Final Weeks

My J-term class ends on Friday. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm excited that we're going to be on break and that spring semester is coming, but I'll be sad to see the excessive amount of time leave.
More relevant, I'm also not sure how I'm going to feel about the final product of the class. If there's one thing I've learned about my own writing process, it's that the editing part is never done. I have a measly seven scenes - I originally had eight, but one got cut before it got typed up - but all of the editing won't help my nerves, in the end.  Does the pacing work?  Are the characters relatable?  Will anyone be able to pronounce Siofra's real name?  Am I using too many cliches?  Is the timing right?  The list goes on.

I know the reason that I'm getting nervous about it, too - more nervous than my other writing.  It has nothing to do with my peers accepting it as decent work - that was what I had issue with at the beginning of the course, a long time ago when I only had to write five pages.  At this point, the trouble is me accepting it as decent work.  When you spend just as much time editing a piece as you do writing it (more time, actually), you tend to worry about it.  If this were a longer work, it would be like a child.  You want the best for it, but sometimes it gives you hell.  A lot of times, actually.  Some things you love to go over, other things you fear to even glance at.

Though this is not my longest work - it barely counts as 30 pages, even with the title page, the character list, and the page-happy formatting that a script must follow - it's still causing me a bit of worry.  In comparison to some other people in the class, I think I'll do fine, and I don't mind how it's written, but sometimes I wonder how it would turn out if I had done things differently.  I could have killed my main character.  I could have made the future relationship of two of my characters less ambiguous.  I could have made one character more sympathetic to the antagonistic party.

When it comes to it, though, I'm glad I had the chance to do this course.  It taught me how not to format a script, and it taught me what to look at and what to ask when going through the editing process.

Character Stuff!

So, over the course of Winter Break, my character sheet for the Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I'm doing at school went missing.  This is rather irritating - not only do I have to re-invent my character from memory, I also lose valuable points (we started at a high level, and I had really good bonuses for my basic stats, which I lost).

This is also an opportunity, however, to reinvent my character.  I have learned through the course of the first episode of the campaign that Bards can be useless in fights and easy to hit (and one of the irritating things is that, in the course of re-doing my character's stats, I lost some Hit Points, so she's easier to hit).  Saturday's session was the last of this episode (think Star Wars), and our DM has said that the characters will have three years between the end of this episode and the start of the next one (the characters will do their own thing for three years; the actual group is going to meet up again in a few weeks).

In that time, we'll have the chance to level up our characters and give them any items we want.  We'll also have the chance to budge around our classes and feats if we want to - this means that my character, Anaïs, is going to get a new job, essentially, in addition to being a Bard, and will learn how to do a lot of cool things.

I used to hate character building, because it's a very tedious process (involving, among other things, a crap-ton of dice rolls and adding those rolls together, and that's just the beginning).  Maybe it's gotten easier because I'm not working from scratch on Anaïs, but it's a lot more fun now that I know a bit more about what I'm doing.

There are several books you can use for character building, but those normally just cover the basic classes, skills, feats, armor, and equipment that you can use.  The Player's Handbook is designed for the new kids who don't know how to set up a character.

Once you start getting the hang of what number gets what bonus on what, you can actually start looking into the cool things on the DnD wiki page, which is actually a lot of fun.

For example, now that I have the ability to cross-class my Bard with something, I decided that I was going to give her a few levels in Fighter - a warrior that's not as stupid as a Barbarian, but will still let me use more weapons and get cooler feats and class skills.  Then, however, I found out that the important stats to a Fighter were the stats that the Bards tended to do without.  Bards rely a lot on Charisma and Intelligence, and can do without Strength and Constitution; Fighters tend to rely more on Strength and Constitution than Charisma.

After looking on the DnD Wiki, I found a homebrew class that I really liked (homebrew means that Wizards of the Coast didn't invent it, but it's developed to work in a DnD-type campaign and available for public use).  It's called a Songblade, and it's a tactician/ fighter; it gives me the weapon usage I need while still using my good stat.

I'm starting to like character work. :)

Scholarship days and noobs

I noticed an email in my school inbox the other day - it was telling the students with cars where they could and couldn't park tomorrow.  A few of my friends are campus ambassadors (read: tour guides) and have to work tomorrow.  Why?

Tomorrow is a scholarship day - I'm pretty sure it's a day where professors interview potential students for the Presidential Scholarship.  I remember that it was sometime in January, and it was a really rainy and gross that day.  We listened to a sermon series on Harry Potter on the way down, and then I talked to an English professor about writing and some other stuff.  When I got here, I'm pretty sure she recognized me, but she didn't say much.

It's going to be interesting seeing the prospective students for next year.  Sometimes it's really easy to pick them out, especially on open house days when they are doing tours EVERYWHERE.  You can still sometimes tell when there's a tour going on, if only because you see one of your friends walking backwards and talking to people you don't know, usually at least one of whom is over the age of forty.  Sometimes it's easy to pick out potential students because the sports teams will invite potential players to hang out with current players for the day, or something.

Tomorrow, it'll probably be easier to pick out the new kids - since it's an interview day, a good number of them will probably be dressed up, or at least dressed in something nicer than street clothes.  That doesn't always hold, though - one girl I did a workshop with last year was wearing essentially casual stuff.

What's kind of interesting is that I'm pretty sure I sat next to a kid I now know enough to wave to when I see him.  He's deaf, and he had the signers with him.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.  It'll be really interesting to play 'Spot the Potential Student.'  Actually, it won't be interesting; it'll be really easy.  Just find the ones with the nervous expressions and/ or church attire.  They'll be the ones sizing up the dining hall with quick, nervous glances, and they'll probably be eating with parents or other kids their age.

I can't believe I'm calling them 'kids.'  Well, I've called a lot of people 'kids' since I worked at a summer camp last summer, but still.  These are high school students.  I'm barely a year older than most of them. Ah, well.

Snowball fights!

Last night, our campus got its first snow of the season (and of 2013).  Of course, being college students, some of my friends and I went out and had a snowball fight, complete with our friend Editor (her nickname), who is normally very sweet, getting really sassy and one lens on Romanov's (another nickname) glasses getting popped out after she took a snowball to the face.

Possibly the best part of the snowball fight was that it was on and near the football field.  The Dean of Students sent out an email earlier in the day saying that the lights would be left on until 10:00 PM, and that the football field would be a good place for a snowball fight (as opposed to Freshman Village, where a supermassive snowball battle took place last year; it resulted in broken windows, snowballed cop cars, and a few trips to the hospital).  He concluded the email with "YOLO," which kind of made my day.  It also made me wonder about the administration here, but that's another matter.

Anyway, those are the adventures that college students have, in case you were wondering.  I mean, some college students get drunk; some go to frat parties and have sex.  Editor is going to a frat party tonight, but (I think) she's only going because it's on her College Bucket List, and her roommate got invited, so she knows someone there.  We're going to play capture the flag tonight (or maybe it's hide and seek), and I'm pretty sure that it's going to be bigger than last time.

The best college memories are the most innocent: the ones that involve reliving childhood without alcohol, so we'll actually remember them.

another week of writing

I'm halfway through the second week of J-term now, and, for the record, J-term has come with a few surprises, not all of them bad.

Good things:
1. I have way more free time than I do during the normal semester.  If I don't want to go to the gym in the morning, I don't have to wake up until 9:30 or 10:00.  After maybe 1:45 or 2:00, when I'm done with class and lunch, I have almost nothing to do except homework until 6:00, which is our normal dinner time.
2. The spare time has led me to actually get to the gym, which is always nice (except when I get scared of judgement from the actual athletes).  Also, I actually have time to write for my class, which is nice, but I also tend to procrastinate on my own writing because of podcasts and yarn.  Nevertheless, J-term has been fun so far because of all the time I can actually use now.
3. Since I actually have time to do homework during the day and I don't have to wake up early, the evenings can be spent doing things other than sleeping (sleeping does get involved).  These new activities include Apples to Apples, Capture the Flag, Marco Polo (played on the football field and not in the pool), and Hide and Seek.  All of these activities have commenced at around 10:00 PM and proceeded until midnight or later, which is fine, because I can still get sleep.
4. The course itself is really interesting - though it is a workshop class, the feedback really helps with what I'm writing.

Bad things:
1. Though the class is fun and I like that I get to write, sometimes the peer editing aspect can get kind of irritating.  Don't get me wrong: I do like to read and comment on other people's writing, as well as receive feedback on my own.  However, quite a few people in my class seem to be unaware that Spelling and Grammar check is correct on many occasions (there are times when it is incorrect, but when one is in college, one should be able to tell the difference).  Sometimes I have to edit my classmates' grammar and spelling as I read their work because it can get rather distracting.
2. Sometimes having all of the extra time can get kind of boring.  Though it's easy to find ways to pass the time, afternoons can get long, tedious, and unproductive.


In all, though, I'm glad I took the J-term class that I chose: at the very least, it shows me how not to write a script.

Homework...

Well, I got homework on the first day of J-term.  For once, I am actually kind of excited about doing my homework (being excited about doing homework?  Yes, that can happen. Who knew?).
As I may or may not have mentioned, my J-term course is called "The Playwright's Process," where the final is a one-act that is fully written, edited, and thought out.  This is turning out to be (in the one class I have attended of this course) more of a workshop environment than one of instruction - there will be a lot more peer editing than I expected, and a lot less of the professor saying, "LET ME TEACH YOU HOW TO WRITE A ONE-ACT!"

About an hour ago, I went to have a meeting with my professor about my one-act - everyone has to, just to brainstorm ideas about what each of us is going to write about.  From that, the professor has given us each an assignment that is supposed to help us figure out what we are going to write about further (at least, that is what is happening for mine, because I need to work some details out).  I have to do two scenes: first, a scene in which the murder victim is the main character, and has to persuade the murderer not to kill them; second, a scene in which the being tasked with the murder is the main character, and, to maintain the secrecy of their mission and society, they must convince a relative of the victim to kill the victim.  This is supposed to be to help me decide which side I want to focus on - the secret society, or the being who investigates it (and who may or may not wind up dead).

So far, I think I like this course.  The professor is interesting, and the discussion today really helped with just generating ideas.  I came in with half a plot I threw together in ten minutes, but came out with something that I can actually work with (I'm not saying what it is, because I haven't finalized it yet, but I'm excited).  The main parts of the story - a secret society and a murder - are things that I don't normally write, because I feel that I'm really bad at coming up with plot twists and good reasons for a secret to be kept (she did once say that a secrecy motive I suggested was boring, which is really true.  I don't remember what it was, but I remember agreeing with her).

Anyway, I have to go forth and do cool stuff.  Farewell.

2013!

Well, so far into 2013, I have not done very well in any of my resolutions.  Though I am moving more than I might have during school, I still do not feel like I am moving around enough.  I am still on break and I will be until Sunday; I also have a feeling that on Sunday, when I get back to school, I will start remembering what I said I would do and I will start acting on it.  Though I have done some knitting, I have been mostly working on a commission that is due when I get back (or a few days after), and it is not big enough to be called a 'huge project.'  As for my writing, I have only written one page of anything so far.  I need to work on that.
Right now, stuff is just not very interesting.  I have been knitting.  I have been reading a little bit.  I have gone on long walks and tried out new drinks at Starbucks.  I saw Les Miserables, the movie (I have a love/hate relationship with the movie; I adore the show, but I truly wish that Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe each could have had a better balance between singing and acting.  Hugh Jackman could act but struggled with voice; Russell Crowe was mostly good with singing at the cost of his acting).  Mostly, however, my activities during the holiday have consisted of sleeping late, watching junky TV, and knitting and crocheting a lot.  I saw a few friends and hung out with my boyfriend a bit, and did a college panel at my high school about the application process (for the upperclassman parents who were terrified about their child's college stuff).
So, fair readers, what have you been doing?