The last three days have been intense. I’ve been running around along with C, my cooperating teacher, trying to get Dodge Middle School — and more specifically, the 8th grade Language Arts class — ready for the new school year that begins August 11th. We’ll see how much it effects my writing, although I can’t completely stop; I’m also currently trying to get my grad. packet together so I can apply for the Creative Writing MFA program at the University of Arizona (another day I’ll post on why I want to have an MFA in Creative Writing, which now the reason of “to improve my writing” is only one reason, and not an all together big one).

Even in just three days, I’ve learned a lot. It’s an eye-opening experience. For example, I never knew how many hours teachers put in, in Arizona, unpaid. C was talking about working out the curriculum, including doing research on new vocabulary books (because she said that’s where the kids had most difficulty last year) in the summer; and then because a lot of our precious planning time was taken up by unnecessary “pep rallies” (as I called them. The district called them “inspirational speeches”) that required commuting and sitting and listening to for hours on two of the three days we had to plan and because we came back to computers that didn’t work and a score of other small, but crippling, problems she didn’t get everything done anyway. As a result, she said she’d have to come in on Saturday to finish. When I commented on how surprised I was just how many unpaid hours she’s putting in, she shook her head and said, “The district knows we’ll work for free, I think they’re testing to see how much free work they can get off us. We’re not going to stand in front of students on Monday with nothing, after all!”* She then added that many weeks, with grading (also on her own time), she puts in 60 hour work weeks. She ironically smiled and added that if one did the math of hours to pay, she was sometimes earning less than minimum wage.

I thought, I had better like this profession or I am fucking screwed.

Perhaps the worse thing was that we worked Wednesday and Thursday without any air conditioning, without working computers, and with a score of other problems. No A/C was the worst because it was also really humid in Dodge, so by the time I came home I was drenched in sweat and exhausted. I skipped out on the gym both days, I just couldn’t deal with more sweating. And there I was trying to look professional, but I probably looked like a drowned rat.

* A friend of mine and John’s, who works at University High School, came back to his room a week early because he was told his room would not be ready on time (by ready I mean cleaned) so he had to do it all himself. Which is when he noticed the closet was full with someone else’s things. He got the custodians to come move it, but whoever had put it there had also taken away the shelves of his closet to make room for the mystery junk! As a result, he spent three days buying wood from Home Depot and putting in shelves because no one else would do it!

1:02 pm | Category: Journal, Teaching | | No Comments

To clarify, I don’t usually write this late at night. In truth, it screws up my internal clock, but I was on a roll and I didn’t want to stop. So I kept going and when I looked up it was 2am. I think I’m going to sleep after writing this (which will be posted in the morning). I think caffeine will definitely be in order in the morning.

1. Things get a little surreal around 1:30am, and I’m not entirely sure if what I’m writing will be any good.

2. Writing late turns off some of my “crap-o-tectors” which is nice in one way, I’m less judgmental about my writing. I suppose it’ll be equal to having a few drinks before sitting down at the keyboard — not that I ever have done that.

3. The plinky violin noises that the X-Files use during suspenseful parts is rather creepy.

4. I forgot to pick up my peppermint tea bags. They help settle my stomach and my mind. Personally, I think Stash has the best peppermint tea. (Yes, these are the random thoughts that fly through my head)

5. I think by tonight or tomorrow the probably-for-a-joke rave scene will be written (”because every sci-fi/fantasy seems to have a rave scene” ).

6. I wonder if that girl in the Applebee’s commercial realized when she did the peace sign with the back of her fingers towards the camera, in England that’s considered flipping a person off.

7. Does Scully ever get tired of saying the same logical babble and yet Mulder always seems right? Does she ever listen to herself and say, “You know what, never mind. I know how this will turn out. You’ll say some really weird shit and I’ll say ‘yeah right, that’s some really weird shit.’ And in the end you’ll be right anyway. So let’s just go with your crazy theory from the get-go.”?

8. Tayce’s full name, Taycera, sounds like something from a song. “Taycera cera, whatever will be will be…”

9. Fangbanger is a slang word already. As is Sporn, and Spore has only been out for — what, a few weeks? People are just wrong.

10. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

…Yeah, I ran out of steam for the last one. I’m off to bed.

9:22 am | Category: Journal, Writing | | No Comments

I was copying my short story ideas into my notebook, which I like to take along with me for easier reference (no tabbing between documents or if I wanted to focus on working on short story ideas, outlining, etc. I don’t have to pull out the laptop or open any word processing program), but my arm was getting tired from just copying down a page. I admit, my upper body strength needs some work (Who knew that when I got into university and decided to try and find cushy, less manual-labor intensive jobs like tutoring, I would be letting my arm muscles atrophy even as I got a couple of extra dollars in pay per hour? Oh, the sacrifices one must make.) but I thought I was better than that.

Granted, people have called me “violent” when it comes to my handwriting. I think it’s because while many people seem to write using their wrist, I write with my whole arm. I don’t move my wrist to make the letters and then move my arm down the page, I use my whole arm for the letters, too. Classmates used to complain when we sat at the long tables (they were particularly popular in classes that believed a circular or rectangular set up promoted “classroom unity” since everyone had to stare at everyone else) and I would shake the whole thing writing the way I did. Another problem is I grip the pen pretty tightly. I don’t know why I do this. I also keep my face close to the page or even pillow my head on my other arm so I look at what I’m writing at a slant. I’d like to say this keeps me more connected and focused with whatever I’m writing but the truth is probably a mixture of bad eyesight and laziness.

I guess the image I just painted above makes me look like some flailing, shaking fool when I write on paper. Maybe I do look like that. John says I always look like I’m concentrating really hard, he even said sometimes I get a slight frown on my face. I know my endurance for handwriting has lessened since I began note-taking on the laptop (a necessity in the last few semesters when lectures suddenly became more boring yet with more info-dumping, and the teachers began talking faster.) since most my handwriting was being done trying to keep up with a teacher while taking my meticulous notes (no shortening of words and meanings wherever possible and different colors for headings versus the actual notes, otherwise going back over my notes was a chore and a lesson in patience).

I think I better start writing more in my journal and my notebooks. I need to build my endurance up again (cue “Eye of the Tiger” and montage ala Rocky-style).

11:39 pm | Category: Journal, Writing | | No Comments

Okay, so this post may be a little dorky (and embarrassing, since my messiness will finally come to light). I actually don’t like living in a messy house, but oftentimes there’s so much to do (or I just procrastinate) that I put off cleaning until I either am really unable to stand it anymore or I’ve got bad writer’s block. But, I was proud of this particular whirlwind of cleaning, I even got my posters hung on the wall and organized my penny collection*! Now if only I could unload my old PC, which I’m giving to Mom (that’s the black thing behind the chair) but she’s still hunting for “the perfect” desk to put it on. I have some photography I’d like to get frames for and put on that white blank wall, too.

Can you believe the “before” picture is how my office was during finals? Yargh!

*Yes, I collect pressed pennies. I had been putting them in penny books I got at Disneyland last time I was there, but then I stuffed the books somewhere and never looked at them! Last month I got an idea that I could turn my penny collection into wall art and so I bought a cheapo picture frame from Walmart and stuck all the pennies to the black backing with fun tack. Since I had to squeeze pretty hard to get the frame back on, the pennies are stuck in there well and good.

11:03 am | Category: Journal | | No Comments

When I was in middle school and the beginning of high school, L.J. Smith was one of my favorite authors, and as far as I am concerned she was doing urban fantasy before it even had a name and was made popular by authors like Laurell K. Hamilton (although, then again, Tanya Huff was writing urban fantasy even before then…). My favorite series was The Night World and she was going to culminate the whole story with the “final battle” to coincide with the new millennium — and then she disappeared. She just stopped writing and her last book in The Night World series was canceled (at that time, I had pre-ordered it on Amazon.com and it was only a month away before it would have been in my hands). That was just before 2000 and as I waited in frustration, without any news, her books slowly went out-of-print.

Finally, when I went to college, I decided it was time to let go of L.J. Smith’s first edition Night World series. I put them up on Ebay with a lot of mixed feelings, but the money I got for them (and I did get quite a bit) was very helpful for the move. At that time, I had lost faith that she would ever finish Strange Fate and I would finally know what happened to my beloved characters.

Then, in the last year, her books started being reissued. With trepidation and hope, I scoured the internet for any news that she was going to finish Strange Fate and while there were many rumors, none of them panned out. I stopped searching again. Then, as I was taking a break today from cleaning my office (I’m basically done, just need to put up two posters and get the trash out of here! ) L.J. Smith suddenly popped back into my mind, so I did a Google search…

…and found her website! She has a website now and on it she says not only is The Night World being reissued, but she promised Strange Fate will be available next summer! SQUEE! I can’t help hoping that this time — since it’s from the horse’s mouth, as they say — I’ll finally get to find out how my old favorite ends and what happens to the characters I loved. And apparently she has a whole new book coming out soon, too! I can’t wait!

8:48 pm | Category: Journal | | No Comments

Don’t you hate when that happens? Or maybe it just happens to me. If I loose too much sleep, my head will just pound right behind my eyes. Coffee helped the headache a little, although I was forced to get McDonald’s coffee since I only had $3 in my pocket (note to self: don’t forget wallet). McDonald’s coffee has the unique ability to be both tasty and horrible at the same time. I don’t know how they do it (yes, I’ve seen Supersize Me so it’s probably something artificial and disturbing) but it’s all fine going in until 5 minutes later when it hits you like a mac truck.

Anyway, here’s my confession. I have written 50 words in the last two weeks. Yup, that’s it. Isn’t that horrible? Bad Himani! Bad! Granted, the reason is because finals is here, that time of year when I feel my sanity slipping away and my brain trying to commit seppuku (or sati). It’s a rare finals that sees me so brain-drained that when I open my Word all I do is stare at the blinky cursor. So I may be scarce here for a few weeks as my life enters acute turmoil and then slowly goes back to being normal and sane.

3:24 pm | Category: Journal, Writing | | No Comments

I’ve been trying to read more even while school is in session and I’ve also been curious just how fast I go through books (John claims I’m a slow reader, mostly because he has no patience as I browse and flip through books happily in Barnes & Nobles, Bookman’s, and Border’s). I love to read and here’s just what I’ve been reading in the last few months. After this I’ll try to do a monthly summary. My goal is 48 books this year (four books a month — do-able).

(more…)

2:59 pm | Category: Books, Journal | | 2 Comments

My birthday was on the first and school has kept me quite busy these past few weeks. While I’ve been writing whenever I have some free time, I haven’t really had time to post much here. I enjoyed my birthday, it was wonderfully relaxing.

——

On the writing front, I’m kind of feeling detached to my story. I have vibrant scenes in my head, but I haven’t gotten to that part yet. I’ll write a chapter and send it to my crit group and then write another chapter and send it to the group, and the cycle would repeat itself. And while it helps immensely for the immediate feedback, I was wishing the other day that I had the time to just pump out chapters, maybe even finish it, so I could see the “big picture.” Characterization is probably the hardest thing to write in your story. I would love my novels to be plot-heavy but character-driven — if that makes sense. But it’s hard to do when you can pump out a chapter a week if you’re lucky. I feel like I’m not getting the relationships in my writing across well. *sigh* Usually I can pump out some confidence, but there’s a few things I always feel sensitive about and always question myself. One of them happen to be writing (although I can’t stop just because I may be having an emo-day and saying to myself, “Ohmigod, my writing sucks and I suck and why does it suck?!” ).

2:26 pm | Category: Journal, Tayce, Writing | | No Comments

Woohoo! I finished cleaning my office! It’s something that I’ve been meaning to do since October and I finally bit the bullet and did it. The desk now actually has some elbow room, and a glistening surface because I even Pledged (mmm, orange scented) it. Not only that, but I actually went through my file cabinet! Now that’s something I’ve been meaning to do since 2005 (and desperately needed to do since I graduated with my B.A.)! I cleaned out things from the year 2000 in that file cabinet. And even found my high school transcripts (yes, I was an odd teenager who filed away her medical and school related papers)!

With the file cabinet cleaned out, I finally had space for my critiqued manuscripts. I’ve recently joined a critique group and now that I’ve got work coming in with critique, I need to file them away so I can easily find them when I need to edit. And since the file cabinet was in such dismal shape (three of the cabinets had old junk in it like old notebooks) I was just stacking the papers on my desk. I still have one cabinet with things that I’ve been meaning to put into the photo album and one cabinet with some books I need to go through, but now my writing stuff has it’s very own cabinet!

Not only that, but I dismantled the tree today and John and I lugged it to the TreeCycle program. That was kind of a pain because we have a Saturn SL2, which is a very small car, and by the time we jammed the tree in the back seat (we didn’t want to tie it to the top like we did when we brought it home because we didn’t have any rope left) I couldn’t see out of the rear window and the tip of the tree stuck out the side-rear window by about 2 feet. I know, not very safe for driving. But I took it slow and we made it pretty easily to the TreeCycle center (which was just an undeveloped area of a park with a huge heap of Christmas trees littering the ground). The only heart-stopping moment was when a police car passed us. I gritted my teeth and thought, Crap, not being able to see out the rear window and having a Christmas tree sticking out has got to be illegal somehow. But thank the powers that be, the cop car just kept going.

The pile of Christmas trees was a little sad, especially when our tree was added onto it. John and I have never been able to A) afford our own Christmas tree or B) had the space for it ever before, this is the first year we’ve had a Christmas tree. Seeing that huge pile of trees…it made me a little melancholy. And it also made me want to jump into that pile and come out smelling like pine, but the pine needles would have scratched me (I already got a few scratches on my back when we were carrying the tree to the car, somehow) so I resisted the urge.

So, all-in-all, today has been a VERY productive day. Tomorrow I get to back up everything on my old computer and begin cleaning it out so I can give it to Mom (so she can finally have her own computer instead of thinking of using Dad’s and then deciding that’s too much of a bother). Then, I’m setting up my new computer and the first thing I’m doing is playing Sims 2 and whimpering in delight when full graphics and anti-aliasing doesn’t slow it down.

And yes, I know that this probably doesn’t interest anyone besides me in the slightest, but I’m pretty damn proud of myself. And organizing my filing cabinet was one of my New Year’s Resolutions, so I’m doing pretty good this year. Now all I need to do is clean and restock the fish tank and buy some new bookshelves.

12:47 am | Category: Journal | | No Comments

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas — or whatever holiday you may celebrate. I kind of went AWOL for a little while; I was visiting my family, with John, for 5 days and came back yesterday evening. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been catching up on sleep again! You see, Mom got me My Lovely Sam Soon, a Korean romantic comedy TV series that I stumbled upon 2 years ago by complete mistake. It’s really cute, even if it’s sappy dramatic at times, and I love the Kim Sam Soon character. Anyway, I had shared the series with Mom, but the version I had gotten — in a bit of bad luck — was a Chinese release with horrible subtitles! As a surprise, Mom got me the official American release with subtitles that actually made much more sense. So we were trying to watch the whole thing in 3 days.

I also got the Sims 2 Bon Voyage expansion pack. I’m such a Sims addict. And then I did some “retail therapy” and I’m probably going to be poor for a while now. This is why I tell John I should never let myself go free in stores, I’ll shop till I drop. But, ironically, when I came back home I found my mouse seems to be breaking — it reacts as if I clicked twice instead of once no matter what I do — and now I can’t go and buy another one. I’m going to have to dig around and see if I kept the free Dell mouse you get with computers. Oh well, this mouse has had a long, long life. It came into my possession already amply used.

ANYway, I’m glad I’m back in my own apartment again. Even if I have lots and lots of cleaning to look forward to (the stuff I put off by saying, “I’ll do it when I’m on break”). And, it’s back to the gym for me! I shudder to think how much I’ve gained due to the so very delicious Christmas Yule log I made (which was really just sponge cake with this awesome chocolate hazelnut frosting I whipped up). Ohmigod, so good. I’m probably going to have withdrawal symptoms now that it’s all gone.

OK, I’ll stop babbling now. I’ve got a work in progress to post in the “writing” section in the next few days, so keep an eye out for that.

10:12 pm | Category: Journal | | No Comments