books I listed in the deforestation post.

Cliff-Hanging Myself

Last night I though I'd finally be able to get writing again, but I ended up spending most of the night figure out classes for my grad program and emailing teachers and stuff.
And it turns out that I'll have to do a revision of my big research paper too. And I'll have to do more research for it...
I haven't gotten all of my classes either.
But who cares! It's been over a week since I've been able to right, and I'm one sentence away from an exciting part. Forget school! I'm going to write.

Cursed School Delays

I'm sooooo close!
Sooo close that I can almost reach it!
Only ten pages of editing left for Katani's story!
And what happens?
I have a research paper due next week.
TT^TT
No writing my story until that's finished... Maybe I can get the first draft done tomorrow so I can have my teacher look at it.
It's a paper about environmental fiction. Which is what I want to write. But I haven't really found an statements saying if books/movies have actually changed a person's views or behaviors relating to the environment and sustainability. Which is what I'm really interested in.

But after I finish my paper I need to finish editing Katani's chapter 4 that I read in class last week. I need to turn in the edit next week, now that I got my review from a classmate. So I can finish fixing that chapter up, and finish going through the notes Crystal gave me on the same chapter.

Why does school taunt me when I'm so lose to finishing?
TT^TT

No Repeats

The creative writing teacher was talking about this in class last week.
Yet another way that the school system is being screwed up.
Apparently throughout the whole state (or is it the whole country? I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to look it up) students are no longer allowed to retake a college class, unless they fail. They cannot repeat a class.
Which is horrible. Because there are so many classes that rely on a large number of students who return over and over.
Such as our band. We would not have a band if we did not have our musicians returning every semester. If only one-time students were allowed, there would be maybe 7 people in the band. And it would no longer be a band. Although I think we found a way to get around that, fortunately.
Repeats are forbidden for PE classes. And drama. And our creative writing class. In our writing class, we have older students with a lot of writing experience.
I hope people manage to find a way to sneak back into these classes.
the government has no right to stop people from gathering and learning and sharing what they create, whether it be music or writing.
People are paying for these classes. Not everyone retakes a class because they fail. And half the people in some of these classes graduated many many years ago. They take it for the love of the subject, not for credits.
Stop screwing with schools! They've been hurt enough already.

"So, do you use this blog to vent?"
...
Yeah, sometimes

Chapter 4

I read chapter 4 of my story in class last night.
Maan, is it normal for your throat to get so dry when reading something so long? Bleh.
There were a couple "guests" in class, who had taken the class before. One of them asked me about my story and we swapped emails.
It was exciting to have a person I didn't know actually come up to ask about my story. XP

Past Inspirations

So a few days ago, I talked about The Longest Journey, and how it probably inspired me to have my different worlds, all connected to each other.
So I thought I'd mention a few other inspirations. Although I'm pretty sure I mentioned a few of them before.

Dragons. I always liked dragons. But I think there was one story that might have nudged me over the line of the dragon-crazy. In middle school, I was reading through a textbook of short stories when I came across one called The Smallest Dragon Boy. And that story stuck with me. I learned many years later that it was part of a very well-known dragon series called the Dragon Riders of Pern (I learned this by accident when I started reading a book called Dragonsong, that was entirely to similar to be coincidental).
My ideas for telepathy did not come from the Pern series. Nor did they come from Eragon, or the Tortall series or any of that. Instead it came from a book called Kinship with All Life. That book was the start of my entire telepathic system. The other books I mentioned follow a similar system, but they weren't my inspiration. Nor do they work exactly the same.

And these next ones relate more to Fern than my stories in general.
I think the main reason that I created Fern was because of the X-Men. At first, I developed a few mutants to join the X-Men. One of them was actually quite similar to Fern. But eventually they all disappeared, and Fern took their place. And Fern, of course, is more of what I would like to be as a mutant.
Actually, I don't remember why I initially created her. But she has grown a lot from that point.
And I did not draw Fern's powers from the Tortall series (specifically Daine from The Immortals). Ferns main power - shapeshifting came about because that's what I think my superpower would be. And telepathy, as I said, came from Kinship with all Life. Her small abilities with the elements are also sort of along the lines of my research following the Kinship book. The healing is sort of too. Though I admit that Fern's healing ability may have been inspired by Daine. I don't actually remember how that one started.

And then much later I decided that Fern was actually one of a race of people from Magic-Earth, the Shaydens. Her powers echo their mixed magic.

Painting Fern

I did some painting recently. Painting of Fern in her dragon form, to be exact.

This one was practice with painting a picture, since my last painting didn't turn out that great. This one is better.


And this is a paint-your-own dragon figure I ordered form Windstone... back near when I graduated. It's been sitting around forever since I've been spending most of my craft time on pony orders for a while. But I had a break, and I've been using it to work on a bunch of other stuff. I finally finished the top layer of my quilt too, so I'll post that whenever I put it all together.
Anyway, here's Fern as a Windstone dragon. ^-^

I wish the details showed up better though.

Accepted!

Wooooot!!!
I was accepted into my grad program!
TT^TT
Finally.
I probably still have to do a bunch of stuff to finish registering. And I think I have to convince some other people to let me do my weird thing for my thesis (story instead of research paper).
But I'm finally in.
I'm a mixture of relieved and nervous.
Nervous, because I don't know how hard it will be, and it will probably cost a looooot.
Wish me luck!

The Longest Journey

I recently watched a play-through of a computer game called The Longest Journey.
Back in middle school, I played through this game a couple times with a friend of mine.
(I also feel a bit bad about that, because in hindsight I'm not sure how much he wanted to play computer games. I'll never know though, since her parents made us stop being friends (they got all high and mighty, or something. Jerks.))

It was really cool to watch The Longest Journey again, since I am no longer able to play it.
As I watched it, I realized how much it affected my story ideas. I played that game before I really started writing. Or, at least before I started writing stories all the way through that made some sort of sense.
In the game, the main character, April, can shift between two worlds. I'm pretty sure that the shifting is what inspired me to have my three connected worlds - Soreina, Magic-Earth, and Technology-Earth.
Plus the game has some interesting cultural development of the different species in the magical world. I guess I was able to appreciate that stuff back then, since I liked the game so much.
At the same time, there are some parts that don't see like they should be played by a kid my age. Although, to be fair, I didn't really understand a lot of those references back then...
And April's design made me think of how sexism is very common in games. Really big but and chest. Yeah. But she was a cool character despite that.
I like that game. Too bad I can't actually play it myself anymore. You should try to watch a play-through of it. ^-^ If you do, let me know what you think.

Idea List

So, after a conversation with Crystal, I started to list out all the story ideas that I have.
There's a lot of very vague ideas that I have, which don't have any real plot or characters behind them.
Then there's ideas that are partially developed. They might have a few characters with very little plot, or visa versa.
And then there's ideas that are starting to get pretty strong. Yeah, they still have a lot of holes in them, but they've got characters, plots, conflicts, and such.
I have over 15 story ideas that are starting to come together.
And 20 ideas that are partially developed.
That's not even getting into the vague idea-things.

O__O
Where they heck did they all come from?
When will I even get to them?

I keep wondering which story to get to next, once I finish Katani.
I was debating about one for a while, since I was having a lot of ideas about it. It's the story about the earth-mage girl whose name I had to change (her name is now tentatively Ayrin)
But then I started getting a lot of ideas for a different story (about the star spirit guy).
And no doubt by the time I actually finish editing Katani, I'll start getting a lot of ideas about a different story.
I would like to start working on an older idea that's been sitting around for a while.
But that certainly wasn't the case for Katani's story. When I started writing this, it was a very new idea.
So, we'll see. Whenever I'm ready to start something new, I just grab whatever feels strongest to me at the moment.
Maybe something old that I've thought more about, or something newer that I'm excited about.

And then all the other stories will be sad.
TT^TT

Get it Together

Been falling behind on blog posts again.
I blame the new XY games.
It has kept me from editing for a couple weeks (not entirely, but a lot).
So, I'm getting back on track.
I'll go start writing again.
And I'll start working on another of those long environmental plot posts... eventually.
I already restarted some of my craft projects.

And I fail of thinking of anything else to write about.

Chapter 3 Reading

It seems that whenever I post about my creative writing class, I'm several days late.
I blame Ellen (For no good reason, but she was there, so I can pretend to blame her).
So, yeah. Ellen decided to lurk in the back of my creative writing class on Thursday. Hmmm. I wonder if I can get her to write a blog post about it. What'd ya think about crashing my class, Ellen? You've been threatening to do that for a few years, and you finally got your chance.
She spent much of the class the same way I did. Doodling. Scott gave her a picture of San Francisco, and started redrawing one corner of it in great detail, with a pink pen.
(I was working on the "essential expressions" sheet for Fern, to help me practice drawing a face consistently, and to help me with expressions. It's pretty interesting).
I also read chapter 3 of Katani's story.
At least I didn't have to wait 3 weeks this time. And there was a decent amount of people in the class.
The reaction this chapter seemed to be the best so far. I'm curious if that's mainly a reflection of the class in general. Because a lot of people in the class aren't as interested in fantasy (I know because many of them said that last semester). And the chapter I read really didn't include much of a fantasy element, except for the brief mention of dragons. It didn't include any action either. It was mainly Katani interacting with family. It was also the first chapter I'd read to the class where the viewpoint character spent a some time just thinking. Some of my fellow classmates seemed to like that. Although, admittedly for the other chapters I read so far in class, I had trouble really getting into Katani's (or Kazuhi's) mind. Dialogue was the main way I got across their thoughts. I'm still working on that. But in those particular scenes, the characters are just saying what they're thinking, so a lot of thoughts I could add just seem redundant...
So, that was good. I wasn't sure if this chapter turned out well, so I'm glad people liked it more.
Which reminds me. Once I edit it, I need to send it back to Ellen so she can give me the notes she took.

Stay Strong

I've been reading through the articles and posts in a website that Ellen told me about, called Nerd Fitness.
The posts in their blog and the articles they link to taught me a lot about how the human body stays healthy.
I thought I knew a lot about that before, since my mom is pretty health-conscious about food. And both my parents teach yoga, so they know about physical health stuff.
But Nerd Fitness has taught me a ton more. About what to eat, how to keep your body strong, and why weight loss plans and gym workouts often do absolutely nothing to help your health. The stuff about how grains work in our bodies was surprising too. Who knew that grains can slow your body in burning extra fat?
I should have saved links to some of the articles that I found really fascinating. I'll have to search some of them out again.
But this is definitely worth looking into for anyone.

Late-Night Rush

Awwww, man, I just finished re-writing the assassination chapter.
I've been looking forward to fixing this one up for a long time.
I feel like I've got my adrenaline pumping from writing it. Like I was I the room when it happened.
O_O
Whoo, I'm all worked up. I wonder if I'll be able to get to sleep.

Writing action-packed chapters is awesome!

Stuff Stuff Stuff in a List

Aaah, but Ellen, I asked you several weeks ago to post on the blog and you never did.
Staaare O__O

But Welcoooommee Hoooooome!
I haven't seen you (in America) for a year! Nor has anyone else.
We're going to tie you down and make you watch many movies.
And I need to find the new Ghibli movie...

I should make a list of my projects.
The problem is, there are too many things I have in mind.
I could probably break them into a few general categories. But each category has about 50 or more things in it.
Let's see. Making a list like this feels scary, when I think about all the hours, days, and months it will take to get through some of it.
Here it is, in no particular order.

Drawing - I have a few dozen pictures I'd like to draw. And I hope to get better with colored pencils and photoshop, as well as drawing in general.
Sewing - I have many many patterns I want to try out. But I am currently working on a pony commission. I'm actually making a quilt (a dragon quilt!). Quilts take a loooot of time to make... I've done a lot of it though. I'll definitely post pictures when it's done.
Writing - Of course I'm working on editing Katani (I'm almost done!!). And I'm still working on my fanfic too. Plus about 20 other stories that have varying amounts of thought put into them. Plus many other vague ideas (I have a research paper for my environment class too).
Sculpting - I want to make more sculptures out of fimo. Some more gym badges, and more of my dragons, and a list of other things.
Painting - I have a couple statue things I want to paint. And I still have a little canvas from Grandma, and I want to paint something on that.
Reading - I have 4 shelves of books that I need to read. I've been reading them, but I've also been getting more. And not because I've been searching for more. They're multiplying somehow... I'm in the middle of 2 books for school, which are due soon. Then I can start another book for myself. I've been listening to Les Miserables on CD (That book is terrifyingly huge). Audio books help a little bit with getting through some of those books (though I'll often check out new books...)
Games - There's 2 main games I'm trying to finish. Plus a couple other old ones that I abandoned. I'd like to go back and work on them more at some point. The Nuzlocke thing is the game I've been working on most (because I can level grind as I read homework). Maybe I'll do another Nuzlocke update. I'll just do it now. I beat the first round of the Pokemon League without losing anyone on my team. Now I'm fighting through the Kanto gyms. Still haven't lost any of my team. Which is good, since I don't have to spend forever training a replacement. Though it would be fun to mix my team up a bot.
Anime/TV series - I still have a massive list of manga, anime, movies, and TV shows to watch. I've been plodding through a few of them at a time. But it will be a long time before I ever make a significant dent in it.
Japanese/Spanish - I've been trying to learn more words and phrases in Japanese. And I really gotta get back into Spanish. I should start looking up more words and remembering grammar.
Working out - Like Ellen, I've been trying to work on getting stronger. I wanna go rock climbing...
Research - I have a ton of websites and articles to look through, either to research for stories or because they look interesting. And I have several other topics that I need to look into more (especially Asian culture, for Katani's story).
Crafts - In addition to drawing, sewing, painting, sculpting, there are a few other random things I want to try making.
Music - Our band concert is coming up. I need to practice flute more. I forgot today. I want to continue improving my singing too.

I'm sure there's more things I'm not remembering.
But the list is rather overwhelming in its length.
Let's just say that I'll never be bored... for a verrry looong time.
I'm always taking little bites out of these different topics. So I plod through them at a very slow rate, since I have many of them going at once. I do pick a couple to focus on more though. Like right now (in addition to school stuff) it's my quilt and Katani's story. And a couple TV series.

Never give up, never surrender

Pffft, Tara if you want 10 blog posts a month go do it. You've also got some people to help out if you need it, don't be afraid to ask.

I've got a post today that will at least guarantee one additional post a month, because...

I was inspired

I just returned from teaching English in Japan for a year. And while some of them were your average students and some were lazy.
Some were just plain amazing.
Hence, why I was inspired.
I have seen students take out loans to learn English. Students who wake up at four am just to study. Students who study for five to six hours a day because they like to study English.
It's amazing.
Most of these students have a higher understanding of English than I do for Japanese (and I've been studying Japanese for over 20 years technically).  These people are amazing.  There are eight year old kids who speak better English than I speak Japanese.
To be honest, I really didn't study all that much when I was taking Japanese classes. For which I am now deeply ashamed.
But!
I've resolved to improve myself. To learn new things, to really polish the skills I have, to go out and have an adventure.
To those who know me they know I drop projects like hot potatoes.  Not only that if I'm tired of doing something and it's half done I throw my hands up in the air and say "Meh... good enough."
And for that reason it feels like I haven't accomplished much. I can say I've done a lot of things, but I haven't really accomplished them.
But that's all in the past now.
Like I said 'I was inspired'.
I'm not going to try to inspire you. There's no point. You'll be inspired when you are inspired, I can't make that happen.
But I will however provide a monthly update on some project that I'm doing. The projects may vary from month to month, but I'm going to finish them!

The projects are like this
Renaitia story
Super complicated romantic drama story (which may or may not turn into a steampunk thing, and not be so dramatic)
Hello World (android story)
When Worlds Collide (sci-fi/survival horror/fantasy story)
Straeza (adventure/fantasy/comedy story)
A futuristic story about gangs (subject to change a bit, but it's mainly a fighting/action/slife of life/comedy story)
Saecaria's music video
Getting my portfolio together
Improving my art
Making my own language
Improving my Japanese
learning either korean, chinese, or spanish
Get stronger (physically, mentally is good too)
(re)learn to program

Here's how I'm gonna do it
I've just finished working at a full time job, I've got nothing but free time. I'm going to use the time I would have used working at my job to work on these projects. But I can work on any of these projects, so long as I'm working on them.  From nine to five I will work (practically) non-stop and get things done. Of course I have other things I need to do, like getting ready for grad school. And naturally the important things come first. But! I will work on these things. And in time I'm sure I'll remember old projects that I have stashed away somewhere, and I will add them to this list.
I'll assign points to each project, a quest if you will. I've tried this before and it worked... for about five days.
But the problem with that was it was only one project, life happens, things get in the way, etc. I will get a calendar, one with a big square for each day, and I will cross out the days I do work. If I forget or I can't do it, so be it. I'll take a leaf out of nerdfitness and just say "never two in a row" (or something to that effect). There can even be overtime, so if I do something for longer than 9 to 5 then I can count that as my overtime hours which can amass to be a day off. One day a week off, seeing as most of my work is pretty fun and what I would be doing when I wasn't working when I had a job.  That and some of it is exercise, which will get me off my lazy butt.
Tomorrow I think I'll tackle improving my art and buying (or making) a calendar in the morning, and... checking up on my grad school stuff, contacting some friends about rock climbing or getting together, and studying some programming, maybe go running.
What're your plans for tomorrow? Work? Good go do that and then go do something fun that you enjoy and want to get done. School? Good go learn that stuff and then go outside and run around, it's good for you. Other commitments? Go do them get them done, then come home and unwind, read that book or watch that movie you've been wanting to see for ages. (See I'm not a total dictator, you can relax too)
Whatever it is you've wanted to do, go and do it.  I don't care if you're the busiest person in the world, you can certainly spare at least five minutes and just breathe, right?
It's late, I need to sleep and wake up early. I've got a full day ahead of me tomorrow. Do you? :)

Kon is no Longer Kon

So, after thinking about it a lot last night and today (during class) I now really like the idea of turning Kon into a lady. Especially since during my class today, we were talking about how the history of environmentalism is very sexist (and racist too) and how the evolution of our culture effects affects a lot of views on gender today. I'll write a blog post on this at some point, because we went over a lot of interesting stuff that I think would be interesting to discuss.
I have an idea now of what I want this "New Kon" to look like. I started sketching her out. I'll post the picture once I finish. But she has more of a guy-ish figure (broad shoulders, muscular arms, a not-too-girly face, shorter hair, and not much of a chest. So at first glance, she might look kind of like a guy (One of the kids at a summer camp I volunteered at said I looked like a boy. Heh).
I'm going to see what happens if I don't change her character, and just substitute a new gender and name. I'm curious to see if that will work.
Now I just need to go find a new name. Maybe I'll do that now so I can announce it on this post.
(Dashing off to look at Asian names. Ones that don't begin with K and aren't Japanese.)
....
Okay, that took entirely too long.
She is now officially named Shanka. It's actually a guy's name, which I like.
Kon no longer exists. There is only Shan (Shanka).
Now I'm off to start changing her appearances in the story.

!@#$!# Government

Usually I'm glad I live in America.
But sometimes I'm embarrassed to be ab American.
Like now. Right now our government is extremely embarrassing.
I'm not going to pretend like I have a good understanding of government. It confuses the hell out of me, and AP gov was probably my worst subject in school.
But I don't need to know much to know that people in government have stepped over the line. More than stepped. They've gone a few miles beyond the line.
Because some Republicans in the government don't like the new health care bill, they're shutting down the government. Even though this bill was voted in by a democracy.
Who knows how long the government will be dead.
But in the meantime, thousands of people don't have work to go to, parks are closed, a bunch of organizations are completely shut down.
The jerks who decided not to fund the government should all be sent to Antarctica, and shouldn't be allowed to come back. Because they're mad that they didn't get their way, they're destroying these next few days and weeks for thousands of people.
I hope none of them ever come back. We don't need them to run the country. We can find other ways to get things done that don't involve relying on nasty, selfish people who never give an inch for something that they don't like even if everyone else likes it.
And they're probably going to try to blame everything on Obama.
!#@$#@

Politics is pathetic.

(This has put me in a people-hating mood. In case you can't tell.)

Close

Considering that I've already got several months with under 10 blog posts, I should probably give up the 10 posts a month.
But I don't want to. TT^TT
It forces me to write things other than just my stories.

My classes are giving me ideas for blog posts, but they're mostly in-depth posts that will take a while, so I'm avoiding writing them.
I read my first Katani chapter in my creative writing class. I was actually really mad about how that went, because I turned the chapter in 3 weeks before I read it. And when I finally got to read it, less than half of the class was there! There were only about 10 people to give me feedback. And almost all of that feedback came from one guy (who I'd already talked to about my story).
#@$@#!
I just hope there's more people there for the next thing I read.
I have to turn in my chapter revision on Thursday, so I'd better get back to work on chapter 1 again. Sigh. I'm kind of sick of Chapter 1. That's the chapter that I've been over more than any other.
But the first chapter is the most important. So, I gotta do it.

The Star Boy

So, usually I don't spend too much time on my "future stories" when I already have a main story that I'm working on. But I do get random flashes of inspiration for these future stories sometimes, and that happened recently. And it happened for one of my more vague ideas, so now I have some more shape to give that story.
And once I got started, I found out how to link some of my other ideas into that story too.
Yaay!
Which all started with the idea of a new character. He's actually the spirit of a star that took on human form.
And - I'm so predictable - since he's not a real human I immediately got very attached to him...
XP
I'm working on a picture of him now, but I still need to color it. Hopefully it will come out decent.

And I'm still going over the debate about whether to make Kon female.
I am leaning towards that.
Sigh. It will mean changing so much stuff though...
But it worked very well for Toph. She started out as a guy.
My three viewpoint characters have a little too much in common (like how they're all males, and their first names all begin with K for some reason and... yeah. All of which just sort of happened without me thinking about it.
Changing Kon will help mix that up some, and hopefully get rid of some of the snags in the story.
Kon will need a new name too.
Every time I think I have all the names sorted out, I have to change something again. Bleh.

There are things that have been bugging me about Katani's design too. But I've been resisting those changes, for reasons that might not make much sense.
But it's stuff to do with his name and his families names and his appearance.
But all that stuff feels so fixed in place now. It hurts to change it! TT^TT

Thinking About Stopping....

So, as you've probably noticed, I am a big fan of taking public transportation. I've been taking the train to my class, even though it takes much longer and costs more than driving does.
But after yesterday, I just don't know if I'm going to take the train anymore.
I'm sure you remember 2 weeks ago, our train hit and killed a person.
Which was bad in many many ways.
And yesterday on the way home, exactly two weeks later, there was another huge, major delay. There was a fire near the tracks. Except this time it was during train commute time and caught up probably close to 10 trains. And, just like 2 weeks ago, we were stuck on the train for about an hour before they kicked us out again. At exactly the same station that I got kicked out at 2 weeks ago.
And so once again, my family had to drive waay down to pick me up as I waited outside in the cold, dark windy night.
Even with this happening 2 out of my last 3 rides, I probably still would have taken the train. I mean, theoretically those were just 2 freak accidents... that happened while I was riding.....
Except for the final blow.
The card ate my last day of rides that I'd paid for. The time that my pass was valid for was cut in half. No one had told me that in any way. Plus train tickets are more expensive every freaking semester. And I don't use my rides fast - just once a week.
It's all just absolutely ridiculous, and I don't know if I can take it anymore...
Why is our public transportation so horrible?

Kittens=Happiness

Thanks to the kittens at the Humane Society.
Nothing like playing with a bunch of fluffy, playful kittens to help you feel not quite so lousy.
Kittens should be readily available as a cure to... everything.

I'll hold off on complaining about bad drivers and how the people in charge mess with our awesome wildlife staff.
I hope I'm not getting sick on top of all the other crud...

I forgot what I was going to write about.
Oh, yeah!
Been writing... and I just started thinking. I wonder if I should make Kon a girl...
But then should I switch Thorn around too? I guess I don't need to change her though.
Sigh. Gender changes. So many things to consider before making my character undergo one... He'd need a new name too.

And then there's that moment where I realize "...holy crud. I'm older than Kon..."

So.... kittens!

(Ed is immune to kittens)

Gaah! Characters!

So, I'm at that same point where it happened before.
I've reached the editing point in my story where I really need to get the Green Team introduced.
During my first draft, I passed this point without realizing it. Instead of going back to add it in, I decided to finish my first draft and go back and add all the character development in later.
Except "later" is now.
Gaaah! There's too much!
Too many characters, and I need to introduce them all in ways that aren't lame, and that make everyone kind of start to bond.
And it doesn't help that the two characters I'm working on are hard to get across. One is incredibly quiet, and the other just kind of goes along with anything and doesn't really get excited about anything (usually).
But I don't just want to have totally random meetings and conversations between the missions. The meetings should have actual meaning.
But hooow? TT^TT
I'll probably send the Green and Red teams to a festival, which will help some. But I have to time the festival right. I want to do New Years. But in the story timeline, that's several months away. Plus I'm not sure exactly where to put New Years, since the Asian New Years is different from the European New Years. But in my world, everyone would celebrate New Years on about the same day. So I guess I could do a smaller festival thing on the Asian New year, and keep the big festival on the usual new year... or maybe visa versa?
I'd like to do a day of the dead thing too, possibly. Because I was thinking about working that in. Maybe If I go through with that, some of the other character stuff will fall into place. And some more culture stuff.
Sigh.
But either way, the festivals would still happen after most of the people had met already.
Which brings me back where I started...

Comic

Another attempt at a comic.
This is my least lame one so far.
Usually I get sick of drawing a bunch of people several times in a row.
I actually made an effort on the people.
Just finished yesterday after starting at least half a year ago.



So, let me know what you think.
This thing took far more effort than it should have. >-<

Trains

So, yesterday I was riding the train to class.
I noticed that our train was honking, and slowing down in an unusual place. Then it came to a stop.
Our train hit and killed someone.

Talk about being freaked out.
I guess it must have been suicide? Because it was in the middle of 2 stations, 2 miles from either of them. And it was a part of the track that was elevated and fenced off. No one could have ended up there by accident.
I wonder if they found out anything about it.

And then we were stuck in the train for over an hour as they got the body out from under the train and... I don't know. I have no idea why it took so long.
It was sort of fascinating to see all the different reactions.
Lie everyone started calling people, saying that they were going to be late. And there were calls in Chinese and German, and another language that I couldn't catch.
And then three guys sitting in the seats nearby started chatting. They obviously never met before, but they talked about school and work and stuff. I like it when people get to know complete strangers. We tend to not care enough about the people around us. And it's fun to talk and laugh with a person you don't know.
And there was a group of guys that were goofing off, teasing about why it took so long to get the train moving. They drew the conclusion (jokingly) that the medics had to try to revive the dead guy because he wasn't "dead dead," he was just "dead."
I actually could have gone to the next car down and seen the body, but I decided not to.
--_--
Apparently some people were taking videos of it...

So, lots of various reactions.
And it amazed me how "commonplace" the whole thing seemed.
"Yeah, another guy got killed by the train."

It's strange to me.

Finally the train moved on to the next station and kicked everyone out. So Dad picked me up and I drove to school instead.

The conclusion: I left before 12:30 to get to a 3:00 class. I was half an hour late.
And my story as to why I was late was shocking to my classmates. They seemed as shocked as I had been. Or, at least they showed their shock more than the people on the train did.
In America, one guy can mess up the schedules of a few hundred people who were relying on the train. Everyone was probably delayed by 2 hours or more.
If that delay had saved a life instead of taking a life, I would have been happy. But not the case. I still wonder why it took so long though.

Waste Plot

Okay, finally getting started on a new environment plot thing. Hopefully this one won't be too long.

This one's talking about Waste.
We waste a heckuvalot.
Waaaaaay more than we need to.
We buy sturdy cardboard and metal cylinders for just a few fake potato chips. Toys you buy at the store are encased in a veritable fortress of plastic. You get disposable Styrofoam cups at the coffee shop. And all of these things end up in the trash. And hey, at least you didn't litter. That's good.
But I've got news for you, people.
the garbage can is not the end of the line for that styrooam cup.
Fleets of garbage trucks have to come and haul all that krayp away to the dump.
And there a few things might happen to it. It might get buried of burned. In Japan they burn some stuff. In America they bury it.
Neither is a good solution.
Some stuff like paper isn't too bad to burn. But burning anything releases stuff into the air. And burning some things, like plastic, releases really nasty stuff into the air. But sometimes burning trash is used to generate energy, so that's something, at least.
Burying trash isn't much better. Obviously, it creates massive landfills (which no one wants near their homes). But the conditions in the landfills are such that the stuff inside never actually decomposes. You could find intact newspapers from when the landfills were first started. That trash isn't going anywhere.
Landfills often release methane gas. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon (though fortunately less plentiful). If landfills decided to put in the money and effort, they could collect this methane gas to burn for energy. But they usually don't.
But a bigger problem is leaching. Landfills generally have a layer of plastic (or something) beneath them to catch all of the nasty juices that drip off of all our trash. But those layers of plastic are underground, buried beneath mounds of trash. If there's a hole, no one would know. So all that nasty stuff leaches out of the landfills and into our ground water. This is one reason why it's really important to keep electronics and other toxic stuff (paint, oil, ex) out of the trash. Recycle everything you can, and dispose of everything else in proper ways.
Now on to recycling. Recycling is good. You want to recycle. A lot of garbage could be avoided if everyone recycled what needed to be recycled. Especially plastic.
Plastic is nasty stuff. So is styrofoam. That stuff never really decomposes. At least, not in any time that humans will see it. It just breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces and often ends up in oceans. Out in the middle of the ocean, there are huge patches of water where the plastic gathers. Little animals eat the plastic. And then bigger things eat those little animals that are full of plastic. So, plastic (along with other chemicals) build up in the bodies of bigger sea animals. Bigger pieces of plastic can entangle animals and strangle them, or drown them. Some animals think plastic looks like their food, so they eat it. Baby birds that are fed plastic can die of starvation because their stomachs get filled with bottle caps and garbage.
Keep your plastic in the recycling bin, where it belongs.
But recycling doesn't fix everything.
For example, disposable plastic water bottles. For the sake of every god in every culture, DON'T USE THEM! (Unless you live in a country with unreliable tap water). In America, tap water is actually more highly regulated than bottled water. So buy a reusable water bottle, and get a water filter.
Because when you recycle that plastic bottle, it does NOT go to making new bottles. It goes to making other stuff. So, they go on making new bottles of fresh plastic.
And there's a reason that the phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is in the order that it is.
The first thing you should do is reduce your consumption. If you don't need to buy that giant tube with a few pringles in it, then don't.
Reuse is second. Instead of throwing away that paper bag, use it for something else first.
Recycle is the last option after all of these. A good thing to do, but not the only thing you should be thinking about.

So, avoid products that have too much packaging. Don't throw away things that you can still use. And recycle everything that you can.

Well, that wasn't as quick and simple as I'd hoped. That figures. No wonder I've been avoiding these. @_@

So, using this in a story.
Pollution and litter are easy ways to go.
Maybe people live on landfills because there's no space anywhere else. Landfills would make excellent scavenging ground for people that are desperate. A lot of good stuff gets thrown away.
Maybe people use all the plastic floating out in the ocean to make a floating island to live on.
Yeah, I don't have many ideas this time. My brain is still stuck in "trash mode." I'll let you use your imaginations, and I'll add more ideas if I think of them.

Who's used this idea?
Ponyo
Future Boy Conan

Blog Neglect

I can't think of anything fun to write about on my blog. I could do more of those "environment plot" things, but those require a lot of thought. I want to write something fun.
I could complain about the wolverine anime, but I should probably stop talking about movies and series and such, since I seem to do that a lot. I guess I can justify it by using it to discuss sucess and failing of plot and character and stuff. Although I seem to analyze movies and series more than actual books. (But seriously... starting the anime out with Wolverine and Mariko exchanging sweet nothings... that just seems so not right... And Mariko just stares off into space the whole time, and then they go and kill everyone...) I know you told me it wasn't very good, Ellen, but I was curious. XD Wolverine's design was at least okay.
So, I'll spend more time stalling before I write more of those environment posts.

Battle of Thrones

Yeah, just because I didn't want to title the post "Game of Thrones."
Why?
....
I really have no idea.
Maybe I've just been seeing the title around too much recently?
So, yeah. I finally finished reading Game of Thrones today. After hearing about it forever
It took me freaking long enough.
It seems counter-intuitive that unless I have school, I read my own books verrry slooowly. So while I'm always in the middle of one or two books, unless I have class or something it takes me a long time to get through them.
This is because I always bring a book to school to read before class, and during break, and on the train, and everything. One of my teachers often teases how he never sees me without a book. As a matter of fact, I ran into him today and he said the same thing.
And while I have only one normal class this semester, it involves a very long train ride. And that train ride requires me to arrive an hour early.
Hence, I was finally able to finish Game of Thrones after starting it while I was in Japan.
It was good. Definitely very well written. And while there were certain parts I could have done without, I enjoyed it. The world and character sand everything were really well done.
#$!@#@! They killed him! I'll fly in there and kill that little snot face.
I was wondering about the eggs too. Although that was ultimately spoiled for me.
Hopefully it will magically make my own fantasywriting better.
So... I still have 4 shelves of books I need to read. I don't know how they keep multiplying, but I really need to get through some of them before they eat my closet.
So, on to the next one.

Slimming Down Posts

I've started going through some of my earliest posts.
It's pretty funny reading some of the earliest stuff that went on on the blog. ^-^ Back when other people posted regularly.
Staaaaare
O__O
O___O

^-^'
So, I've deleted a few posts already.
Mainly just stupid ones of me trying to figure out why my computer wouldn't post pictures to the blog. I tried not to delete posts by anyone else (though I did delete a few of Ellen trying to help me figure out all the picture stuff. Sorry, Ellen).
I'll continue looking through some older posts, but I probably won't get rid of too many more.
Though some day, I might go through a hyper delete. I'll see.

Clearing Out

Something I've been thinking about for a long time, but haven't done anything about yet.
I really want to go back and delete a bunch of my old posts. A lot of them area really lame and pointless.
Maybe I should go back and delete just a few right now. Once I get started, I'm more likely to continue.

I finished re-writing my statement for the grad program. I put it off for a long time. --_--
I should probably take it to school to have someone look at it though. I'm not sure what sort of stuff schools look for in these statements.

A Brief Reprieve, and Curses

So, finished the big test yesterday. I spent the entire day beforehand studying, and several evenings before that to boot. I actually have a couple of the scores already, but I have no idea what they mean. XP they sound good though, I hope.
I'm taking a class this semester, which will make the grad program easier once accepted (and I better get accepted, considering how much money I'm spending to take the class and that stupid test. >:l ).
And I really should be working on my statement for the application... but I think I'll slack off tonight and try to finish this chapter of my fanfic.

Oh, and after months of no ideas, I finally discovered some exclamations and curse words that I can use for my stories. I guess being in band, surrounded by music, helped me think of them? (Probably not, but it sounds nice). Now that I've got the hang of it, I can probably think of some more too. It helped reading descriptions about the explanations used in the Pern series. I checked out the guide to Pern from the library. I like books that explain how fantasy/scifi worlds work. I have a few of them. They're excellent reference and source for ideas. And they help you see what holes need to be filled.
Tomorrow is the first day of the creative writing class that I took last semester. The second semester works different from the first. I'll actually be able to focus on parts of my story to submit. Hope to get some helpful feedback.

Energy Plot 6: Bringing it all Together

After all that rambling about the different types of energy and their pros and cons, I'll start tying everything together in ways that can relate to stories.

With all of the energies I've discussed, none of them is the "right answer." The only reasonable way we can power our planet is to use a blend of all of these different energies. Though fossil fuels won't always be available.
And with a blend of energies, we use far too much energy in our modern lifestyles. If developing countries start using as much energy as more developed countries use, there may be no sustainable way to power the planet.

The future is a great place to play around with energy. Even if you're on a different planet or dimension, you should have an idea of where that energy comes from.
In one of my creative writing classes, someone wrote a future story, in which food and supplies of every kind were very scarce. But they had more than enough energy to go around. I asked about this, but the author had no answer. He hadn't really thought about it.
If you're far enough in the future with enough people, there's not going to be any fossil fuels left. Your people will have had to find a more lasting way to power their homes, and get from place to place.
There's a lot of power centered around energy companies. Fossil fuel industries have amazing power and influence on the government, and will do their best to destroy competing industries, like renewable energy. There's plenty of ways you could make use of that if you're writing about government.
There may be an energy shift going on. Some of the first cars were run on renewable energies, until fossil fuels convinced them to switch over to oil. Or maybe people are trying to switch back to renewables, like so many are today.
You can also set your story in a world that no longer has easy access to energy. Maybe only the top people can use energy, while most everyone else is left without? The Nausicaa manga uses this some, with most of the technology knowledge lost, and no real way to replicate it anymore.
What happens if the major source of energy for your people suddenly vanishes? No cars, lights, medical equipment, TV, anything. That would be bad.

And you can go with a totally fun and different route. Look at Monsters Inc.

Who's used energy plots?
Monster Inc

Studying... Again

So, in order to even apply for the elusive grad program, I have to take a big expensive test next week.
Which means I have to study.
Sigh.
It seems to be mostly math and English. But I haven't taken a math class in a long time. Gotta brush up on algebra. At least algebra was easy for me. Unlike pre-calc.
Siiigh. But if I'm studying, I can't write. --_-- I'm at a good part too.
Stupid expensive tests.
Hopeflly it will be one of those pushover tests. Hopefully.

But today Dad and I got back from a brief trip to the Sierras. Yesterday morning we saw wild horses. And like many of our other encounters with mustangs, it was pretty spectacular.
Wow. This morning I was climbing all over the granite boulders up in the Sierras. And now I'm studying for a pointless test and lobbying for letters of recommendation.

Thank you for visiting this post in which I whine about school.

Wanna Go Back

I want to go back to Japan.
Especially Nagasaki. For several reasons. It's not one of the huge tourist areas. And Ellen's apartment was in a great place - between the river and the beautiful mountain. And that great shopping street was right next to her building. And Iojima Island was soooo pretty. I want to go back and look for more beach glass. At a seashell store near here, they were selling unusually colored pieces of beach glass for really expensive. I should show them my collection of Japan beach glass. XD
And I miss how easy it is to get places in Japan. Japan's public transportation is sooo great.

So, I thought I'd discuss some of the unusual little things I noticed about Japan.
Just for fun. ^-^
Ellen, can you do one of these too? Since I'm sure you know dozens more little "oddities" about living in Japan.

The first day in Kyoto, I was walking around in a tank top. And I suddenly noticed that I saw NO bare shoulders anywhere. So I started looking around, seeing if anyone else was sleeveless. Then I saw someone without sleeves and went "Aha!" But it turned out that that person was a foreigner too. So, yeah. Apparently in Japan, people don't go sleeveless. Which I find odd, for a few reasons. First of all, it can be crazy hot there. And also, some anime girls are pretty scantily dressed... So cartoon girls can walk around in bikini tops and stuff, but real people don't even have bare shoulders.
Lots of cats. Wild cats, wandering around. Apparently people feed them all the time. Still, it seems like they should have some sort of spay+neuter program. All those cats are probably pretty bad for the songbirds. Most of the cats wouldn't let you get too close. But one guy with a bad eye wanted to snuggle for a while.
The wild animals were all pretty tame. Birds would just stand there as you walked up to them. Even bugs seemed pretty calm. I guess people in Japan don't chase wild animals or anything.
Oh, and they have these interesting cafés, that kind of work like vending machines. There's a little machine out front, and you pay and push the button of the meal you want. A little ticket comes out, so you hand it to the people in the café, and they give you your food.
And whenever you went to a place that sold noodles, you heard slurping. Slurping is polite. It's supposed to help you taste the noodles better. I tried to slurp. But I never did slurp as loudly as the people around me.
I started getting a little hand cramp after using chopsticks so often. >-< I've used chopsticks many times, but never as often all at once.

A Long Siiiiigh

Get home in the evening and think I have a few hours to work on my story.
Only to realize that I really have to start working on my grad program application...
So, goodbye, free time for writing. TT^TT
Somehow the website for applying here seems really unorganized compared to the other one I tried out for. Everything you need to know is scattered all over several different, unconnected pages...
Maybe I'll stop soon and try to get in at least an hour of writing.

Energy Plot 5 - Hydro, Biofuel, Hydrogen, and Geothermal

I should probably try to wrap up all these energy summaries.
Let's see if I can plow through them all.

Hydro
There are many different ways to use hydro power. Tidal and wave power aren't as well known. It involves setting up generators to harness the motion of the water - either by the rushing of the waves, or capturing water at high tide and releasing it. If these are designed and placed well, they can be a pretty good, clean, and safe source of energy. If they're designed badly, they could hurt or kill sea life and damage habitat.
Dams are the more common method - blocking up a huge river and letting water run through the generators to create power. It's a pretty clean method of generating energy, and it also provides a nice big reservoir for drinking water and recreation. Dams can also provide flood control for areas downstream. Plus, once the dam is built, it pretty much runs itself. So it's great for developing countries, if someone helps with the initial building costs.
But they have a lot of downsides.
They block fish from migrating upstream. They can build "fish ladders" to help fish get around them, but these aren't very successful. Dams are one of the many reasons the salmon populations are so horribly low right now - it prevents them from getting to their spawning grounds.
Dams don't last forever. Older dams are better off taken down than kept up. Eventually time will weaken them, and increase the risk of that dam breaking. Which would be a disaster for anyone downstream. And another problem that builds up over time is silt. Sediment washed downstream and builds up against the dam. All that silt is actually what creates many of the beautiful beaches along the coast. When that silt is trapped behind dams, it can't get to the oceans which means that beaches start to get swallowed up by the ocean.
And dams require a lot of space. All of that forest behind the dam will get flooded out. This can destroy some pretty beautiful habitat - like the Hetch Hetchy valley, which is described as being like a second Yoseimte. Any people that lived in that area will be forced to move. The Three Gorges Dam in China displaced thousands of people. Those people didn't want to move, but that's just too bad for them.
Here's another strange thing you can do with hydro power. If there's a solar plant nearby, you have a lot of energy during the day, but none at night. So you can use solar energy to pump water UPHILL into a reservoir. And then when night comes, you can let that water run back down hill again to produce energy at night.

Biofuel
Biofuel is basically just burning organic material to get energy.
So, that's great. Burn up some of our garbage so we don't have giant landfills all over the place. But not all garbage should be burned. Some things when burned release really nasty stuff into the air. Like plastic. Plastic's not good to burn.
You can also use ethanol and other refined fuels, which can be used in cars and such. It's a heck of a lot cleaner than burning fossil fuels. But it still does produce air pollution, and it doesn't hold nearly as much energy as fossil fuels.
Unfortunately a lot of the time, plants that are grown for fuel are not grown in an environmentally friendly way. I'll do a post about agriculture later on, but let's just say this for now. Burning corn fuel is cleaner than burning oil. But if the corn is grown at a farm that uses a lot of pesticides, fertilizer, heavy machinery, etc, all of the energy and resources that made the ethanol will be more destructive to the environment than if you just burned oil.


Hydrogen
There's a lot of hype about how hydrogen could the the "energy of the future."
So I'll just come right out and say it.
As of now (and as far as I can see) it takes more energy to create a hydrogen energy source than that energy source will actually provide.
But hydrogen produces only water as waste. So, if you use solar or something to create hydrogen batteries, that could be an efficient way ro run a car or something. But only if you use a renewable, clean energy to create those batteries.

Geothermal
Pretty much the only energy that doesn't come from the sun. You build a plant and use the heat from underground to generate power.
This is a pretty good source, but it's only available in certain areas.
The plants do take up land, but that's true with any kind of plant.

Ok, now that I got all this stuff out of the way, I'll discuss how it can be used for stories.

Price of Learning

Sigh. it's that time.
All the student loans have been coming back to haunt me.
Sooo jealous of my parents generation, where it was maybe, $50 dollars for a semester of college.
How has the student costs gotten so screwed up? #@$%!$!@ government.
They make it paying off the loans really complicated too. I though it was just one bill that I had to slowly pay off. Then another bill arrived from a different loan place. Now I'm wondering if there are others there that I'll have to worry about too... Especially since I don't know where to find out the total amount of what I owe (since it seems to be split up between at least 2 loan places).
And if that's not enough, I thought I'd paid off all the credit card stuff from Japan. But the same day I got that surprise student bill thing, Mom said that another credit card bill came from Japan. I guess I spent some more money after the cut-off date for the previous bill?
Gaaah! I hate money. And I hate trying to figure out who the hell I'm supposed to give my money to.
Guess what's going to get much worse if I get into that grad program?
That's right. Debt.
Wonder how far plushies will get me...
And I really wanted to try to get a PS3 so I could play Ni no Kuni. TT^TT
Not to mention I'll probably want a Wii U once more games come out.

Wolverine

I saw the new Wolverine movie today.

Spoiler warning.

The opening scene freaked me the hell out. Why? Because just a month ago, I was standing in that exact same spot where that bomb went off. The moment I realized they were in World War II, I immediately thought about the bombs. And then when I realized a bomb was coming, I immediately thought Nagasaki. And sure enough...
A constant stream of unformed swear words was going through my head.
After visiting the bomb museum and the epicenter... yeah.

The moment the movie started, I went into Fern mode. In other words, imagining myself as my shapeshifting alter ego, ready to go beat up bad guys. Usually I don't get Fern involved in other movies until I've seen them. But since I'm already attached to a bunch of the X-Men, it happened immediately. After all, X-Men was where Fern started.
And every time the bad guys attacked, I was thinking, "Stop shooting at them! I'm gonna fly in there and Imma keeeeel youuuu!"
Yeah, I'm very protective of the characters I'm attached to. I'm ready to jump in the screen and attack the bad guys.
Heheh... if only.
(I am sure I'm going to be very protective of Mewtwo when this new Pokemon movie comes out. Both that, and angry at the ugly new form they gave him. Don't mess with Mewtwo!)

Jean freaked me out. Because that's not the Jean I know. That person seems more like the Dark Phoenix. So I kept wanting her to go away. Bring the old Jean back! TT^TT This one's not reeeaal!

Then I started having fun.
Because Wolverine flew from Canada to Tokyo, just like IIII diiid~
And then the scene where they're eating dinner, Mariko says "Itadakimas." Which, if you don't know, basically means, "thank you for the food."
And Wolverine obviously thinks, "Oh. I guess I'm supposed to say that." And he says, "Itaki mouse."
I started laughing, trying not to be too loud because no one else in the theater was laughing.
And then Wolverine left his chopsticks sticking straight up out of the rice... twice in a row! Which I found hilarious because it was something I brought up with Ellen several times while we were in Japan.
Again, trying to stifle my laughter. It's probably only funny to people who knew this stuff before they saw the movie.
And when I saw him in a kimono, I started laughing again.

I've seen many train-top battles, but this one was on a Shinkansen! I got to ride the Shinkansen! Talk about a high-speed battle! Wahahah!

I was getting a kick out of the mix of X-Men and Japan. I'm still excited about my Japan trip, so I got really excited about everything I recognized. As if you can't tell.
And I got really excited when they went down to Nagasaki. I had no idea they'd be there, and I got very attached to Nagasaki while I was there.

Itaki mouse!

Final Movie Weekend Update

All the movie event stuff was wrapped up yesterday. Well... not much really happened relating to the movie.
I played with the girls some more, and met up with a couple of the girls from Family Camp. And I said goodbye to Easton.

And I passed the 100 page mark in editing my story. Finally.
Phew.
Though the further I get editing, the longer the story becomes. Since there's so much stuff I had to add.
And even after this edit, I'll have to rewrite almost all of the character interactions again. Since there's so many characters, it's hard to balance them all at the same time. But at least I'm getting a ton of other stuff sorted out.

Movie Release

So, I'm still a day behind on reporting this stuff. XP
Yesterday was the first public release of the movie Finding Happiness. There were so many people that they needed to use all three theaters.
They trimmed the film down some more, which made the movie better.
Although now only my shoulder appears in the movie. And there might be a shot with my headless body. Heheh.
Oh well. It was still fun to be there as an extra. And mom still shows up in a couple scenes.
I'm still interested to know what people think who don't really know about Ananda. I'm guessing that almost all of the audience was Ananda people. And I wonder if all the stuff we were laughing at would make a different audience laugh that much.
It's still fun being in a movie theater and seeing so many people I know on the screen. ^-^

Later in the day, there was a garden party at the Crystal Hermitage. All the film people were there, as well as Yogananda's great grand nephew. A bunch of people rented old-timey costumes, to replicate the garden party scene from the film. And the great grand nephew dressed up as Yogananda.
It was really funny to see David and a bunch of other people I knew in those fancy old style suits and dresses.

There were a couple other speeches after dinner. About getting the movie out to the public, and such. The cat came back as the choir was singing and walked across the stage behind all the singers. Heheh. That is an awesome cat.