rabbithigh

It seems these days, the people that I have around me tire me out so much.
I like them, sure. But I can see deeper into their hearts than they know. And it tires me.
It's just these little things, little gestures or muttered words that let me know exactly what color they are.
It wasn't like this before.
I've been in university for three semesters now and each semester I've had different sets of friends.
I still have my friends from first semester and second.
But it seems to be a downward spiral and my friends right now, though fun and loyal and lovely, are not of my taste...
Does that make sense?



Writing... I was looking back on what was once called Inherited Spirit, then Soul for Wings... but basically, a fantasy story set in a world called Wimblia.
I thought it up when I was 15 and wrote the first draft then. I outlined each of the five books and knew the characters to their core.
I suffered writer's block, was lured away by another story and haven't really gone back to it since.
But nowadays, I think about it and I'm amazed by these combinations of plots and twists and terrible pasts that I thought up as a 15-year-old.
Sometimes, I can't remember how one problem was solved or how this leads to that and I'm speechless and sad.
It's quite amazing that I built up such a world... but I'm going to have to dig up all my journals and notes and misplaced clues to fully remember that living story that waits for me.

And right now, there's also Milton&Chase... I was reading the very first draft -- written during NaNoWriMo 2010 -- yesterday and wow, it surprised me how many changes I made.
It's my weakness! I need to sort things out because once I start unraveling and making changes, I can't seem to stop. And there doesn't seem to be an end.
Meanwhile, the world around me keeps spinning and there's friends to meet, classes to attend, exams to study for, clubs to participate in, life to live...
I don't want to forget that the reason why I am calm while everyone struggles with their future and stresses out is that I know with my whole heart that what I want to do is write.
As long as I have that desire and that future ahead of me, I don't mind what university I go to, what classes I take, which country I live in.
All I need are my stories, my notebooks and my characters.
Simple enough.

So, let's not forget it :)

I just finished Maggie Stiefvater's "Lament" and, to be truthful, I had to force myself through it.
I mean, I love Maggie's "Shiver" series to death. I've read "Lament" countless times and I absolutely love her lyrical style.
But they seem to show that Maggie improved so much.
"Lament" has a good storyline but it's rushed and a bit unbelievable.
The ending is a bit abrupt and everything ends nicely a bit too nicely.
I hear that "Ballad" is way better than "Lament" but who knows when I'll see it in a bookstore here :(

Reread "Anna and the French Kiss" and it's still as good. Was pleased with the way the relationships worked.

And now, let's talk about my title. My history class. Oh em gee. Gah.
The teacher is insane. Her pronunciation (Korean teacher teaching in English) is funny and wacky. But that's not the problem. She seems to have so much knowledge about history but she doesn't know how to convey that.
It's just slide after slide of notes and notes that seem random and not relevant to each other.
Also, she sets an unusual and terrifying amount of homework. Then she sets us some more and claims it's to make it easier on us.
Doom.

In terms of writing... ever since the computer shut-down and losing those pages... I'm torn whether to go back to work on recovering what I lost -- coax and plead and struggle with my memory -- or get started on Milton&Chase again...
So while I'm in this hesitation moment... nothing gets written.
Doom Dos.

And I have no money.
DOOM!!!

So, to wrap things up, college is going nicely. Just a normal life... *crazy laugh*
Here's a nice picture to say goodbye.

I think I'm in shock right now. I thought that all this shutting down and losing files thing was over, a thing of the past. Because after it's happened to you once then you learn to SAVE your documents every other minute.
But no and my computer turns down because it's heated up and needed to do some recovery software thing and now it's gone.
It's gone.
My new draft of my new story that I've been writing for three days.

DOOM.

And usually, I'd be rolling around on my floor screaming and banging on the floor and feeling irritated and cursed and plain stupid because I know it won't EVER come back.
But right now... I'm just... so, so, so, so disappointed.

:(

And the reason I didn't save the document is because I have that stupid, useless little superstition that I can get on a roll and keep writing and writing as long as it's a new, unsaved document... because it feels new and like the first time or something like that.

WOE.

I don't know if I have the energy to start it up again. Looking at a blank new document page will make me feel so infinitely tired.
I think I'll go and finish reading for class (we're reading "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") and sleep.

:(

It was just my luck to be stuck on an eleven-hour flight from Canada to Korea sitting behind 50 middle-schoolers who talked nonstop the whole trip :(
But well, I am back home! So far, I've seen no snow and it's not as cold as I expected.
The best things about my trip back from Mexico were:
1. Staying over at a high school friend's in Vancouver. I got to see North Vancouver and visit downtown. North Van is very pretty, with neat little neighborhoods and colorful houses.
Also, who knew that the Seabus actually does go across the sea? :)
2. Airport bookshops. God, gotta love them. I was hoping to pick up John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars" but it wasn't in stock :(
Instead, I made do with Maggie Stiefvater's "Lament" (the lovely new red paperback) and Lauren Oliver's "Before I Fall" and "Delirium."

Now I'm paying school fees, seeing friends again, downing coffee and buying pretty stuff :/
School starts next week! Can't wait. After two months of vacation, some education and knowledge is called for!

Thankfully, I'm still working on Milton&Chase.
Hopefully, it won't be like last year when I didn't write... for a year D:

Read the title? I love coffee. I drink it every day, whenever I can. I love it, I love it. It's one of the reasons I ended up broke last semester because I buy the cafe-coffee twice a day and that costs SO much. Not to mention the insomnia :(
Coffee +_+

Anyways, on to other topics! I have finished reading Forever and Looking for Alaska (reread), now I'm starting The Perks of Being a Wallflower (reread) and wishing they would release a stupid trailer already!!
Wallflower is the last book that I have to read that my brother got me from the library.
I'm feeling sort of anxious because I want to reread this one, I still have to read The Outsiders (borrowed) and I want to ask my brother to get me As Simple as Snow by GG and Thirteen Reasons Why by JA and maybe even The Thirteenth Tale by DS and oh, let's not forget, Saving Francesca by MM.
*sigh*
But I'm leaving in two weeks and I'm busy 1) giving English classes every day to students who seem to have an aversion to prepositions and 2) writing Milton&Case and 3) drinking my coffee while I daydream about Vampire Diaries.
So uh... yeah.
So little time, so much to do.

 Let's talk about the only 3 shows that I keep watching faithfully:
a) One Piece
b) Sherlock
c) Vampire Diaries.

One Piece is self-explanatory since I've only been going on and on about throughout my whole blogging experience. It is my greatest inspiration and has made me cry countless times. I love the characters and their adventures and it's been 10 years. Love!

Sherlock... two seasons with only three episodes each and a two-year pause between each. And now Season 2 is over and can someone kill me, please? God, the season finale for 2 was even better than 1. I cried. Yup, I cried.
Please, give us some more 21st century modern Sherlock Holmes!!
Anyone who has not seen this (or God forbid, hasn't heard of it) should seriously catch up. Sherlock is funny, smart, witty, mean, oblivious and addicting.

And finally, Vampire Diaries. Wow, it continued to surprise me. I can't believe all that's happened so far. Every episode ends with a satisfying cliffhanger and I wish new episodes were released more than once a week.
I'm going to put the spoilery names in white because I'm nice like that:
1. Elijah's new hairstyle suits him very well. Yes, yes :)
2. More Klaus&Caroline please!!
and 3. Is Elena ever going to become a vampire? I mean, if they defeat Klaus then is that the end of the series? I hope not. They've done so well with the vampire and werewolf legends. Great twists and character development.

Also, I've been watching films all winter. I'll put up a list once I go back to uni but the most recent ones are The Virgin Suicides, Restless (Henry Hopper<3), Elizabethtown and Girl, Interrupted.

I like indie films :) Recommend some??

p.s. Mr. Nobody... huh!?!? *ponder*

The new draft is going very well. I've reached 26K and still got lots of chapter outlines to catch up on. Quite excited, as it were, to actually finish this before I go back to uni.
But as I write, I can't help but feel this gnawing sensation that it isn't good enough, that what I'm writing is so bland and ordinary.
Usually, that kind of thought paralyzes me and I start reading books by great authors and decide to change the style of my draft to imitate them because they did so well and then I'm back to zero.
But right now, I'm plowing through.

Back in high school, my art teacher told me that, to see the whole picture, I needed to finish painting the whole canvas first. She said that with so many undone, white parts, I wouldn't be able to get the feel of anything.
I ignored her words and continued my detailed work on one part of the canvas, feeling anticipation for when I was ready to move on the next part. Because I thought everything was alright as long as I had the full picture in my head.
So my teacher comes along again and tells me, "Paint it all! Hurry! Don't concentrate on one part! Paint the whole thing so that there are no white bits. Then you will see."
Which annoyed me after the fourth or fifth time so I did as she asked. I painted the whole canvas halfheartedly, thinking "Great, now it's going to take me ages to fix it." But then I was done and damn, she was right.
Without the white bits, I could see what the whole thing actually looked like, finished. I could see what needed to be done, which bits needed fixing and all that mumbo-jumbo.

That's what I hope I'm doing right now. Even if I feel doubt and hesitation and want to just stop and fix all the individual chapters because I'm plagued with the idea that if the beginning is confusing or wrong or not perfect, I won't be able to keep writing.
Right now, my aim to finish the whole thing before I take a close look.
I guess that's what they urge you to do in NaNoWriMo too, right?

How are your writing adventures going?

It is quite clear to me that as I'm writing (and doing particularly well in terms of wordcount) a new draft, I tend to outline and brainstorm continuously into my journal. And it has become a regular pattern that, as I'm writing, I stumble upon a new idea that would obviously make the book so much more AWESOME! So I start a new draft with this brand new idea that also happens to add HUGE changes to my manuscript.
Then I change things again.
And again.
And again.
And then I feel all hopeless and tangled and wow, this other WIP sounds really enticing, so I'll come back to you later, okay?
*headdesk*

That's what's happening with Milton&Chase right now :O
I've decided to change a few things around and that just happens to require a new draft because it changes a LOT of things.
Because I'm worried about never finishing this draft, I even outlined the next seven chapters!!
I hope they get to be written and see the day of light... *worried*
But as long as I believe wholeheartedly that this is for the best and that I can't go back now... I guess I must continue?

Anyhows, that's my writing update :/
I'll leave y'all with a lovely quote:

There are many books on my must-read list and I don't usually get the chance to stop by a bookstore or the library and take one out. So finding one of the books I want to read fills me with great joy.
As you all know, the last book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, FOREVER, came out back in 2011. I was quite anxious to get my hands on a copy - seeing as I read LINGER like 5 times - and when I got to an airport in Canada and so the book in stock I was ridiculously happy.
But of course, I didn't have US or Canadian dollars so I sadly went on my way and slept on a bench for two hours.
Eh hem.
Anyways, point being, I went to one of my students' house to teach him and was going through his bookshelf while he finished lunch and OHEMGEE is this FOREVER I see?!!?!?!?!?!

Tee hee.

So now, FOREVER is right here next to me :) *crazy laugh*

My reading pile now looks like:
- Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
- Looking for Alaska by John Green
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

... and I plan to ask my brother to take out SAVING FRANCESCA by Melina Marchetta and some chick-lit by Sophie Kinsella and Jill Mansell. *happy sigh*
That means I will have completed nearly half of my reading goal. All in two months. Yes, that is how it must be.

And to make things even better, I have reached 17K on my new draft of Milton&Chase so yes, I'm a happy fish.
Hurray!

p.s. A big shout-out to Maggie Stiefvater for winning the Printz Honor for The Scorpio Races!!!

So, lately, this is my life in Mexico: wake up, stay in bed for a few hours, watch dramas or movies, go teach for four hours, come back home, eat dinner, watch some more videos, go to sleep.
And when I first got back home from university, I had a serious case of uni-sickness. Like, I really wanted to go back. Back to my friends and my freedom and my room and my solitariness.
But it's been almost a month now and I've got another month to go... and university seems like a dream in a dream. I feel like I'm back home for good and that was all just eons ago.
The one good thing about this is that I always got writing done at home.
And that makes me happy.

I planned Milton&Chase excitedly for about two months, I think. Then I wrote it for NaNoWriMo and managed to complete it in January 2011. That was a year ago.
Then I discussed with my awesome writer friends of awesome and they gave me new ideas and motivation.
So I came up with a bunch of new edits and sat down to revise this baby. But then university started and I was majorly distracted and now BAM! look at that, it's 2012.
Yes, I am sad. Yes, I am despicable.
But hey, I wrote 3K in two days! And now I don't even remember if that's supposed to be good or just plain slow... Hmph.

Anyways, I'm at Milton&Chase again and so far, the redraft is going well. Fingers crossed that it shall continue this way.

Last year, I developed an interest in films. Not blockbuster, Hollywood films. But the independent films. So I'm watching some of those this winter vacation too :)
Speaking of which, I feel like it's summer here in Mexico. I seriously, seriously cannot believe that Korea is right now piled up in SNOW. And that's what I have to get back to in one month and two days. >____<