Wednesday, August 31, 2005

I never thought I'd be this happy to go back to school

Well, I'm free of the evil summer job, there may be a rant coming soon about stupid customers, I havn't been able to vent it all in one place yet, so look for it here.

I'm in the quad, my classes have stated, and everything is just gravy. Except for the fact that I have the wrong eddition of the Hebrew book, so I need to buy a new one, and sell the old one. Ebay, oh how I love thee. Add that to the cost of the one Tolkien book that I have yet to buy, and the seven dollars I owe the modern language department for my German Course Pack, and the $212 dollars I spent on three texts the other day at the book store, and the $120 in texts that I spent on all my other books togther (including the wron edition of the Hebrew book), and I have been majorly screwed by my textbook bill this semester. So much for the money that I was trying to save over the summer. With my luck there will be a Course Pack for Economics as well. Once I finally get a total for all of this nonsense, I'll complaine about it here, I'm sure.

To top it all off, my roomates and I went in together and bought a wireless router. Lin is stuck with a cord, because she has a desktop, which is fine, between the four of us we have enough ethernet cords to run it behind and under the furnature so it's out of sight. The problem is that Princess and my laptops are acknowledging that the wireless network exists, but they can't actually find the Internet (I'm not kidding, she actually got an error message that said that). AJ is a computer fixing god, and he spent a couple hours in here attempting to fix the problem. He got Princess up and running, Bridge never had any problems, Lin we knew was going to have a cord, which is why the router is connected to her computer, but I am still not working right. Open house hours ended, so he left his notes where they could be found again, and agreed to come back tomorow and see just what the heck is wrong with my devil-machine. For the time being, I'm still connected to the wall via a 15 foot long cord connected to a plug that is about eight feet away, with most of the excess coiled under my feet. In addition, the cord running to Lin's desk also goes under my chair because we don't want to hide it away so everything looks nice until we're sure it all works. I want my wireless high-speed internet, damn it!

So, not being on my computer all afternood caused my latest round of free lance writing to be late, again. Grr...

Speaking of writting. I'm done with OoE. Genesis has the disk in her hand. I need to go over there and type one more thing in the proper spot (she's holding the hard copy of the thing as collateral). I also want to finish going through the hard copy I printed out a few weeks ago, then write up a copy with my coments and rantings all over it so I can pass that along to the others. But really, it's done.

It feels weird, after all this time, to be able to look at Milcha, Mishe, and the rest and tell them "I'm done with you, your story is over, please leave me be." We're still a long way from being published, but I'm going to miss constantly having something to write about this group. Genesis has ruled out the possibility of a sequal with the whole gang - I don't think any of us want to collaberate again - but Milcha and Mishe have enough going on in their pasts that they might have a sequal, then I could also do more with Vadamel and Evi, both of whom I love dearly, but there isn't much room for this in Out of Exile. On the other hand, OoE isn't their story. I also have an idea for a short story, one with just Milcha, who has always been the star of my part of the story.

The realization hasn't quite sunk in yet that now I can just sit down and finish Die Complex. No more sneaking a new version of the outline, or some long hand work in on the side when I'm supposed to be doing something else, I can actually lug my Steno pad around and not have to hide the cover from Genesis. I now have an excuse to leave Genesis's (un-named) world and go play in the Celestial Sphere. Why is this hard to do?

Monday, August 15, 2005

One day more...

In less then two weeks (I week from next Thursday to be exact) I will be done working at Penney's. I've been reading Les Mis during my breaks at work (I stashed an unabridged copy in my locker), which has the affect [or is it effect?] that when I clock in I have to resist the urge to sing "One Day More" and when I clock out I have to bit my lip otherwise I start humming "At the End of the Day." I have also learned everything I never wanted to know about a very strict convent and the Battle of Waterloo. Thank you, Victor Hugo. I'm looking forward to the tour of the Paris sewer system which I've been told is upcoming.

Classes start on the 31st, and I can't wait. I never thought I'd say that.
I ordered my textbooks already, and every time one of them arrives I feel like Christmas has come early.

I am in the home streach on OoE. There are two things holding me back right now. The first thing is that I printed out a hard copy of the whole thing (and killed my dad's color ink cartrage in the process, the blue is totally gone) and am reading though it, leaving comments as I go. I'm in the infamous Chapter Five right now.

The second thing is that I have to somehow define what a Seaman is. They are a big part of Amathountin culture and Vadamel is one, so this has to be said somewhere for the benefit of all the Tessarean characters and the reader. The problem is, the definition I use in my head is, "Just like the Ranger from D&D, only with water, not the wilderness." This is not going to work in the narrative. To complicate matters still further, Evi is the one who will be doing this explaining, and she is the least developed character. I know in my head what would sound right for her to say, but the other three people I'm writing this with don't. Help me out here, anyone.

-Until later,
Yami no Hon