A Pinteresting Tumbl of a Day

I cheated.

This isn't from Pinterest or Tumblr, but it's a little late and too hard to try and incorporate "Quora" into the title of this series, so yeah.

This is basically the coolest thing I've seen all day week month year ever.

And it's people like this that make me wish I'd kept on in math and piano.

Find the whole thread here.

Writing Well is Hard

I'm in a senior seminar this semester. We're all working on either fiction projects or poetry projects.

For those of you who have read my poetry, you've probably gathered that 1) I'm pretty good at free verse, and 2) anything not in free verse is not my cup of tea. 

Now fiction . . . fiction is my cup of tea.

You could say that I've had a bit of experience writing fiction.

I self-published a pretty short book about two years ago, and most of the people who left reviews liked it.

This semester I'm aiming for a full-length novel.

Oh my giddy aunt, y'all.

You have no idea how hard this is.

Keep in mind, this isn't necessarily for enjoyment, though I'm sure I will enjoy it for the most part.

This is for a grade.

And credits.

Mostly the credits.

But get this: there's a prospectus.

We've gotta outline it.

We've got to cover everything from beginning to end, no plot holes.

And we're likely going to get critiqued.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining -- I love critiques of my stories. Love them. It makes for a better, more coherent, more detailed story.

But gosh . . . it's hard.

But hard is good.

Confessions: I Could Have Been a Math Major

DISCLAIMER:

This is not a dig at people who enjoy math, who have degrees in math, or jobs related to math.

It's just me being snarky and slightly honest.

Sometimes people ask me why I'm an English major.

They're like "Oh, do you want to teach?"

I don't really, and I can't help but think that if I wanted to teach, I'd be an education major.

But English is just something I enjoy and that I'm good at, and I thought reading books and writing essays for four years would be alright.

Yep.

But I'm also good at math -- or at least I was about five years ago. 

Haven't taken it since then.

I'm taking it now.

And I love it.

But the thing is, I just couldn't do math for four years.

Well, maybe I could have, but I don't think I'd have liked it.

Mostly because of Geometry.

Just not my thing.

In high school, my math teacher begged me to be an engineer, but I hate Geometry, so that wasn't really something I wanted to do.

I finally got him to stop telling me that by saying that if I did become an engineer, all I'd make is roller coasters and he'd have to test ride all of them.

That worked.

But I used to be really good at it.

I could solve small-ish matrices in my head, I still can foil quite a bit mentally, and stuff like that.

I'm surprised my professor hasn't gotten on me yet for not showing a lot of my work.

I might take more math next year, just to fill up empty space in my schedule, but next year is pretty much anything I want to do, so maybe I'll take some math. . .

Maybe I won't.

Heck, maybe they'll offer an equestrian class.

That'd be fun.

But don't think I don't like math much because it's hard.

No, that's part of why I like math: you have to figure it out; it's not just memorization.

I mean, English is hard too.

You try remembering what the Great Vowel Shift was, or how Proto-Indo-European converts Greek and Latin to English and stuff.

I like a good challenge.

But I have to admit that math has a one-upper on English as far as I'm concerned.

In English, you can read things pretty much however you want, but in math, 2+2 always equals 4.

I like that.

Consistency and concreteness is cool.

(And that's ^ alliteration.)

There's just one thing I don't really understand about math.

I mean, English majors learn how to think critically, and that's a skill you can use anywhere.

Math majors learn how to think analytically, and that's a skill you can use anywhere.

But I just don't understand why we learn some of the stuff we do in math.

Isn't a lot of that more theoretical than applicational?

Theoretical's totally fine, really, but . . . isn't applicational more useful?

I mean, under what circumstances would somebody need to know this?

I'm not being snarky here, I swear.

This is an honest to God question.

Is this like a real thing?

I've got the concept down fine, I'm just curious.

Other than teaching my kids someday.

If I even remember it that long.

Subjects of Songs

I just gotta say . . . I feel really sorry for the people other people write songs about.

Like, basically for pretty much every guy Taylor Swift or Adele has ever dated or crushed on.

Take "Teardrops on my Guitar", for example.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love that song. It's part of the reason I respect Taylor: it's not a catty song about her liking a guy and trying to steal him. It's about her liking a guy and wanting him to be treated right and loved, even if it's not her being loved back. If fact, she tries her best not to interfere.

I really respect that.

But I hope she went by the whole "the names have been changed to protect the innocent" thing, because if she really liked some guy named Drew . . . somebody really felt awful when that was released.

Or say, Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts".

I love that song, too. Actually, it seems like I've been living some of the songs from "Lovestrong" lately, but that's slightly irrelevant. 

If you watch the music video, it's heartbreaking, but beautiful in a bitter, sad sort of way.

It's like she hates him for what he did to her . . . but knows he's going to end up hurt in the end, too.

That guy must feel pretty bad too.

I guess I just feel like I'd have to walk on eggshells around my friend if they were a songwriter - I wouldn't want to end up the butt of a song.

Though, in a way, I guess it's sort of a nod: they meant enough to them that they wrote a song about them.

Anyway, it's just interesting.

And sad.

And sweet, sometimes.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow and I am sooooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!

Last year, I fell epicly short of 50,000 words by about 47,500 words.

Yeah . . .

But this year I have new hope!

No, not Star Wars I/IV. 

Hope that I'll get ahead in my school work and crank out a 50,000+ word novel!

A (Crafty) Lesson Learned . . .

So, I have this shop on Etsy.
And I've been experimenting with different projects.
Well, I haven't taken art in years, but I remember that I can't paint.
I always get way too caught up in the details and don't spend enough time on the big picture.
Well, I decided to give it another shot: I'm making a plaque for this girly that I babysit. 
It's got Psalm 27:1 on it with "Lord" and "light" in pink glow in the dark.
I briefly considered buying a stencil sheet for the lettering, but was all like, "Eh, people love my handwriting; I can totally freehand this!"
Ha.
Again, I say ha. 
NOPE.
I mean, I freehanded(?) it okay, but it looks a bit childish. I suppose that's okay, as it is for a child's room, but . . . I dunno, I had higher hopes for it.
Oh well.
Next time, I'm getting the stencils.
. . .
Ha, who do I think I'm kidding?
No I won't.

On Being Home Alone

After a decade of being left at home for several hours at a time with no supervision save my own, I have discovered that the imagination begins to populate said enclosure of living with monsters, murderers, and other unpleasantries. This increases exponentially after the sun has set.
Here, I give some illustrations of the average human's ability to cope with / exist in denial of said horrors.

Being home alone during the day:

 

Being home alone at night:

STORY.

OF.

MY.

LIFE.

Sounds cool, BUT . . .

So, I'm in English class, and our professor is telling us how when he taught English as a second language in Spain, he didn't speak Spanish. He said that all you do is talk English to them the whole time.
Oh. My. Gosh.
I would feel so bad if I taught English abroad and totally confused some kids or some adult trying to learn English! Everyone hates it when you walk into Spanish class and the teacher starts talking at you in Spanish.
We hate that.
I would not want to do that . . .
But at the same time, it would be an excuse to watch American movies in class. You know, so they could learn English and all.
Hahahahaha, yeah, right!
I'd just bring a list of movies to class and have them vote on one every single week.

My evil final writing project . . .

So, for my Development of the English Language class, we got to pick our final writing project from three different options.
I picked something along the lines of "pick a small group that uses non-standard English and write about the differences".
'Kay.
Being the dork/geek/nerd that I am, I picked n00bs. N00bs that speak 1337. 
I asked my professor if that was okay.
He said sure . . . and proceeded to inquire what a n00b and 1337 was.
This paper is going to be so fun . . .

My Inferior Grey Matter

Or "gray" matter, depending on your pronunciation.

Anyhoo, I hate my brain.

I want to sleep:

Then I get an awesome idea:

Then thirty mintues later, I crash:

If I don't write down my idea, I tell myself I'll remember it the next morning:

Yeah, well . . . I usually don't remember.

And then I'm all:

Story of my life.