NaNoWriMo Approaches! (again!)

On Sunday, I will once again be writing a novel in 30 days (or trying to, anyway). This is my sixth year doing NaNoWriMo, and it may be my last for a while - simply because, if I'm successful, I'll have three full first drafts of novels, but only two-thirds of one of them actually typed up. I love NaNoWriMo, but I also need to fiddle with my drafts to make them less drafty if I want to get them published.
So time to do my last NaNoWriMo (for the foreseeable future) with a bang. I'll be trying to update 5-7 days a week, but, as last year, if I get on a roll and can't update every day, I hope you understand.

This year, my novel is a post-fairy-tale sort of thing: what happens after Sleeping Beauty wakes up?

Yea or Nay: Pumpkin Spice Latte

Over Fall Break, I was able to try the Pumpkin Spice Latte for the first time I can remember. I may have ordered it before, but if I did, I don't remember it.
Because, dear readers, I may have a controversial opinion about the Pumpkin Spice Latte (considering that I identify as a white female between the ages of 16 and 23): I don't really like it too much. Furthermore, it's not the most pumpkin-spice-y coffee that I've ever had, nor is it my favorite pumpkin spice thing ever.

First, my favorite pumpkin spice coffee is the one at my local coffee shop. I usually order coffee with caramel syrup in it, and the coffee beans are flavored, rather than having the added flavors in the syrup. Because of that, you get more of a "pumpkins and spices and caramel and coffee" type of flavor, rather than "pumpkins and sugar and maybe a spice thing?"

Second, my favorite Pumpkin Spice anything is from Bath and Body Works. The Pumpkin Cupcake Hand Soap sold there had become almost problematic for my roommate and myself. We didn't want to destroy it by any means - we wanted to eat our hand soap. We didn't eat our hand soap, but we wanted to.

What, dear readers, is your favorite pumpkin spice thing? Is pumpkin spice overrated? Should Apple Cinnamon Caramel be a thing instead?

I'm back... with words...

I know I haven't posted in approximately forever, but here we go - I'm finally posting something! YAY!
As we go into NaNoWriMo season, I have to think about words a lot. This post is about why I don't like the word "cute" being used super often - in certain contexts, I understand that something definitely is cute. Babies are cute. Kittens and dogs and fluffy animals are cute. But overuse? That's a completely different manner.
There are a few reasons for this. The simplest is that I don't like "cutesy" things (except for kittens and puppies), and using the word too often out of that context is kind of irritating. When I was 17, I got the chance to go to Switzerland with my Girl Scout troop. Nearly everyone there used the word "cute" at least three times a day (or so it seemed). Couldn't they think of another adjective? Is something "adorable," or "picturesque," or "super sweet," or ANYTHING? WHAT KIND OF CUTE DO YOU MEAN? Sometimes they didn't mean "cute" at all, but it was a go-to adjective to describe anything that the individual user liked - my mom was particularly fond of this usage of the word. (I've been guilty of using go-to adjectives as well; mine have often been "awesome" or "cool.") When my mom and I went with my friend and her mom to Italy after the program was over, I made a deal with my mom - every time she would say "cute," she would pay half a euro.
This frustration with the usage goes a little bit farther back than just that trip, though, and a little bit more than just being my mom's go-to adjective. Earlier that same summer, I went to a two-week Shakespeare camp with an abridged performance at the end. There were three groups of kids: the really young kids were maybe 9-11 years old; the middle schoolers were maybe 12-14, and the high school kids (my group) were 15-18. Each group had different "classes" during the day - acting, movement, stage combat, and text analysis, as well as a two-hour rehearsal at the end of the day. The final performance varied depending on the age bracket - the little kids did short scenes and monologues, the middle schoolers did a history play, the high school kids did a tragedy. During our session, the show was Romeo and Juliet.
This being a summer camp, people rarely played the same role for more than a scene or two. Every girl played Juliet, and most played the Nurse and Lady Capulet as well; every guy played Romeo, as well as a few girls. There were sometimes cross-gender castings; I played Tybalt and killed Mercutio (and then died).
That particular scene was my favorite. It's one of the only times I've truly felt "in character," which is difficult psychologically to explain if you've never done it. When Tybalt gets stabbed, Wild Card's brain knows that M is a nice guy. Wild Card knows that this is exactly how the scene is supposed to go. But for a minute, all that was in Wild Card's brain was Tybalt thinking, "YOU ASSHOLE YOU JUST STABBED ME!!!!"
When Tybalt gets stabbed, there's a moment of tense silence; all the cheers die out. That was the moment I thought Romeo was an ass. Then I was ready to smite Romeo - one flesh wound can't kill me! (It did.)
At the end of the performance, one of the directors whispered, "you're such a badass." It was gratifying to think that someone else - especially a director - thought I had actually fought well. When I asked my parents what they thought of the performance, my mom said, "It was cute."
No. The 9-year-olds overacting Shakespeare is cute. Puppies are cute. Kittens are cute.
One of your child's directors thinks she's a badass. The other director thinks your child should apply for Yale's theater department. Your child just got stabbed in one of the best fights they've done to date and you think it's cute?
Again, it was my mom's go-to adjective. She wanted to confer positive sentiment, which I appreciate. It was also a time when I wanted to be anything but cute - I had just gotten a second-degree black belt. I didn't want to be cute.

Writing Things

This semester is one of the few times I was assigned a book from high school, and then got assigned the same book in college. I've been assigned Othello twice before - once in senior year of high school, and once when I took a Shakespeare class.

This time, the book is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Reading this book again is quite an interesting experience - if only because I can now say "I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE!" while reading the book. It's not necessarily referencing other literature - it's referencing mythology, death, and yarn - often at the same time!

Obviously, when there's a crossover of three of my favorite things (yarn, mythology, and literature), I get excited.
Then I get nervous.
If this is an eligible idea for my capstone - the 20-page paper at the end of the semester - it has to be original. How many other people understood the same reference I did? How many writers would have made the same argument as I would?
These are the things that worry me.

Home

Home. You'd think four letters would be easy to define. There are definitions in the OED and plenty of other dictionaries, but it's not just "The place where a person or animal dwells," as the first definition in the OED suggests.
For me, home is where I feel safe and provided for. Of course, that applies to the place where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, and where I go during breaks from school. For the first two years of college, that also applied to whatever dorm I was living in, with the exception of two incidents in freshman year and one incident as a sophomore. To quote Pumbaa from The Lion King, I thought that "home is where your rump rests." That had always applied to me.
Last year was stressful, and not only because of classes. There were issues with friends, and my roommate's negative attitude started to affect my own: negativity is not something that's conducive to feeling at home.
So, for me, "home" is more than just where you go to sleep at night. My roommate this year still says that she's "going home" when she visits her parents every other weekend (they live very close), and I still say "I'm going home to work" when I have shifts at my ghost tour job. Do either of these instances count less as "home" than Room 129? Furthermore, when does Room 129 become more "home" than the houses our parents live in?
WILL it ever count as more "home"?

As I look to the future and when I will eventually have to move out of my parents' house and find a place of my own to stay, when will that place start feeling like home more than my parents' house? When I pay my own bills for eighteen years? When it's a place where I feel totally safe, and alone-but-not-lonely? When it's a place I've built up a life in?

There are some people who are turtles, and carry home on their backs. Maybe it's just easiest if I become one of those people.

This. Is. Senior. Year.

I sincerely apologize for neglecting the blog these last few weeks. I will attempt to resume posting three days a week - Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I may post more or less than that, but we'll see.

This has been an interesting start to an academic year.

British Modernist Fiction involves analyzing James Joyce and realizing he mostly writes about religion, internalized misogyny, religion, politics, the steady march of time, and stage mothers.

Creative Nonfiction is memoir-writing. So far, I have written about How I Learned To Knit, and learned that my childhood recollection of How I Came To Harry Potter is a complete lie, and Why That Is Okay.

Greek History covers mostly the ancient periods, from the bronze age to the Classical era. This is maybe 3000 years, but we just passed the Dark Ages. They were called that because there is no real writing during the Dark Ages, so there's only Linear B fragments and myths of the Trojan War. There's also Heinrich Schliemann, who went on an archaeological dig for Homer's Troy. He dug too far and what could have been Homer's Troy is lost forever, and the artifacts were in Heinrich Schliemann's trash bins. Don't be Heinrich Schliemann.

Greek Philosophy is exactly what I expected. Lots of reading in dead languages about Plato's obnoxious word usage. It's actually really cool to learn the concepts he was trying to argue about - there wouldn't be Christianity if Plato didn't introduce the concept of the soul, for example. In Plato's day, there were good people and bad people, and what you see is what you get. It's perfectly justifiable to hurt those who have hurt you and help those who have helped you. But, Plato argues, is it not possible for good people to make stupid mistakes, and for bad people to act good? YOU MEAN THAT PEOPLE ARE COMPLEX???!!!??? THANKS, PLATO.

Communication Ethics hasn't gotten to too many topics yet. It'll be interesting to see the debates that spring up when we actually start getting into case studies, like Edward Snowden and Rolling Stone's UVA case last year.

Sooooooooo those are my classes. See you Wednesday!

Things I Learned This Summer

Well, I've moved into my room at school, almost all my textbooks are in, and classes start on Monday. This means only ONE THING: that it's time for Wild Card's List Of Things She Learned This Summer!

It is Acceptable to Have Fun at Your Older Brother's Wedding

It's supposed to be a good day. And if it is, HOORAY!

Try to Get a Summer Job

Even if it's working retail, you'll get some money and learn how to handle a lot of personalities and some kinds of stress that you may not be used to. If it's something you enjoy, like dressing up and telling stories, then even better!

Find Your Happy Place

I think this factors into a lifetime of work - if you can tolerate it most days, then HOORAY. If it's in a place you like, HOORAY!

If You're In a Position of Power...

During Gather at the River in early August, a particular bishop showed up. He has, apparently, a past filled with actions raging from "problematic if you look too hard" to "affecting at least one person's ordination process." He was not a welcome figure at Gather. But he came. And it was tense. But he said that he needed to hear what had been said.
I don't know much of his history with the LGBTQIA+ community, aside from his problems with it, but showing up at Gather at all had to take a lot of guts. If he was so moved, it can't have been for nothing.

Find A Good Series To Invest Your Fangirling Into

You don't have to watch or read EVERYTHING that gets recommended to you. You CAN, however, find a few things to geek out over if you want to. It's perfectly acceptable to find one or two REALLY GOOD THINGS.
It's also okay to move on from those things.
It's okay if those things are not the mainstream fun things. Just make sure you can summarize them for people who ask.

All-Nighters Suck

I think there's a reason that I don't study past 1:00 AM, as a rule. That reason is that all-nighters are AWFUL. They throw off your sleep schedule, and being tired and in class is not a good combination.






So these were just some of the things I learned this summer. If you learned anything cool, leave it in the comments!

Why I Won't Date A Vampire

Okay, so seeing as I've basically only read a vampire romance this summer, I'm going to take an opposite tack. Though Vampire Romance has been been propped up as a Thing to Definitely Do, I'm going to present some reasons Why I Won't.
This is taking into account the following information:
- the vampire in question is a male, at least 500 years old and 20s-30s at time of rebirth
- the vampire in question is stronger and faster than the normal human, and has a much lower body temperature
- the vampire in question does, on occasion, consume human blood to survive
- the vampire in question does not have an issue with sunlight, because that was invented fewer than 500 years ago

WHY WILD CARD WON'T HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH A VAMPIRE

1. RESIDUAL PATRIARCHY

Since this vampire is a male and passes as someone between the ages of 18 and 39, and probably first came into the world at a time when the patriarchy was all too rampant, he probably still has some of this thought process internalized. I understand that, to a degree, but I don't want to have to explain why feminism is a thing every single time I make a Big Kid decision without consulting my dad or brother or imaginary vampire boyfriend. I don't want him to assume that I'm going to bear his child - if that's biologically even feasible for us - just because I'm (presumably) a fertile female above the age of consent.

2. PHYSICAL INFERIORITY

I can't stand feeling like I'm weak. I KNOW I'm not the strongest person ever in any capacity - sometimes I still cry at shows and movies, and I can no longer do 300 push-ups in a day. On the other hand, I like to be able to do things for myself and carry my own weight when I must. In these situations, I often like the distribution of duties to be about equal. If a vampire is stronger and faster than I am, I'll start to get hard on myself for not being able to keep up, even though I know that I physically can't go at a vampire's pace. I don't want to deal with that. If it's a human who's a bit faster than me, then that's a challenge. If it's a vampire's pace, then that's impossible and I don't like acknowledging that impossibility.

3. INTELLECTUAL INFERIORITY

Since this vampire is at least 500 years old, he probably knows a whole lot of things about a great variety of subjects. This vampire could know LITERALLY EVERYTHING about history since he was born; for that reason, I would go on A SINGLE DATE (or A SERIES of dates) with him to pick his brain about Galileo and other important people, but I wouldn't like knowing that I'm the comparatively idiotic one of the pair. 

4. BLOOD LOSS

This one is kind of debatable, depending on how much human blood this vampire needs to survive. I don't want to put my own life at risk because I'm on my period and he hasn't fed in a while. (I assume we both would be able to tell these things and plan accordingly, but what if menstrual fluid is too close to actual blood? I don't want to think about these things; I assume no author does either, and that's why it's never addressed.)

5. MORTALITY

Let's get something straight: if I meet a vampire, and I got the chance to become immortal, I don't know if I would take it. Sometimes I need to have a "YOLO" mentality in order to be more productive than getting a high score on Candy Crush. I also get a bit of inferiority if I feel I'm "too bad" at something for too long. I know that growing old is the only way I'm going to get anything done with my life, but this person is 18-39 PERMANENTLY. Not only will I probably be jealous of his eternal good looks, but it will feel wrong if I'm 80 and in a romantic relationship with someone who looks 27.

The Impending End Of Summer (and college)

My last move-in day is fast approaching. In a week, I'll be at school again. I've never moved in at the 'normal upperclassman time' - I've always moved in around the same time as the freshmen, so I can help them get their things into their dorm. People did it for me, once, and now it's time to return the favor, three times over.

It's weird - this time three years ago, I was scared about what was on the horizon. I have similar feelings now, but for different reasons.

Then, as now, I was worried about what the future held. Would I like college? Would it be awful? Would it be amazing?

Now, I worry about what I'm going to do after college. Grad school? Work? If so, what job? What grad school? What program in school?

It's not like choosing is going to affect my future or anything. I was raised by an economist. I know about opportunity costs.

The fact of the matter is, I've always been the kind of person who dislikes the process of change. Often, once change has come I like the results. It seems I don't like being the instigator of change in my own life. I didn't break up with someone when I could. I didn't try for jobs when I could have. I can't stand putting myself forward for jobs. If I don't get over that, of course, I have to work retail the rest of my life. Nothing against retail, of course, but 10 hours a week doesn't pay anybody's bills, and doesn't help my goals.

Not that I have any goals.

So as I go into the last weeks before my last first day, I have a lot of thinking to do. About myself. About my future. About my writing. About a lot of things.

Hi again!

Hello awesome people. Wild Card is out of town, so she asked me to fill in for today. Yesterday, I finished reading Hungry, and I'm currently reading Thirteen Reasons Why. You can check out my review for Hungry here: http://booksmoviesandmore.net/2015/08/07/hungry/