Well, I had to use my driver's license from day one. The very next day Manda had trouble while we were out and I had to drive us to class (including teenager and toddler) and then drive her home and then drive myself back to work and then drive myself home in the rain up the 17. Fun times. But clearly God knew I'd need to have my license by that day, and so gave me an opportunity to get it the day before. Funny how life turns out that way sometimes.
I've been driving a fair bit since getting my license. It's still not fun, but I'm gaining a little confidence. Driving myself to class in heavy rain storm was the worst: the traffic was thick enough to have lots of chaos, and thin enough that it was still moving at a fair clip, add in torrential rain and a new driver....But I managed just fine in the end.
I continue to be plagued by a long stream of minor but obnoxious ailments. Most recently a stomach flu that dovetailed into the end of a headcold. I've only got a few lingering side effects from each left and am mercifully feeling almost healthy again, but there was a miserable couple weeks in there.
My computer is also ailing. It's getting old and slow, the poor thing. I wish I knew more about troubleshooting this generation of computer. It is being buggy: neither sleep nor hibernate works properly any more--the one just logs me out without actually turning off, the other tends to crash the computer entirely. So I have to do a full shut down every time. And start up takes about 15 minutes to complete now. I hope it can hold on a while longer though. Ron's laptop's hard drive just died entirely and we certainly don't need both computers down.
The results came back on the Stegner Fellowship--I didn't get in. Nevertheless, I'm glad I entered. I think it was a good step forward in becoming serious about my writing. I'm working on the 9th chapter now--by the way, if you're one of my readers and don't have 8 chapters by now, let me know and I'll send you the latest. Things are getting a little out of order as Gynna's most recently put out chapter is being delayed and we're filling in a bit more between Johan's illness and Gynna's departure.
Not that this is any real indication of what the novel length will end up being, but I estimate I'm a little more than 1/5 of the way toward a normal length fantasy novel with the new chapters included. Which feels about right in terms of where I'm at in introducing things and getting things rolling. Things always move faster at the end. I need to pick up the writing pace, though. I don't want to be writing this particular novel for years yet!
Let's see, what else is new. With Marc and Patricia as the upcoming King and Queen of the West, we'll be going to Pensic this year: my first. I've always felt that Pensic is a sort of Mecca for SCAers--you've got to go at least once in your life, so this is my chance. I've been weaving again--some simple inkle weaving to get me going and now I'm warping up a painfully period tablet weaving project in thin wool. I used the wool on the last inkle project and one of the warp threads snapped. In anything but wool that would have been pretty close to unredeemable, but I managed to patch the wool and weave past it. There's two inches that are a little funky, but it worked out fine in the end. Doing crazy tablet weaving things with it is a little intimidating, but I think I'm ready.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Licensed to Drive
I got my driver's license!
There were definitely some touch and go moments there--and comedic ones too. The car I was going to take my test in had to be swapped at the last minute. The registration was mysteriously missing from the car I did most of my practicing in, so I ended up borrowing a friend's car instead, and dragging her down to the DMV with me from work.
But of course since it was a car I was less familiar with, there were some quirks. The first thing the tester asked me to do was flash the blinker. And on came the...windshield wipers. I blame it on the unfamiliar car, but in truth I'd used the blinkers on Meg's car before and they are in the same place as on Manda's. It was really just nerves. And then I couldn't get the bloody wipers to turn off. The tester scolded as Meg came back and showed me before scurrying off again. I thought the test might be over right then and there, but no, I got another chance.
Meg's breaks also halt at a feather's touch, so the tester marked off points for all my abrupt jerky stops. Bah. It's a good thing it wasn't my very first time in that car--now those had been abrupt stops!
All in all it went ok though. And now I have it, a license. Better late than never, eh? Since I still don't like driving, I think those around me might be more excited than me. But still, there is a sense of accomplishment there, and a sense that certain things that were not possible might now be. I can go return my library books or go buy us some milk by borrowing a car rather than a person and a car.
All this new freedom was immediately put to use. I felt like I had to drive all over creation today when Manda took sick while we were out. Really it was just across San Jose and Los Gatos, and back and forth up and down the hill about three times. I drove Sky and Rhys and Manda and managed not to crash and kill us all, even with the toddler shouting in the back. I drove myself back up the 17 in the rain alone and even braved the fast lane to go around a truck (with traffic to merge with, no less).
I crossed two lanes in rapid succession to get an off ramp on the 280 and then three more lanes on Moreland once I was off, again in rapid succession. For those of you who don't know me, that was scarier than the 17 in the rain. For those of you who don't know the 17 it's a twisty narrow mountain freeway, though it's becoming home turf for me (and no, I have no plan of getting cocky; I have a healthy respect for those drops and rocks; it's just that other drivers scare me even more and the 280 is busy).
Anyway, it may be crazy scary, but it seems I have joined the driving masses at long last. I don't regret waiting so long. I really didn't need it as a teen or even as a college student. Public transit is more ecologically sound, it was perfectly feasible in many of the places I've lived. But not here. The last bus that ran this was was canceled half a year ago; there is no safe way down the mountain except driving. (Crazy people can bike or walk along the edge of road even crazier with narrow lanes and long drops and blind curves than the 17 with the locals zipping past at half again the speed limit...but not for me, thank you.)
So there you have it. On my...fifth? sixth?...driver's permit, more than a decade after my first one...and yet on my very first ever driver's test: I passed.
There were definitely some touch and go moments there--and comedic ones too. The car I was going to take my test in had to be swapped at the last minute. The registration was mysteriously missing from the car I did most of my practicing in, so I ended up borrowing a friend's car instead, and dragging her down to the DMV with me from work.
But of course since it was a car I was less familiar with, there were some quirks. The first thing the tester asked me to do was flash the blinker. And on came the...windshield wipers. I blame it on the unfamiliar car, but in truth I'd used the blinkers on Meg's car before and they are in the same place as on Manda's. It was really just nerves. And then I couldn't get the bloody wipers to turn off. The tester scolded as Meg came back and showed me before scurrying off again. I thought the test might be over right then and there, but no, I got another chance.
Meg's breaks also halt at a feather's touch, so the tester marked off points for all my abrupt jerky stops. Bah. It's a good thing it wasn't my very first time in that car--now those had been abrupt stops!
All in all it went ok though. And now I have it, a license. Better late than never, eh? Since I still don't like driving, I think those around me might be more excited than me. But still, there is a sense of accomplishment there, and a sense that certain things that were not possible might now be. I can go return my library books or go buy us some milk by borrowing a car rather than a person and a car.
All this new freedom was immediately put to use. I felt like I had to drive all over creation today when Manda took sick while we were out. Really it was just across San Jose and Los Gatos, and back and forth up and down the hill about three times. I drove Sky and Rhys and Manda and managed not to crash and kill us all, even with the toddler shouting in the back. I drove myself back up the 17 in the rain alone and even braved the fast lane to go around a truck (with traffic to merge with, no less).
I crossed two lanes in rapid succession to get an off ramp on the 280 and then three more lanes on Moreland once I was off, again in rapid succession. For those of you who don't know me, that was scarier than the 17 in the rain. For those of you who don't know the 17 it's a twisty narrow mountain freeway, though it's becoming home turf for me (and no, I have no plan of getting cocky; I have a healthy respect for those drops and rocks; it's just that other drivers scare me even more and the 280 is busy).
Anyway, it may be crazy scary, but it seems I have joined the driving masses at long last. I don't regret waiting so long. I really didn't need it as a teen or even as a college student. Public transit is more ecologically sound, it was perfectly feasible in many of the places I've lived. But not here. The last bus that ran this was was canceled half a year ago; there is no safe way down the mountain except driving. (Crazy people can bike or walk along the edge of road even crazier with narrow lanes and long drops and blind curves than the 17 with the locals zipping past at half again the speed limit...but not for me, thank you.)
So there you have it. On my...fifth? sixth?...driver's permit, more than a decade after my first one...and yet on my very first ever driver's test: I passed.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
DunDraCon
For some time now I have been playing, off an on, on Witch Storm, an online role playing site and it has occurred to me that text rpgs of this sort have an odd relationship with fiction writing. I describe the site to non-role players as a "cooperative fiction writing forum" where we write stories by taking turns narrating from the viewpoints of different characters in the story. Often those who come in emphasizing the "game" aspect of role playing game face difficulties, as this is not the sort of game where you are trying to "win." Gaining power and wielding it, fulfilling your characters agendas, all these should be very much secondary to ensuring there is good drama overall. And usually drama is better when your viewpoint characters are having a very hard time rather than when everything is going their way.
This weekend I attended DunDraCon and, for various reasons, my normal ratio of RPGs to LARPs was inverted and I played in LARPs most of the weekend. I thus had time to reflect that LARPs had a somewhat parallel relationship with acting that online text rpgs did with creative writing. Later, to my amusement, the GM of the best LARP I played in commented on much the same thing and challenged us to act our characters rather than play them.
Whether I am playing a table top game, an online text game or a LARP, story and character growth interest me most. That is probably why I am less interested in computer games or even board games and card games where winning and strategy are paramount.
This DunDraCon was an epic one for LARPs. There was a three part game that spanned the whole history of a tiny world from creation to destruction. I got to play in the first and second game and my second game character appeared in the last one as well, having been one of four characters to gain god-like powers in game two. Not that that had been her intention...in fact it was somewhat inconvenient at the time! I also played in a WoD LARP at long last, and that was fun and dramatic, playing a Changeling (someone stolen by faeries and then escaped back to the real world forever altered) consumed by anger and a determination to see justice done and to protect humans from suffering a like fate. I got to plot and scheme but also pace angrily and pull at my hair and claw at the furniture in frustration.
But the most epic game by far in terms of drama, was an Elizabethan Steampunk fantasy game called "Ship of Fools." It was phenomenal. So detailed. At last I played a faction leader...well, co-leader. But everything seemed to go unrelentingly wrong for her from the word go. It was gut wrenching. She wanted so badly to do the right thing, an idealist to the core, and with loved ones along to protect and a whole way of life back home to guard...and yet she had the rug pulled out from under her feet and her world, had to trust people she'd been taught were inherently untrustworthy, learn compromise, and relearn the value of trusting her own instincts. In the end, she saved her party and helped prevent a war by, in fact, trusting the right person and not backing down from that decision. Wow, heavy stuff. I'm really quite shocked she survived it all. It was very touch and go for a while there. She even told someone to kill her if necessary.
I can't wait for the sequel next year.
This weekend I attended DunDraCon and, for various reasons, my normal ratio of RPGs to LARPs was inverted and I played in LARPs most of the weekend. I thus had time to reflect that LARPs had a somewhat parallel relationship with acting that online text rpgs did with creative writing. Later, to my amusement, the GM of the best LARP I played in commented on much the same thing and challenged us to act our characters rather than play them.
Whether I am playing a table top game, an online text game or a LARP, story and character growth interest me most. That is probably why I am less interested in computer games or even board games and card games where winning and strategy are paramount.
This DunDraCon was an epic one for LARPs. There was a three part game that spanned the whole history of a tiny world from creation to destruction. I got to play in the first and second game and my second game character appeared in the last one as well, having been one of four characters to gain god-like powers in game two. Not that that had been her intention...in fact it was somewhat inconvenient at the time! I also played in a WoD LARP at long last, and that was fun and dramatic, playing a Changeling (someone stolen by faeries and then escaped back to the real world forever altered) consumed by anger and a determination to see justice done and to protect humans from suffering a like fate. I got to plot and scheme but also pace angrily and pull at my hair and claw at the furniture in frustration.
But the most epic game by far in terms of drama, was an Elizabethan Steampunk fantasy game called "Ship of Fools." It was phenomenal. So detailed. At last I played a faction leader...well, co-leader. But everything seemed to go unrelentingly wrong for her from the word go. It was gut wrenching. She wanted so badly to do the right thing, an idealist to the core, and with loved ones along to protect and a whole way of life back home to guard...and yet she had the rug pulled out from under her feet and her world, had to trust people she'd been taught were inherently untrustworthy, learn compromise, and relearn the value of trusting her own instincts. In the end, she saved her party and helped prevent a war by, in fact, trusting the right person and not backing down from that decision. Wow, heavy stuff. I'm really quite shocked she survived it all. It was very touch and go for a while there. She even told someone to kill her if necessary.
I can't wait for the sequel next year.
Friday, 11 February 2011
The New IT Department
So I was talking with tech support yesterday on chat. After she had fixed my latest problem—I’d been on about five times already that day, setting up this new network at work, I asked her one last thing (so I wouldn't have to contact someone again 5 minute later):
I guess I asked for that one! I was just about on the floor laughing. Gotta love snarky tech support!
In further news, I've been "promoted". In addition to my regular duties, I am now the IT department. Yes, that's right, I'm a department. And the IT department at that. Given the quote above, that should frighten you.
I want to sit down with someone who actually speaks computerese for about an hour and get some comp-speak to English translations, and perhaps some helpful diagrams on a white board. I'm puzzling through it all bit by bit (get it?) but I feeling I should be zipping right through a lot of this. (Ok, I'll stop now, I promise.)
In fact, I feel a little like being a college student again, with more than a full load, except almost all my classes are independent study or private tutorials with busy profs or TAs. There's my civil law class, my crash course in medicine & physiology, and of course my independent study in computer technologies, and then there is driver's ed (private lessons) and my actual taught course in ASL (wow, one at an honest to goodness college). And then there is trying to finish my thesis project in Creative Writing, in which I write a novel. Oh, yes, and there is some sort of weird applied art survey course I signed up for--I'm in the wire work unit right now.
It's a lot of different directions for my brain to stretch in at once, but in many ways I can't be sorry for it. I have missed all the energy that comes from regular intensive learning. So even though it's quite the "course load," I'm glad. I just hope I "pass" everything!!
Me: Ok. Any other pitfalls for those of us who aren't computer geeks?
Tech Support: The future :P
I guess I asked for that one! I was just about on the floor laughing. Gotta love snarky tech support!
---
In further news, I've been "promoted". In addition to my regular duties, I am now the IT department. Yes, that's right, I'm a department. And the IT department at that. Given the quote above, that should frighten you.
I want to sit down with someone who actually speaks computerese for about an hour and get some comp-speak to English translations, and perhaps some helpful diagrams on a white board. I'm puzzling through it all bit by bit (get it?) but I feeling I should be zipping right through a lot of this. (Ok, I'll stop now, I promise.)
In fact, I feel a little like being a college student again, with more than a full load, except almost all my classes are independent study or private tutorials with busy profs or TAs. There's my civil law class, my crash course in medicine & physiology, and of course my independent study in computer technologies, and then there is driver's ed (private lessons) and my actual taught course in ASL (wow, one at an honest to goodness college). And then there is trying to finish my thesis project in Creative Writing, in which I write a novel. Oh, yes, and there is some sort of weird applied art survey course I signed up for--I'm in the wire work unit right now.
It's a lot of different directions for my brain to stretch in at once, but in many ways I can't be sorry for it. I have missed all the energy that comes from regular intensive learning. So even though it's quite the "course load," I'm glad. I just hope I "pass" everything!!
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Characters
So apparently one of the teenagers in my house started this thing on facebook (or brought it to the house's attention; I'm not quite sure. Facebook isn't my strong suite.). The challenge runs thus: to name 15 fictional characters that have influenced you, or your life. Not just ones you really liked...no, actual influence. And not to spend much time thinking about it. The latter stipulation guarantees that I'll later gasp at some odd moment tomorrow and go "how could I not have put X on my list?!" but so it goes.
So of course I had to do mine (again in no particular order):
1. Tremaine Valiarde
2. Kade Carrion
3. Aslan
4. Raamo
5. Eponine
6. Javare
7. Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève
8. Tanaros Blacksword
9. John Ross
10. Catherine Chandler
11. Adrick
12. The Doctor
13.Menoly
14. Martin the Warrior
15. Bastian
I posted a reply on facebook, but I don't have any faith in that strange bewildering site, so I am posting here as well. So, anyone know where my various characters came from? What would your list be?
So of course I had to do mine (again in no particular order):
1. Tremaine Valiarde
2. Kade Carrion
3. Aslan
4. Raamo
5. Eponine
6. Javare
7. Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève
8. Tanaros Blacksword
9. John Ross
10. Catherine Chandler
11. Adrick
12. The Doctor
13.Menoly
14. Martin the Warrior
15. Bastian
I posted a reply on facebook, but I don't have any faith in that strange bewildering site, so I am posting here as well. So, anyone know where my various characters came from? What would your list be?
Monday, 13 December 2010
A New Job
Today I had my first day as administrative assistant at the law office. Hurray for a new job! It's part time which suits me great. I go in long enough to get stuff done and not long enough to be counting down the hours and minutes till I get to go, and then I have enough day left to go off to a coffee shop and write.
That's the theory anyway. Today I went to a coffee shop and updated my novel's files so all the work I did for writing sample would be integrated into the current working draft of the novel (they'd been separate files since the working drafts were divided by chapter and the writing sample was one continuous file I was monitoring for word count. But the latter had all the recent proof reading and editing.) Next I stared at the current chapter. I went over some planning notes for the novel. I stared at the current chapter some more. Then I checked email and did web stuff. I glared at the current chapter.
I did do some work on what will likely be the next chapter. That one's going to be about as tricky as this one. But I'm hoping the one after that will go more smoothly. I'm trying to resist the urge to skip ahead since one of the primary goals with this particular writing project is to practice continuity of beginning to middle to end. Most of my drafts suffer from this urge to skip around.
I think tomorrow I'm going to have to put into effect a "no internet until the first page is written" rule. With the last chapter, once I got it going again, I wrote it all the way to the end, and that one had been stuck for months.
Anyway, I'm very hopeful, both for my chances of having focused writing time and at the prospect of having some income.
That's the theory anyway. Today I went to a coffee shop and updated my novel's files so all the work I did for writing sample would be integrated into the current working draft of the novel (they'd been separate files since the working drafts were divided by chapter and the writing sample was one continuous file I was monitoring for word count. But the latter had all the recent proof reading and editing.) Next I stared at the current chapter. I went over some planning notes for the novel. I stared at the current chapter some more. Then I checked email and did web stuff. I glared at the current chapter.
I did do some work on what will likely be the next chapter. That one's going to be about as tricky as this one. But I'm hoping the one after that will go more smoothly. I'm trying to resist the urge to skip ahead since one of the primary goals with this particular writing project is to practice continuity of beginning to middle to end. Most of my drafts suffer from this urge to skip around.
I think tomorrow I'm going to have to put into effect a "no internet until the first page is written" rule. With the last chapter, once I got it going again, I wrote it all the way to the end, and that one had been stuck for months.
Anyway, I'm very hopeful, both for my chances of having focused writing time and at the prospect of having some income.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Death of a Car
A few short months ago I posted here about our first ever car, our shiny red Geo Metro. Ok, run down but nevertheless rather cute Geo Metro.
Now, the car is dead. It successfully took us on a short road trip to Sacramento and back for Thanksgiving. It sounded as fine as it ever does.
The day after we returned we went shopping (unsuccessfully, I might add). On our way back from the mall, we turned a corner, continued a little ways down the block, heard a terrible wrenching noise, and coasted to the shoulder of the road.
I'm thankful there was a shoulder of the road to coast to because we were there for about an hour before the tow truck found us. Anyway, getting home that night was a bit of an adventure, but we managed it.
The car has a busted transmission. I don't know much about cars, but everyone we've asked has heard "transmission" and then asked when we're buying our new car. So apparently we're in the market for a new car already.
Not that I'm not grateful for our cute cheap little first car. It got us going, it launched Ron into the working world. And the price was definitely right. Now we'll have to see what we can find for the next one.
Now, the car is dead. It successfully took us on a short road trip to Sacramento and back for Thanksgiving. It sounded as fine as it ever does.
The day after we returned we went shopping (unsuccessfully, I might add). On our way back from the mall, we turned a corner, continued a little ways down the block, heard a terrible wrenching noise, and coasted to the shoulder of the road.
I'm thankful there was a shoulder of the road to coast to because we were there for about an hour before the tow truck found us. Anyway, getting home that night was a bit of an adventure, but we managed it.
The car has a busted transmission. I don't know much about cars, but everyone we've asked has heard "transmission" and then asked when we're buying our new car. So apparently we're in the market for a new car already.
Not that I'm not grateful for our cute cheap little first car. It got us going, it launched Ron into the working world. And the price was definitely right. Now we'll have to see what we can find for the next one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)