Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo. I'm sure all the participants are busily tap-tap-tapping away at their keyboards to make the 50,000 word mark. My roommate has already finished off at about 51,000. Yay! Now comes the editing. Although, I don't know how much she'll edit/doctor this novel she's written, since she doesn't intend to publish it. *shrug*

Me, I'm busy typing away as well, working to finish a 15 page paper. Ugh. As Snowman/Jimmy from Oryx and Crake said, "God of Bullshit, fail me not."

HP update

Back to the Harry Potter conversation of last week, I forgot to mention some news. I've heard through the geek grapevine that Mrs. J.K. Rowling has enough material to write another 3 Harry Potter novels. I think that would be fabulous. My only concern then would be if she's planning to write about Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Malfoy, etc or if she would write about the next generation - their children that were shown in the (sadly poorly written) epilogue of the Deathly Hallows. Obviously, I would prefer the first option. <3
*yells* You got that, J.K. Rowling?! ..... K Thanx Bai.


P.S. If you have not yet seen the HP Deathly Hallows literal trailer, I highly suggest viewing it... right now.
Click here now because Blogger is stupid and will not allow me to embed videos that I do not have on my computer already!

Thanksgiving Poem

This is an old poem that I like to share around Thanksgiving.

The Turkey Shot Out of the OvenJack Prelutsky

The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.

It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.

It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there'd never been turkey before.

It blanketed every appliance,
it smeared every saucer and bowl,
there wasn't a way I could stop it,
that turkey was out of control.

I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure,
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped.

book chat

Last night after the excellent Words Against Hunger event, I got talking with some friends about the recent Harry Potter film that I saw yesterday. (btw, it was great) And then, somehow, we got onto the topic of Mr. Darcy in and the different film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. Then we got back into the Harry Potter conversation and discussed whether or not Snape is really a bad guy/villain/evil person. I'm sure that will come up in the Harry Potter class I'm taking next semester. >=)  And then, we diverted again... to the Twilight series. XD I love how we (i.e. college students) are able to talk about both popular and cannon literature animatedly as truly intelligent critical conversation. <3!

Words Against Hunger

This Sunday on campus at the Moose Cafe, there will be an event held by the LIT Club, the Social Action Committee, and CAVA called "Words Against Hunger". It will be a fun event because it is a food drive as well as a concert (a local bluegrass band will be playing - The Woodtones) with readings in between songs. I hope a lot of people come to this event. *hint hint*

I'm supposed to either write something to read at the event or simply find something someone else wrote to read. The subject can be about hunger/starvation, homelessness, or any other social justice issue. It would be easiest to look up something someone else has written on the subject. I would. I need to keep telling myself that.

I've been contemplating writing on the subject of homelessness for the past few months, but it' hard to tackle the subject when it's a very possible future for me and my family. Everyone is in financial trouble with the economy, but one of my worries really is that my parents will loose the house. It's possible, probable, and scary. Even if I do finish some short essay or other on that, I don't think I'd be able to read it without crying in front of the entire audience. And that would be way too embarassing.

So, I need to find something someone else wrote. Fast.

What if

What will the world be like in the future?
Will actual books become obsolete?
Will books become only accessibly in the virtual world?
Will we browse bookstores with shelves full of ebooks?
Will the ebooks be purchased on CDs or immediately downloadable to ebook readers?
Or will bookstores too become obsolete - much like what online music stores have done to music?

But what if we become too reliant on this technology?
What if there is a huge power outage?
Society would be completely crippled.
And what of books then?

HP7 (pt. 1)

I am very excited to report that I have successfully enrolled to take a literature class on Harry Potter next semester. It will be awesome! I wonder if we can have group work and separate the class into the 4 houses. That would be so cool!

I'm such a geek. ^^;

But at least I know a lot of other geeks so I do not feel singled out. Hehe. I figure we'll read all the HP books, perhaps with some other texts of literary criticism. I'm very interested in popular literature, as you can probably tell from my previous posts.

In other news, the next Harry Potter film will be coming out tomorrow at midnight, i.e. Friday morning at 12a.m. I know several people who are going to the midnight showing. I went to the midnight release of the last HP film. It was fun but I generally do not like to go to the first showing because of how rowdy the crowds can get. However, I would like to still see this new one sometime this weekend. I'll also wear my Griffindor tie to school on Friday.

On a random side note, I watched the first HP movie this weekend... in Spanish. =3 Because I'm a dork like that. And it was very cute in Spanish as well.

Stories: the thirst for knowledge

When I was reading Oryx and Crake, one of the most horrifying aspects of that futuristic world was the lack of books/literature. I think that literature, whether written or orally passed on, stories in general, are intrinsically important to culture. Ironically, after the bioterrorist haulocaust dropped upon humanity, the only "people" left were Crake's creations, the Crakers, who were illiterate. And though illiterate, the thing that they craved more than anything were stories - the oral tradition.

Shattered Glass

For our journalism class, we've been watching the movie Shattered Glass. It's good so far and I'm looking forward to watching the end of it this afternoon. Our professor wanted each of us to comment on the movie and its moral implications.

Right now the main character, Stephen Glass, is in a bit of a crunch because the very popular article he published for this fictional big time newspaper - the New Republic - is not passing inspection. Many of the facts for this article can only be backed by his notes. And the website addresses and phone numbers don't seem to be legit either. Even though the character is distressed by this, I'm hard put to believe him because of his personality. He knows how to work the crowd and how to flatter people to get what he wants. He's a total brown-noser. Meanwhile, in the background he's maintaining friendships with people from competing newspapers and pretending like he is not or that it is not important.


Thus, it looks like Mr. Glass faked the entire article. Heck, he could have even faked his boss out when he called to check on a company and pretended to be the head of this company. He could be making it all up! It's very possible.

Writing

It's week 2 of NaNoWriMo. Not that I have time to participate in it, but one of my roommates is. She's doing well, writing diligently every day. The end goal is 50,000 words. She's currenty a little over 16,000.

I feel kinda bad, ignoring my muse and all. I love to write and could do it pretty much all the time. However, I always prioritize and school work comes first. I suppose I should make notes to myself in the meanwhile, not to forget to develop a thought or plot further. However, I often get sidetracked into writing or then I continue thinking about writing all day instead of being able to push it aside and concentrate on homework.

Not that I have that much concentration lately anyway.
Homework. --check!
Focus. -- _________

Knitting

Knitting? Yes, that it the topic of this post. It doesn't have anything at all to do with the major theme of this blog, but I feel like writing about it anyway.

I've been stressed out because of family stuff recently and thus been unable to concentrate on homework. Instead, I've been procrastinating via knitting. I only know the basics, but I'm learning more. I used to only be able to make scarves, but I recently have been making hats. My first one is big, lumpy, green, and currently sitting on my head to keep me toasty warm. It kinda looks like a mushroom. I've made 2 more hats, each a better quality and more stylized, but for whatever reason, I haven't been able to replicate this first one.

I want to make one like the first one (a slouchy hat), but I guess I've not made it wide enough, slouchy enough, with enough stitches in the width. I was trying not to make the hats as lumpy as this first ones. Instead, I end up with something close to a skull cap. -_- Not what I was looking for. Ah well. I'll keep at it.

CNF

Creative Non-Fiction. It's not really my thing. I don't read any unless it's required by a class (not often). Last year, I took a workshop on creative non-fiction. It was a good experience, but I found that writing non-fiction about myself is uncomfortable. It's too personal. It doesn't have to be really personal, but that's the kind of stuff that comes out when I write it. And I'm not really ready to share myself like that with an audience.

For those who can, more power to them. Today I went to a reading of other students currently taking the CNF class. They were all well-written and funny. As always, I'm impressed by people who can (seemingly) share very personal issues easily. I also liked how their stories were each able to deviate from the main topic into related stories of personal influence that brought the focus back to the main issue again.

It made me aware that I should focus on doing this more often in my writing, if I don't already. Most often, I simply write without any specific ideas about how to stylize the stories. Sometimes I round up the time and energy to edit. I do so love editing. On the downside, it almost never ends.

"A Conversation with Dan Gediman"

Last week I went to the much acclaimed event "A Conversation with Dan Gediman". Dan Gediman is the co-editor of the Aquinas College common reading experience book this year - This I Believe. The book is full of short (500 word) essays by all sorts of people. I've read one essay for an event, but I haven't read the book. The freshman class is supposed to read it, and I generally don't pay much attention to whatever the freshmen are up to.

5 AQ students read their "This I Believe" speeches before Dan Gediman got up to talk. Most of them were pretty good. A couple were about death, which made me teary-eyed. =( And there was one odd one about how much this guy love Wege food... which is just stupid. People go to Wege cafeteria to socialize, not for the food. I've gotten food poisoning from Wege at least once, and I know friends who've had it multiple times from Wege food over the years. They don't call it the Wege Shuffle for nothing, you know.

Ahem. On a different note, I at least got to visit the new athletic building. It was pretty spiffy. I'd like to go wander around and check out the facilities more. As for the speech, it was okay. I didn't feel like it was anything really spectacular - probably because I haven't read the books. There's This I Believe, This I Believe 2, and This I Believe: On Love. I might have bought the new one (On Love) if I had the money with, since AQ has the first, advanced copies. More importantly, I really wanted the ones that the bookstore had in Spanish. Unfortunately, those were $45. Yikes! How do they expect poor college students to pay for that?

Sci-fi vs Speculative Fiction

For my Margaret Atwood seminar class, I'm currently reading Oryx and Crake. So far it's interesting, in a creepy and disturbing way. I like it though.

It's a futuristic novel about a man's recollections of a futuristic world before it was essentially wiped out. In it, he seems to be the last (or one of the last) remaining humans around as humans have been altered and enhanced to live in the harsh climate of the ruined world. There's also lots of spliced animals running around, which is freaky. All I really know so far is that the man, called Snowman, used to be good friends with Crake, the evil genius that destroyed the world and created his own enhanced humans. And Oryx was Snowman's mysterious girl friend/lover. I think she had a hand in Crake's creations as well, but I haven't read far enough to know yet.

In class, we've been discussing how Margaret Atwood fights the genre title of Science Fiction put on this book (and the squeals). She calls this trilogy Speculative Fiction. The difference is that Speculative Fiction is more realistic. It's a believable future, a future that we can imagine happening in a logical progress from today by taking current events to extremes. So, for example, it would not include technologies that are so beyond our current abilities that they are only possible in our imaginations. Or alien creatures like talking squids, etc...

Makes sense. I just haven't heard of this as a genre ever before. There's always something new coming out. Of course, Margaret Atwood's writing could have a genre all it's own. I'd call it, Ambiguous.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day!

Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder and treason should ever be forgot.

It's November 5th, also known as Guy Fawkes Day. This holiday is not generally celebrated in the U.S.A., but I and my friends recognize it, if only because of the movie V for Vendetta. Great movie! I hear the graphic novel is superb as well, though I haven't gotten my paws on it yet.

In honor of this momentous day, I give you, V's epic speech from V for Vendetta.

Evey: Who are you?
V. : Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
Evey: Well I can see that.
V. : Of course you can, I’m not questioning your powers of observation, I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.
Evey: Oh, right.
V. : But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voila! In view humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the “vox populi” now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it’s my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
Evey: Are you like a crazy person?
V. : I’m quite sure they will say so.

Just a quick post to note that I really liked the movie we've been watching in my journalism class - Shattered Glass. I'm looking forward to watching the rest next Thursday. Meanwhile, life is mass chaos and soon I'll be freaking out about the 2 huge research papers I have due in less than a month.

The active reader

When I became an English major, one of my fears was that learning to super analyze a text would ruin my enjoyment of reading a book. It sounds stupid, but yes. I was worried about that all I'd be able to think about was how so-and-so can easily be interpreted as a feminist reading or what the author is saying in his/her social commentary.

Fortunately, I discovered that the opposite happened. The more I learn about a book, the more I like it. And in the meantime, I am still able to read a book and purely enjoy it on its own. =)

Where's the goods?

Over Fall Break, I got my reading on. Woohoo! Unfortunately, 2 out of the four books I read weren’t very good. T_T Ugh. What a waste. As I generally read a lot of romance novels, all four were romance novels. The good ones were by two of my favorite authors. I’ve been waiting since the beginning of school to get my hands on those and read them. They were awesome.

On the other hand, the other two were bad and really bad. Oh! I almost forgot, I read the first quarter of another book too—a print book—that my sister recommended to me. I only read part of it because the beginning was slow, the heroine was painfully obtuse, which main her seem dumb, the dialogue was fairly boring, and the plot was über transparent.

In general, its becoming increasingly easier for someone to get published. However, not everyone that gets published is an accomplished or talented writer. Sometimes, I’m surprised at what gets published.I seem to be coming across badly written fiction more frequently in both new romance authors and ebooks. In ebooks I understand the concept a bit more.

Ebooks are easier to publish than actual print books and therefore act as a short of stepping stone. I see this particularly in publishers who started as ebook publishers because they only print the books that sell the best and have the best feedback. For example, Ellora's Cave is mainly and e-publisher. On the website, people who've bought the book are allowed to rate the book and write comments. Only the really successful books are made into print because they are guaranteed to sell. Makes sense, no? However, it makes buying e-books a hit or miss experience.

Despite the bad ebooks I've read, it gives me hope. If the author who wrote the really bad ebook I read can get published (with 18 books under her belt, I might add), I sure as hell can. =) lol

NaNoWriMo!

It's November 1st! That means it's the start of NaNoWri Mo! That is, November is the National Novel Writing Month!

Sounds exciting, no? It's a personal challenge to write a novel, 50,000 words, in a months time. If you think your novel is worthwhile, you can even submit it to the NaNoWriMo website's competition. However, I think it's enough of a challenge to get that much writing out in a month, let alone to have it edited enough to submit to a contest. 0_o Ugh. Editing is to valuable to be ignored. In my opinion, editing is what truly makes a book. Not simply getting an amount of words out.

Still, I would love to take on this challenge. Too bad I never have enough time to participate in it. *sigh* Maybe someday, some year. I always say "next year" and it just doesn't happen. November is a busy month for college students. Perhaps I should try it during the summer months when I might be less busy.