Monday, December 29, 2008

Back?

I don't really have much in the way of interesting to post, but it's been a while, so I figured I would.

So one of my friends has been "planning" (something she's really bad at) an "XBox soiree" (a term she insists on using) and has finally managed to set it for Thursday. It'll be me, her, my best friend who I'm in love with but she's straight, and a couple other friends. We're going to watch Almost Famous because it's an awesome movie and she's never seen it (something I've decided is a cardinal sin), and then we'll play XBox until our eyes and hands mutiny and our bodies decide to devolve into something without opposable thumbs.

In other news, I just found out that I need to include a synopsis of my novel in my cover letter. Fun. Hopefully I'll get that done tomorrow. And just as a heads up, if I actually manage to get signed by this agent and get published, I am going to freak right out. There will be an uncharacteristic amount of hugging.

Speaking of hugging, cute friend-of-friend girl I go to school with got all excited because on the last day of school she "got a hug from the un-huggable person". Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope she's not straight.

And as you'll probably be able to tell, I'd forgotten how much I love post labels.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Today was...weird

I can't think of any other way to describe it. Everyone seemed a little off today (even me, probably). Hopefully tomorrow'll be back to normal. Because tomorrow I get to give out Christmas presents! Huzzah.

I spent half the day square dancing ><. The caller guy is at my school for the gym classes and any class can go down too, and two of my teachers decided it'd be a good idea. The first time I ended up with some freshman who was in gym class, but it was nice that he actually knew what he was doing (whereas I had no clue what I was doing...). And the second time was fun, because there were actually interesting people there. But my partner kept running off to put stuff away/get stuff. It was actually kind of fun to watch him sprint back across the gym to get back before we had to do something.

Time to go decorate the Christmas tree!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

C’est étrange...

J’ai lu un comment sur le site de NaNo qui m’a mis en colère, mais le comment n’est pas importante. J’ai commencé à penser en Français, et je peut pas cesser. Quoi, suis-je Québecoise? (C’est une blague. Ce n’est pas drôle, mais c’est une blague.)

Mon Français est terrible (si vous ne le pas connaissez déjà), donc j’ai besoin d’un solution. Comment puis-je recommencer à penser en Anglais?

Taber-fucking-nac

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Start the clock...

(autosave posted late due to IE freezing)

I have until June 1st to write a novel, start to finish, editing and everything, if I want to get a free proof copy of it from CreateSpace. I've got a plot and some characters and I started on the draft today, and I'm hoping I'll get it ready in time. In the meantime, I've amassed photos of people who look like my mental images of my main characters. Be warned: there are 7 models on DeviantART who are practically being stalked. You just may be one of them. I have anywhere from 2 to six photos of each character.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Chem is turning out to be a dangerous class

I was prepping for the lab demo I have to do for my presentation Friday at lunch today. I'm doing a flame test, so I pretty much just light metals on fire and see what colours they burn. Anyway, I was making sure the calcium worked, and I had a little chunk on the loop, and it was turning the flame from the butane burner a nice pretty purplish-red, and then all of a sudden it friggin' exploded and there was this insanely bright flash of light (if you've seen magnesium burn, it's like that but just for a split second and purple instead of white) that I did not see coming.

During the lab prep, I also spilled lithium chloride solution on my hands. By the time I got out of the lab I had about five minutes left to eat lunch, so it was either wash my hands and starve or just suck it up and eat. Lesson of the day: lithium chloride is really, really gross. It is disgusting. Don't ever eat it. Don't ever get it on your hands, rub it on an apple, and eat that. Seriously.

Finally, during actual chem class, we were making Christmas ornaments with pipe cleaners and solution stuff that makes crystals grow on them, which involved boiling water on a hot plate. And, of course, since I was having such an amazing day already, I accidentally touched the edge of the hot plate (which was cranked all the way up and had been on for a while, maybe 5-10 minutes) with the back of my little finger, and now I have a lovely burn that hurt like hell every time I got masking tape stuck to it during art class.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Falling apart

Physically, not mentally. Although...

I'm pretty sure it's cluster headaches I've got, although it's not like I'm qualified to say for sure, but the diagnosis is made based on a time pattern which I know the headaches fit, so...yeah. And now I'm starting to think I have some problem with something, I don't know if it has something to do with metabolism or blood sugar or blood pressure or something else, but this morning I had to do a bit of running when I realized I'd dropped my gloves, had to run halfway back to my house and then all the way to the bus stop and ended up feeling really light-headed and a bit nauseous and could barely move/breathe. I ate breakfast, but being a small person, I don't eat that much (I get full really easily, I'm not anorexic). I rarely have any energy, and when I do it's not for long, and apparently I can't jog for a whole...30-60 seconds without wanting to collapse in an exhausted heap...

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Well, that's depressing

So there's this girl. And she's all kinds of straight (well...no, I suppose there's just the one kind). And she's a really good friend of mine. And I can't get over the fact that I'm totally in love with her. She knows, when I told her I have feelings for her she pretty much just said "I can't say I feel the same way, as I'm only into guys. You are an awesome friend, though". Which...only made me love her even more. Now I can't stop thinking about her, and I'm afraid we're going to end up with this weird unrequited love thing going on. And I dread the possibility she'll decide to do some "experimenting" and see me as the obvious choice, although knowing her I don't think she'd do that to me. On the other hand, it'd be just as hard to see her with another girl, even understanding why.

.../emo rant
Ooh, and I found this pic on DA (by Drasonae):

Saturday, November 22, 2008

50k!

Well, there goes another exciting, depressing, fun, hair-tearing NaNoWriMo. Even though November isn't actually over yet, I quit. 50k is plenty for me this year. Maybe next year I'll do 75k, but for this year, I'm done. I've got a presentation to give on the applications of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and reconstructed ion chromatography in forensic science Friday, and I should probably get started on it.

But it was a good 50 000 words (well, no, but it was a good time. Some of the time). Here's a screenshot I took:

Monday, November 17, 2008

BOOK!

So last year, for completing NaNoWriMo, I received a promo code for a free proof copy of my novel, from a self-publishing site called CreateSpace. After much fussing over formatting and cover-making, I uploaded my files and ordered my book about a week or maybe two ago. And it came in the mail today *happydance* and it is pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. Now I just have to read it and decide how many people I'm going to let see it. Last time I read it through was a while ago, so I can't remember much of it.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

This is bad, very bad...

I am this *holds up fingers really close together* close to just blurting out "I love you", which is such a bad idea it's not even funny.

In other news, I hit 40k today. Go me.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Stress, maybe?

Been getting these headaches lately. Not sure why. Maybe cluster headaches come back to haunt me, maybe stress (novel/school/weird guilty apathy thing/relationships/lack thereof). It's usually a nighttime thing, although they occasionally come charging through during the day.

So, in my novel, the gay pirate has decided he's bi and he's going to fall in love with a salty wench, and the bi pirate has decided he's just gay and doesn't care much for salty wenches anymore, and Captain Jacques is way too close to finding out about the two of them banging each other at this point in the wordcount - er, novel...

33, 457 words and sort of maybe would be counting if xkcd weren't so damn distracting...

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

update

30, 616. Why am I doing this again?

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

What's your happy dance?

I found out what mine was, when I came out (I'm bi) to a really good friend of mine. I was scared she would be crazy homophobic or something, but she was cool about it, and it was awesome.

Monday, November 10, 2008

At least out loud...

I won't say I'm in love...

People and their heterosexuality. It makes me grumble.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

My name is Michelle, and I'm an addict

To two things. And we all know that mixing drugs is dangerous. It's not my fault AdventureQuest is so damn fun and word wars are the only way I get much writing done. I just finished the Trobble quest and I'm in the middle of the Rogue quests, but I need to level up a bit before I can get any further in that. And last night we had an online write-in in the OttawaWriMo chat room, I won one of four word wars and tied in another two (the counts were within ten, so we called them ties).

And last night I managed to get to 25, 034

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I don't get it

Well, I sort of get it. Electing the first black* president in history is a big step for America. What I don't get is why the importance of Barack Obama's race has been blown way out of proportion. I think there are more important ways to show racial tolerance on an everyday basis instead of just putting one shining example on a pedestal and saying "look, we're tolerant".

People should be focussing on the more important aspects of this election, like the voter turnout and what the candidates' platforms actually were. I'm not saying I'm not happy, though. McCain could kick the can any day and Palin's just a scary-ass bitch is what she is.

*If this term offends you, go away. I'm in no way racist, in fact, I find the "n" word highly offensive, but I think political correctness has gone too far. I would slap someone if they called me caucasian. I'm white. Barack Obama isn't "African American", he's black. They're perfectly useable terms that don't take a day and a half to say.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Fred's all better

Day two of NaNo, the going is good, when what happens? My laptop has a nervous breakdown. The touchpad stopped working, and no matter what I did I couldn't fix it. The driver for it ended up uninstalling itself in the process, so I can no longer zoom or scroll with it, but thanks to an awesome, google-going friend on MSN I managed to fix it a few minutes ago, which means it's time to get back to novelling.

9, 156 words and counting!

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Haircut!

So when I went from "past my waist" to "shoulder length", I was really happy with it. Then it went and grew, and I had to get it cut again, but she ended up not cutting it short enough. This time, the back is perfect length but apparently "all one length" means nothing to some people, because the front is too short. And she tried to move my part (that bitch!). But hopefully it'll grow out into something workable. I'll probably update with a picture later today.

EDIT: I've decided that I like the front short, which now means the back is too long but that, fortunately, is something that's pretty easy to fix. Now I just have to find my guarantee so that I can get the back trimmed a little shorter for free.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Go me!

I just won the very first Ottawa regional word war of November! We have a chatroom to hold virtual write-ins in, so we all hung out in there for the few minutes before the end of the day. Then we started at midnight sharp, cranked out words for 15 minutes, and then all posted our word counts. It was a pretty narrow margin, but I actually won!

Happy NaNo-ing, everyone.

Houston, we've fixed the problem

After about an hour of messing around, I finally managed to hook my laptop up to my dad's wireless internet. Now I can novel and attend the virtual write-in at midnight without having to hog my dad's desktop. And besides that, when I'm here I can use the internet wherever without being tied to the modem with a cable.

4 hours 15 minutes 'till novel!

And I am so excited it's ridiculous. I'll have time to get in a horror movie or maybe two (if they're short) before midnight, but once that clock hits twelve I get to delve into all sorts of novel-ey goodness.

Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Awesomeness

So last night was the Ottawa regional NaNoWriMo kick-off party, and it rocked. The friend who I was planning to bring missed the bus, so I went alone. I don't think he really would have enjoyed it anyway, it was just a bunch of people talking excitedly about their novels (my idea of fun, not really his). Besides that, the service was pretty bad and the food wasn't exceptionally great (everything I had was good except the chicken fried rice). The couple sitting next to me each ordered an appetizer and a main dish, and the food arrived in the following order with long breaks in between: husband's main dish, wife's main dish, wife's appetizer, husband's appetizer. Mine took a really long time, and the girl on the other side of me didn't even get her food at all.

But somehow, it was still fun. I got some great ideas, there were a couple fun activities, and everyone was so great and weird. It was kick-ass. And apparently, I'm some kind of hero for having been able to win NaNo last year without doing any write-ins and handwriting it. It was just cool all around. And there was a guy there who looked like Fred Flintstone.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Titleytitleytitleytitle

So the programming field trip is going well, today we found out that Ubisoft only offers tours for groups up to 25, which means we can't bring the grade 10 classes (darn...) so it'll just be our awesome class of awesomeness. The plan so far is just to bus to the Ubisoft headquarters, leave the bus, go eat lunch and wander around for a bit, get back to Ubisoft for the tour, get back on the bus, and come home. We're still looking for other interesting things to do in Montreal, though (and the fact that it needs to be within walking distance of Ubisoft doesn't help). Not to mention the failing search for a nearby restaurant or, preferably, fast food joint, that is currently sucking.

Time to cave in and save some tabs for songs tuned 1/2 step down and go play guitar.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Forecast for tomorrow...

20 to 30 cm of snow. Out of nowhere. First snow of the season and we get a god damn foot of the stuff. They better be wrong about this one.

In other news, 4 days, 4 hours, and 10 minutes until NaNoWriMo!

Awesomeness

Today went by pretty fast. All my classes felt short.

In art, my teacher told the grade 11s to get pens and ink and get to work on our projects before giving the grade 12s instructions. We were all well underway by the time they got all set up. Then he told them to each grab an easel, set it up somewhere around the class, and draw some grade 11s. We were all like "say what?" but it didn't end up bothering me, for one, because it's not like I could tell if any of them were drawing me.

And I managed to get one of my friends to come with me to the Ottawa NaNoWriMo kick-off party on Wednesday (my mom said I'm not allowed to go alone), so that'll be good fun. Definitely looking forward to it, and just remembered that I have to RSVP in the next 25 minutes, so I'd better get on that soon.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

*Does a happy dance*

5 days, 7 hours, 17 minutes until NaNoWriMo starts. And I *might* be able to go to the kick-off party for my region if I can convince one of my friends to go because my mom doesn't want me bussing around downtown alone at night. *Is excited*

Friday, October 24, 2008

Good feeling gone

Not even George & Alastair's super-up-cheering powers can help with this one.

I was talking to an old friend of mine on msn and asked her if she wanted to go catch a movie this weekend and she said she couldn't because her sister's visiting and it made me realize how much I miss her but then I realized that I just miss being normal and not being able to recite a massive list of people I 'used to know' and I hate myself for thinking this but I hate her because she's the only person I know who can make me cry and it's really fucking hard to type when you can't see the screen and now my nose is all drippy and I have to go get a kleenex.

This sucks.

Yesssssss!

So I turned my house upside-down, working my way up from the basement, and finally found my slippers, George & Alastair. They're wonderful little puppies that keep my feet warm and safe from that damn ceramic tile in the morning. Here they are:




I am seriously the happiest person in the world right now. These slippers are not leaving my feet ever, ever again.

:(

Still no sign of the slippers. It's been a week now.

In other news, only 7 days, 7 hours, and 53 minutes until NaNoWriMo!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Today

Getting out of bed in the morning was a traumatizing event, as usual. I lost my big fluffy slippers about a week ago and still haven't found them, so running across the ceramic tile at the bottom of the stairs was fun.

In art the grade 12s were drawing pieces of sliced up red cabbage, but one of them wasn't exactly having fun so he started this big philosophical discussion about cabbage with our teacher. Partway through the conversation, the phone rang, and my teacher picked it up and said "we're looking for the transcendental image of perfection in cabbage." he then proceeded to talk to the person about cabbages for a minute before they asked for someone and he replied "sorry, but she's dealing with a severed hand right now and can't come down." (we were drawing bones). There's a reason why no one comes to or calls the art room unless it's completely necessary, especially ever since he told a pair of grade 10s to "go die" because they were bothering us with Student Vote Day crap. But yeah, art class is always interesting if nothing else.

Yesterday

It was parent-teacher interviews last night, so all our classes were cut short and we got let out early, so me and a couple friends made a quick trip to Timmy's before all heading home. From there, I went to Scotiabank Place to volunteer at the Sens 50/50 draw, which was awesome fun. I sold tickets until the start of the second period, counted my money, ate pizza, and watched the rest of the game. Then I got a ride home from a girl in my French class who I don't really know that well but she's really nice (although a little happy-go-lucky) and got stuck in traffic. It was fun listening to her yell at all the people who cut her off. It was also funny, after all the "and this is why I hate hockey", when a song came on the radio, she cranked it up really loud, yelled "I LOVE hockey!" and started singing along.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sweet!

Today in computer programming class my teacher said that he wanted to find a field trip for us to go on to Toronto or Montreal or somewhere fun (the original suggestion was Wonderland, but we couldn't think of a way to justify it as relevant). Me and Sarah (the only other girl in the class, sometimes it gets way too testosteroney in that room with so many guys in there) spent the whole class looking for somewhere to go and eventually we found the Ubisoft website (well, we couldn't actually get on it because the school filters blocked it but the little blurb that showed up in google had an email). So she emailed them about tours and costs and whatnot, and hopefully we'll get to go there on a field trip. It'll be a party and a half.

The only thing about going to Montreal, though, is that it'll probably be a one day thing. Our teacher was saying that if we went to Toronto we'd stay overnight because he hates the field trips that are like "leave at 5 in the morning, spend 4 1/2 hours on a bus, go on the field trip, spend another 4 1/2 hours on the bus, get back at 11". But Montreal's closer, so we probably won't stay the night there. It'll still be a cool trip, though. My teacher's awesome and my classmates are pretty cool people, and we fully intend to spend an hour at ubisoft and the rest of the time doing something more interesting that we haven't figured out yet. But the suggestion of "strip club" has been raised and shot down a good dozen times...

Monday, October 20, 2008

Oh, the insanity

This morning, my alarm clock woke me up, but I was so tired it was just like "what's going on/why are you making noise/how do I shut this thing off?" so I just swatted at it for a bit before eventually switching it off. Then, 50 minutes later, my mom came into my room to ask me when I was getting up ><. And the best part was, my arm was asleep, so when I tried to prop myself up I just collapsed back down again.



Today in art class my teacher set up a big, complicated still life with a cello and shells and a spine and a skull and twigs and a gourd and shiny, fold-ey cloth. Then he told us to draw it three times, from three different points of view, with three different types of media. We had about 20 minutes to do each sketch. I managed to get the first one *done*, but the second two I didn't even manage to finish a pencil underdrawing. And it was funny whenever he told us to move and start a new one because everyone scrambled to get to a different desk (they were in a circle around the still life) and get different materials. All in all it was pretty frantic.



Other interesting things that happened: I almost choked on a bite of my sandwich at lunch during a minor altercation involving a balloon and a garbage can and when I got asked to put the answer for a homework question (that I hadn't done) on the board, I tried to make it up as I went along, but ended up half answering a different question (but at least I copied the right final answer out of the textbook...).

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Suburbia sickens me

I seriously need to get out of here. My mom was driving me and my brother back from our dad's, and most of the drive is through country so I usually just look out the window because the view is all fields and trees and clouds and sunsets and old barns. When we got into town, there was this really sudden change from the nice scenery to rows upon rows of townhomes stretching off forever, and it made me nauseous. I actually had to close my eyes because I felt like I was about to puke.

I love country landscapes with squares of fields where you can see the borders of them and lines of trees and falling apart old wooden fences and flocks of Canada geese, and I love cityscapes and the city atmosphere with all the bustling and interesting people hurrying by, giving you glimpses into thousands of lives every day. But I can't stand the suburbs. I can't wait until I can get out and move to the city.