There have been a number of articles this year about safety concerns at the zoo, as well as the rampant nepotism. It's a big paper, and there's some really scathing stuff. But there's still a few big things I'm surprised they left out. And still, the useless director keeps her position (paying herself well over 300,000 a year, even though she doesn't do anything, and I've never heard anyone say anything good about her).

But people are still working at it, so hopefully she'll be ripped off of that throne she so abuses.

Language is Confusing

My brain has a very strange way of dealing with languages. It has an "English" switch and a "non-English" switch. 

Despite the fact that I know some Spanish and Japanese, my brain enjoys mixing them up. For example, here's one I caught myself thinking. 

Vamanos is "let's go," in Spanish. 

And in Japanese, "shouka" is a suffix for "shall we?" So for example, ikimashouka would be, "shall we go?"

In my head, I made up "vamanashouka." 

I'll also end up tacking "ka" at the end of Spanish words, because in Japanese that would make it a question. This is what I get for switching back and forth between language studies.

If that's not bad enough, I've also been known to pronounce English words wrong if I've recently been studying other languages.

Once I went out to dinner with some people, who at the time were friends. It was a Chinese restaurant, and I wanted to order chow fun. but when I ordered it, I mispronounced it. And everyone at the table jumped on me, exclaiming in disgust that I'd pronounced it wrong. I was so pissed at them. I like chow fun and had never pronounced wrong before. But because I'd been studying Japanese, it just came out wrong. And they all leapt down my throat, making me look like a total loser in front of the server. 

I pronounce English words wrong if I've been studying Japanese. Let alone Chinese, which I know only a few words of.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a vent. But if I mess up a language (including English), this may be why.

Story of my Life

After my trip to the Amazon, I got a machete. They just looked so useful for whacking through thick bushes. And it's handy for some types of garden work.

I was using it earlier today. Normally the machete would be the most dangerous thing in that scene. But not for me. I don't hurt myself on the machete. Instead I slice my finger open on the branch I'm cutting from. And it bleeds all over my hand. So if you see blood on my machete, it's not the machete's fault.

I Hope I've Moved Past This Point

When I wrote the first draft of Katani's story, I didn't yet have any grasp of the culture he lived in. It took a long time, many drafts, and lots of research to go back and make the culture actually fit into the story (I haven't looked at his story in a long time though, so I'm not exactly sure how WELL it fits). 

It was a pain. It shouldn't have been a problem again. It wasn't really for Ashlyn's story, but  her culture is a lot closer to what I grew up with (with a few significant differences). 

Then it was a problem again. The first draft of Evva's story didn't really include any culture. I know nothing will be perfect in a first draft. But culture should at least have some role. It has such a huge impact on the characters and world. I'm hoping that I did a much better job working the culture into Evva's story. 

I only have one draft of Rinn's story so far (I've mostly been ignoring it because it's kind of a beast to work with, thanks to its insane timeline). But I think at that point I actually FINALLY started thinking the culture into the first draft. At least the basics of it. And some of my short stories I've written have been the same.

 Let's hope I've outgrown the point where I have to work culture into a totally culture-bare story @_@

Though I will always have to study those cultures. And hopefully find people who can help me see if I did them accurately. 

Giraffe seen from below

Museum Ideas

In Peru, I took a ton of photos in the museums, both of artifacts and their descriptions. That way I could look at everything, and then come home and read all of the information when I had plenty of time.

And as I was reading through it, I got some great ideas! Some of the signs had information about some Peruvian magic systems. The magic in my stories is largely based on magic systems around our world. So finding story ideas was an unexpected bonus in my museum visit!

(I waited a couple years to get this shot! He never went near those flowers at any other time)

I Vote We Keep Them

There have been so many amazing sets built for movies. Like The Borrowers, where they made a kitchen, but everything was giant. Or Lord of the Rings, where they built whole kingdoms, and then had to remove every trace from the landscape. 

(I don't think they actually built the whole of Gondor, but they built Rohan!)

I think most sets are demolished when the film is done. A lot of artwork and props get trashed too. 

But wouldn't it be so awesome of they kept those movie sets? Made them into shopping areas? Or even apartments or something? I suppose they wouldn't be built according to those codes. But it seems like such a waste for all that amazing work to go to waste! 

Dragon Jaws and Castle Feasts

One of my current low-key long-term projects is to steadily go through my movie collection and watch the bonus features. I love seeing how things are made. 

The latest is Dragonheart. It came with a whole little documentary on how the movie was made. And while I've always loved the movie, I now have a new appreciation for it. 

I always love when writers and movie makers try to make things accurate. For the castle, they followed the historical information for the region the movie was set in. For example, the feast scene - where the king sits in a certain place, and he gets the "upper crust" of the bread. And many of the movie props are real historic artifacts.

Beyond that is Draco. I'd heard people say how impressive his computer graphics are, considering when the movie was made. Indeed, he still looks good even by today's standards. 

But I never really realized how long ago they made him. Before Dragonheart, the only big CG beings were the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. And they weren't really character, but more scary things to run from. Draco was the first CG character, with dialogue and expressions, etc. And they did an amazing job.

For the scene where Draco goes to eat Bowen, they built a huge dragon mouth XD

I always thought they should have imprisoned Einon. Then Draco could have been okay.

As it is, when I watch the ending, I go, "but he's such a good boy" TT^TT