Learning and Accomplishment

     Right now, I have a grade of 101 in Honors US History.  That's really good; I've apparently worked hard and learned a lot and studied more than adequately.  Except I haven't, really.  I know what hard work learning can be, and I've worked hard at learning.  Usually, it's with music, especially with playing the piano.  Memorizing and expressing music just right is really hard and something is learned other than just that particular piece.  So I know what that feels like, that hard work at a specific goal, learned just right and with a special something that makes it worthwhile to you.  But I don't feel that with History.

NaNoWriMo...

I gave up on NaNoWriMo.  When Hell Week was over (that would be the week leading up to the musical), I had lost my momentum and I didn't love the story I was working on anymore.  I had lost my train of thought, which is very important for me to have during NaNo.  Since I never plan my characters, storyline, sub-plots, or anything, once the idea was gone, the novel was gone.  Maybe I can resuscitate it in the future and work on it bit by bit.  For now, though, I have not and will not win NaNoWriMo this year.  Perhaps next year I will learn a lesson from this and plan out characters and plots and all of that.  Maybe I'll start soon.  Probably not.  I'm just going to have to steal my friends' WriMo novels and read them, and celebrate their wins with them.  It will be fun.  And maybe I'll succeed next year...

NaNoWriMo '12

     Anybody who has been reading my blog for a year (which must have been a mightily boring endeavor, so thank you) knows about NaNoWriMo.  This is an event that occupies many aspiring writers during November.  This is National Novel Writing Month, when you must write 50,000 words (or more, or less; whatever you put as your goal) in one month.  That's 1,667 words a day.  That's a lot.
     Last year, it didn't work.  I ended up putting up a whole load of nonsense about aliens (sasquatches) that looked like centaurs, except with squids instead of human torsos.  I liked it because it was so goofy, but it never really got off the ground.

Another Day at School

Today is Monday.  Mondays are the beginning of a new week, which is usually marked by dread.  The dread of having to go to school for another five days, the dread of messing up in more rehearsals for the musical, the dread of quizzes and tests and homework.  There's also hope for the coming week, and anticipation of something fun.  Fridays are usually the most anticipated day, because it's the end of the week and because I get to work with the leads for the musical on Fridays, which is always a treat.
Today was pretty good, as far as Mondays go.  I was surprisingly awake for most of the day.  Really,  I was.  I have no clue where all those yawns came from.

Comic!

So here's a little comic thing I did while listening to Wait, Wait... don't Tell Me! (the NPR news quiz. I'm Carl Cassel, and...) and I thought it was funny. So here it is:

Also, hah, I spelled "terrorists" right...

An Update and a Poem

Hello!  I'm still here!

I've been very busy recently; I started going to public school (as opposed to being homeschooled) and I'm finding it... interesting... juggling school, homework, music, and free time.  Hahaha.  Free time.  What was that again?

...Anyway, I am taking English.  Which means that I am writing stuff.  And I wrote a poem! It is a short thing, but I like it quite a lot.  It is written about a deserted town called Landaff.  When I hear "deserted town," I usually think of something in the Midwest that was deserted and is now full of sand and tumbleweed.  However, this is in New England.  In my opinion, this deserted town was much more beautiful than any of those other deserted towns.  Hopefully, my poem will give you a sense of what it was like.

My Hypothetical Adventure in Guatemala

Just a minute ago, I was talking to my friend as our group wandered through the Guatemalan mercado.  The maze of rows was filled with vendors selling everything from clothing to wood carvings to jewelry.  Each item was brilliantly colored; bright reds, emerald greens, deep blues and sunny yellows caught our eyes from every stall.  Gradually, our conversation petered out as we looked more closely at the carefully crafted items.  Enthralled by the artistry, I wandered from stall to stall.  I must have gone in a different direction than my friends, because when I looked up, I was all alone.  Frantically, I looked around to find a familiar face, but I saw only strangers.

Not knowing what else to do, I called out: “Fiona!  Lois!  Where are you?”

My voice seemed to disappear into the crowd, and I started to feel panicked.  I’ve got to calm down, I thought, but there are too many people here!  I can’t think…  After a few panicked moments, I remembered having gone through a calmer garden area.  I remembered where I had been, more or less, so I started to head in that direction.