Classes! Stuff! Exciting!

It's been a while since I've updated this, so it's high time that I wrote a detailed account of all that's been going on.

Classes are good, and my literature professors are off the wall, which is good for the most part.  I find that the best professors are passionate about what they are teaching on and/or completely crazy.  I'd rather have a teacher for a class that acts nuts and tries to make things fun than someone who speaks in a lame monotone (which looks like what's going to happen in my Intro to Physics class, unfortunately).

My Brit Lit professor is an anxious guy, and very passionate about his subject.  He said that we were going to be comparing the "didactic and satirical aspects of different pieces of literature" from 18th century literature.  He also read a dirty poem out loud that had all these archaic sexual references.  We all just gave him blank stares when he was done reading.  We're going to be reading Pamela during the class, and a section of The Spectator for Tuesday. Sounds like fun... But at the very least I have a friend in the class, which is awesome.

My creative writing class looks to be interesting.  The professor for this class is also very off-the-wall and crazy, and I think I'm going to be doing a lot of writing and work-shopping. It should be very helpful and useful. :)

Lit Theory seems like it is going to be VERY difficult and take up a lot of my time.  Fortunately, I have a friend who has taken it before, and there are a lot of online quizzes rather than in-class ones, which is great.  I feel that I'm going to be cramming a ton of info about theories and critiquing in my brain (and writing about it; a journal is one of the requirements for the class and a large chunk of the grade).  It shouldn't be too bad, though.  Whatever effort I put into it will come out of it, and I've got to keep this in mind.

Latin is Latin, and my professor for that class is ever the same.  However, there's only SEVEN of us in Latin II, so class participation is going to be even more important.  Which means I better get my butt in gear and start reviewing before I go to bed tomorrow.

I went to the first meeting of the semester of the Christian club I'm involved in, and it was really quite wonderful.  There were lots and lots of new people that I can't wait to get to know!  Also got to hang out and chat with my other friends, and worship was good. Next week should even be better. :)

Also, went to an info meeting for a possible on-campus job over the summer that I'm really looking forward to apply to.  It's a very competitive position, so odds that I'll get it are very slim.  I'm going to try anyway, though.  Will keep posted here and elsewhere about it. :D

Final thing - two of the people I sent postcards to through Postcrossing (the gal in Colorado and the gentleman from Berlin) received and registered their postcards.  So I should be getting some postcards within the next week or two.  I'm pumped.

Magical findings

You ever stumble across something so exciting, so amazing, from your teen years or childhood?  I did the other day, while trying to pack (more like putting it off). 

I found the old comics that I did in junior high with my sister, and also an old roleplay/story me and my sis wrote in high school.  Honestly, I don't even remember writing half of that stuff.  I found my old drawings of Winko, the talking bunny rabbit who looked like a dog, and his pals; Charlie the bipedal "chipmunk," and all the old gang.  I sort of wish I hadn't stopped doing comics.  I miss drawing.

In the story, I found the narrative of a vampire and necromancer, complete with adventures involving witches, herbalists, Dwarves, and an African mystic named Aheem.  And magic, plenty of magic.  I began typing it up during an impromptu Words War at a deviantART chatroom.  I guess a Words War is when a bunch of people get together and compete to see how many words one can write in a set amount of time.  It was fun, and afterward my mom had me go pick up a pizza from the convenience store and we ate pizza and watched tv together; Big Bang Theory, my favorite show.  So, a good day overall.

I also bought a book at the bookstore that's going out of business.  They FINALLY brought their prices down to 40% off so I felt less guilty about getting myself a short story anthology that I've been eyeing for weeks now.  Just another book to pack, but I don't mind.  I'll find room tomorrow.

And a guy named Roman checked me out at the pharmacy today when I was there buying my mom some Sudafed.  It's a very cool name; I'll have to use it in one of my stories sometime.

Postcrossing!

I finally signed up for Postcrossing today - I'm excited about it!  I can't wait to start getting mail.  I got addresses for people in Russia, Finland, Germany, Ukraine, and Colorado.  Going to send them out tomorrow.  I think getting snail mail is going to be a new hobby of mine. :)

Day I've-Stopped-Counting: Stuff

Decided not to use the "Day-Blank" thing in the titles anymore.  It's kind of redundant, plus it's obvious that I'm not going to write a blog entry every day, mostly just because I don't always have things to talk about or things that I feel comfortable talking about.

Met with a friend today.  He got into community college, and I'm glad for him.  However, we had to hang out in the library because it's not like we could hang out at my mom's apartment. (My mom doesn't like this particular friend of mine; honestly, she doesn't like any of my friends...she's had nasty things to say about all of them, which I don't take to heart anymore.)  But it was absolutely freezing outside today!  I really need to invest in warmer pants.  My legs were freezing just wearing jeans.  At least it's finally the temperature that it's supposed to be for this time of year.

I guess I should start packing.  I'm going back to school Sunday afternoon/evening with a friend of mine.  It's good that I don't live too far from my college (only 45 minutes), or it'd be a real pain to get to college and such.  I have so many books...who knows if I'll be able to fit them all? I got even more for Christmas, and I'll need to take the ones I ordered on half.com for the study I'm doing this semester with a couple friends.  I'm pleased with how much I paid for the two books, though shipping could have been faster (it took two weeks for them to come).  And my college books too...I got those online this semester too.  Much cheaper than the college bookstore. :)

You can never have too many books.

Day 17: Bingo!

I went to the VFW and played bingo with an old lady tonight because I was really bored and didn't have anything to do on a Tuesday evening.  It was fun - I won ten dollars (although I spent eight on various bingo cards/sheets and a hotdog and some candy).  So I got my money back at the very least.

Oh, and a piece I suggested for a Daily Deviation on DeviantART actually received one .  It makes me very happy because Buuya  has been an artist that I've admired from afar for quite awhile.

And that's all I have tonight.  Short and sweet.

Day 16: Music While Writing?

Been thinking about this lately, especially since I've been having a writer's block of sorts.  I can't seem to tease the ideas I have out onto a word document or even onto paper.  Maybe I should just free-write and forget about the short-story projects and contests I want to do.

I've realized, though, that trying to listen to music doesn't really help matters.  Right now my favorite artist is Coldplay, but I do like other artists like them and some other contemporary rock bands.  If I listen to say, Coldplay, however, I really get distracted.  I noticed this first when I was at work. (I have work study through the federal government at one of the residence halls on-campus.  My main job is just to be present in the "cage" aka main office for any student that comes in to ask a question, pick up a package, etc. So I bring homework.)  I would put music on and then not get any homework done.  I figured out that if I put on classical music, I could get work done quickly.  When I listen to my favorite artists, time seems to speed up.  When I put on some classical, it seems to slow down drastically and I'm able to concentrate much better.  It's an interesting effect.

So, how about anyone reading this blog?  Do you listen to music while you write?  Does it make you concentrate better or not? Just curious. :)

Day 15: Twindom

Today I read on Yahoo that National Geographic did a feature in their January 2012 issue about twins, and I thought that might be something interesting to write about.

Being an identical twin myself, I never quite understood the complete awe that people expressed when me and my twin were together (and/or dressed alike, as was often the case when we were children).  To me, having a twin sister was completely normal, especially since I had nothing else to compare it to.  My mom planned on having two kids, or so the story goes, and she got both of them at once with me and my sister.  So I had no other siblings growing up, and thus didn't really know what it was like to look up to an older brother/sister or be a role model to a younger sibling.

Then this past semester, I got to know a fellow who was an identical twin too.  I met his twin this spring (which was really before I knew him too well), and finally I understood why everyone thought that twins were so fascinating!  His brother looked exactly like him!  We've found some common ground in what it's like to be a twin - the experience of my relationship to my sister is very similar to his relationship to his twin.  It's so neat.

Though when I was growing up, all the kids at school could tell me and my sister apart.  The teachers were a different matter, I guess if you hang around a pair of twins long enough, the little differences come out.  Then again, we did (and still do, though we've both changed since high school) have distinct personalities.  I was always the shy one and my twin was always the more outgoing one. And I like to think that I have a somewhat deeper voice than my sister (at the very least, another of my friends noticed the contrast in our voices after talking to both of us on the phone this summer).

Something that happens when you're a twin, though, is that you don't quite become your own person.  You always seem to be part of that pair - no one associates you with yourself; you're part of that twin couple.  Growing up, I feel like I didn't have a very solid sense of my self because of that.  As hard as it's been, I think it's been a good thing that me and my sis went to different colleges a year and a half ago.  I finally developed a sense of who I was in relation to myself. It's nice to be known for who I am now, not for being a twin.  It's cool when I do tell people though.

And for the record, me and my twin don't really have a physic thing going on, at least I don't think so.  We do occasionally finish each other's sentences though. :)

Day 14: The Things I Collect

Well, I was very much at a loss of what to write about today, when I read Lauren's blog and had an idea. 

I have two collections of things.  The first of my collection is these: DumDum wrappers.  For those who might not know what they are, DumDum pops are little tiny lollipops that come in around a dozen flavors or so.  They taste good, and if you send in twenty wrappers, you can buy stuff.  (It's not wrappers = free stuff, which is lame.  You still have to pay for the items, but the wrappers are a sort of proof-of-purchase.)

I currently have collected 189 of these things, which is odd.  I just counted them all tonight and it certainly doesn't seem like I have that much. 

I used some of them last spring to cover a wastebasket for a contest - the wastebasket is at school right now in my dorm room, but I'll take a pic of it later which I'm back at college.

My other collection consists of bookmarks.  I just counted these tonight too - I have over fifty of them of all shapes and sizes.  One of them is a ribbon, and one of them used to meow but doesn't anymore. (It has a picture of a cat on it.)

These bookmarks are my favorites out of my collection - I got them over the summer from a neighbor who just wanted to get rid of them.  I was glad to take them off her hands.  I believe I had one of Saruman too but I think my sister has it still... I'm currently using the Gandalf one for the Fellowship.

Well, guess it's better than collecting stamps. :)

Day 13: Untitled

I now can play "The Shire" Lord of the Rings theme on the tinwhistle.

YAY.

Finally found sheet music online for it and it's really quite a simple piece for the most part. I might do a video of me playing it in the near future, although I don't know how to upload videos to youtube.  Maybe I should figure that out?  :D  It's been fun, teaching myself how to play the tinwhistle.  I really find joy in it.  I'm getting better and better at it; it is a simple instrument to learn (at least for me, or maybe I'm just a fast learner).

In other news, I finished reading My Antonia by Willa Cather, which was sort of boring.  Definitely a literature class sort of book, which is, incidentally,  where my sister actually read it in the first place and insisted I read.  Now, I don't have things against lit books for classes.  In fact, I actually kept the copy of Metamorphoses by Ovid from my Greek and Roman class last semester.  (The myths are SO good in it, and I plan on using it for another contest on DeviantART.)  And I also liked one other book my sis recommended to me (I'll remember the title after I'm done posting this).  But My Antonia was...meh.  I wouldn't read it again.  Luckily I'm reading Fellowship of the Ring and it's much better, even though I'm only into the first chapter of it.

Might make a snowman tomorrow.  We got a few inches of snow here today, and it makes me happy.  Winter has finally come?  Maybe?  Possibly?  :)

Day 12: Classes

I'm actually writing a story for the first time in forever, for the Western contest that I talked about earlier.  It's good.  I'm pumped.  It's exciting to stretch my mind a little.  It's taking my mind off the disappointment that I experienced this morning when my friends couldn't come to visit me.  I'd looked forward to this visit since probably after Christmas, and it was crushing to be told it couldn't happen.  Next week though, and after next week I go back to school, which is something I'm really looking forward to. 

I'm actually going to write about something tonight!  Classes.  I'm taking five classes and a lab next semester: Intro to Physics, 18th century British Literature, Lit Theory, Intro to Latin II, and creative writing. 

I was a little worried when I decided that I was going to knock off the science-with-a-lab gen-ed this semester and the only free course was physics.  I never was good at science anyway (the only thing I got out of earth science in high school was a bunch of anthropomorphic bunnies, due to my doodling in that class incessantly).  I enjoyed biology, and chemistry was okay.  I've never taken physics before, though, but a friend who took it said it was a piece of cake.  I'm hoping she's right.

As for 18th century Brit Lit, well, I hope that's not too painful.  I had to take it to knock off a major requirement and it was the only class I could take besides a course on the Chinese novel, which sounds significantly worse.  I've had the professor before, for a basic composition class, and brit lit is his specialty, so I hope he's good.  Had that happen with another professor before; I had one for a basic requirement class and then had him for American Poetry, and he's pretty passionate about that.  Needless to say, I liked the poetry class better than the survey course.

I also hope that literature theory isn't too painful either, though I've had fair warning from a friend who took it this fall.  He said it was pretty tough, but a lot of the quizzes are online, which is good.  Said friend also gave me all the books for the courses, which was pretty flipping awesome of him. :)

Latin is, well, Latin, and I'm sort of excited to be taking it again.  It's neat to see words in English and say, "Oh hey, that's derived from Latin!"  I'm a little disappointed though because the same professor is offering Greek this coming fall, and I almost would have liked to have taken that instead.  Oh well.  The professor for the class is pretty entertaining at the very least.  We once spent twenty minutes talking about Facebook in class, and during the Latin final last semester, he actually left the classroom for around ten minutes to get...no, not the test or the answer sheet or anything like that.  He went to go get garlic knots. No joke.  It was hilarious.

I'm most excited about creative writing, because even though it's at nine am, it's with the most renowned professor of the entire English department.  Apparently she's very good and I've heard great things about her from friends.  I also want to actually write again, and write good, especially short stories and maybe poetry.  There's only so much you can teach yourself before you have to learn from someone else, I think. 

That's all for tonight.  Wow, got a little carried away there.  This may be the first entry where the writing actually came naturally to me.  :)

Days 10 & 11: Can't think of a good title here

Okay, so I definitely skipped yesterday's entry. I just felt like I didn't really have too much to write about and I was bored, so I didn't.

Last night I watched Good Will Hunting with my sister. It was a good movie; Robin Williams and Matt Damon didn't disappoint and I always seem to like motivational sorts of movies like that. I didn't really like the excessive swearing that peppered the film (they used the “f” word like no tomorrow), but my sister said that that sort of language fit the environment that was portrayed. Which I guess it did to an extent. Good Will Hunting was one of those twist-and-turn movies, one that was pretty unpredictable and evoked strong emotions. Some of the elements were a little less than believable (Robin William's character would probably have never even gotten a shrink practice if he acted like he did in the movie in the real world), but the acting was so great, as well as the acting. I couldn't help but notice the similarities between William's character in this movie and his character in Dead Poet's Society. Both are professors (well, sort of), and both of them affect people drastically in the movies by their sheer breakage of expected social norms. So I have to wonder whether Williams did a little borrowing from his portrayal in Dead Poet's Society for this movie. Still awesome though. He totally deserved the Oscar he won for it.

My sister took the bus to go to her boyfriend's place today; I helped her lug one of her heavy suitcases to the bus stop. There was a lady there who I think was Spanish; her English was a little broken and she rolled her r's. It's funny to wonder about people sometimes. I've realized through my college days that fact is sometimes more interesting than fiction, and real people's lives are just as fascinating as the most intriguing character's. Some of my friend's lives seem like they came out of books, mine included sometimes, though honestly, I don't think my life is or has been that interesting.

I also went to the library and took out the first two books in the Lord of the Rings series because I'm hopefully going to read them before I go back to school, or at the very least the first one. Also got multiple story prompts from DeviantART to think about, which I'll get to tomorrow, hopefully. Really excited about that Western prompt.

Until next time.

Day 9: TTTF Monday

So, it's Monday, which means the 'Three things I'm thankful for' feature.

 Silence
 I'm really thankful for peace and quiet.  Especially on the busiest days, where I'm running around from class to class to club to food to homework...it's always nice to take a small (even five-minute) chunk out of one's day and just take a deep breath and realize that tomorrow's another chance to make things correct that you've wrong, or to start fresh.

Seasons
 I'm thankful that I live in a part of the world where there are seasons of fall, winter, spring, summer... (Though you wouldn't know that it's winter for the lack of snow around here right now...see last blog entry for more complain-y stuff).  There's so much variety in nature in the seasons, and I love it so much.  Summer's my favorite season; not for the heat or the inevitable boredom that always occurs in the summertime but for the long days and cool evenings.  So it's an inspiration to me that I live in this pretty varied sort of environment.

Chocolate
It's a given that this was eventually going to end up on the list.  It's funny, because my mom used to not let me have chocolate due to my GERDs. (To those who don't know, it's basically an extended problem of heartburn caused by trigger foods like coffee, chocolate, acidic/spicy dishes, etc.  My diet was extremely limited as a child because of it.)  Now I have chocolate more than I did before.  The only things that I don't like that are chocolate is chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.

In other news, one of the lit groups that I am a member of on DeviantART is hosting a contest and the guidelines are to write a Western short story.  I might exercise my brain at trying to write something for that; I just need to come up with a viable plot.  I've never written a Western before. :D It should be exciting!

Day 8: I want snow

I think that I'd really like it to snow. Here in upstate New York there's usually snow by now. In fact, I was looking at an oldish pic of me and my sister when we made a snowman last winter break, and this day in 2011 we made that snowman. Well, it was more of a snow-thing, but still. There was enough snow to make it. A lot of people are happy that it hasn't snowed. I guess they hate all of the muck and ice that comes along with it.

My theory is, though: if it's going to be cold, it better snow. And it's cold alright (for the time being, anyway; the other day it was around fifty).

I went to a friend's house today and also went to the library for a little bit. Took out Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies (a recommendation from Lauren).

I was a little surprised to find it in the young adult's section, but it looks to be a good fantasy. I haven't read fantasy in a while. Right now I'm reading a book called My Antonia by Willa Cather; it's an old historical fiction about a Bohemian girl in Nebraska in the late 1800s. It's alright. I'll write a review for it when I'm done on this here blog. I started reading another historical fiction before this one, but My Antonia is a library book and I want to finish it before I go back to school on the 22^nd, so yeah. Sort of speeding through it a little bit.

Not too much going on at all – yesterday was more exciting than today. Went to church this morning and I ended up doodling on the sermon sheet. Ironically enough, the theme of the sermon was focusing. It seems that focusing is one thing that I do not excel at. Need to work on that.

I miss my friends from school something terrible. It's a good thing that a couple of them are possibly coming over to “kidnap” me in the near future, otherwise I might go completely bonkers, especially with my sister leaving on Wednesday. I'm going to miss her bunches.

Tomorrow's Monday! The start to a new week! How exciting.

Day 7: Muppets Movie!

Today me and my sister went to see the Muppets Movie! They were playing both the Muppets Movie and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows but my sister hadn't seen the first Sherlock Holmes and anyway, I wanted to see the Muppets more. It was a good deal too; only five dollars each for the matinee.

I loved the Muppets movie. I loved the singing, the dancing, the cameo with Jim Parsons (the Big Bang Theory is one of my favorite shows) and everything else about it. It made me very happy, and I really enjoyed when they sang the “Rainbow Connection” song, because I ended up getting really bored when I was home over Thanksgiving and watched the original Muppet Movie from 1979 by myself one night. So I enjoyed it.  A lot.

I don't know that I have much else to say. I'm trying to think about editing my novel from NaNoWriMo (2010; I didn't do it this year) or another unfinished sci-fi story before I go back home to school.  But I hate editing with a passion.  I think I need to start learning how to edit my own stories.  I'm probably just too much of a perfectionist.

Day 6: One Minute Writer's Prompt

So today, while I was searching for some journal-y prompts, I found this awesome blog called The One-Minute Writer.  Since I couldn't really think of anything to write today, I used this prompt to write a short story.  I took five minutes for it.

"Day of Stones"

I polished the stone on the inside of my hoodie sleeve. It was a plain stone, gray and flat. Just like all the rest of the rocks here on the river bank.

I skipped it across the water – plink plink plink. Three skips, just like my dad showed me how to when I was small. He had held my arm out and showed me how to move it just right. “You want to skim it across the water, son. Skim it.”

“Like skim milk?”

My father had laughed and ruffled my hair. “No, like skimming across the water. If you do it right, the stone will just glide across the surface.”

My dad loved to skip the stones across the river. Too bad that a stone was the only thing that represented him now. The stone that had his name on it.

I looked up to the empty, gray sky.

My father would have loved a day like today.

It was a day of stones.

I like it, sort of.  It's not the worst thing I've written.  Until tomorrow!

Day 5: Jigsaw Puzzles!

Another hobby of mine that I only seem to do when I'm home from college (because I have the time and a large card table in the living room) is jigsaw puzzles. So I figured that I would post a few up that I've done. Most of them are from a set that I got a year ago from my aunt for Christmas. In the box there were four five-hundred piece puzzles, four three-hundred piece puzzles, and two one-hundred piece puzzles. I've since done all of them except one that I have left of a jaguar drinking from a pool.

                                                                         

 This one's of a tiger, obviously - 14x18 inches like all of the puzzles belonging to the set.  The only thing about it is that there's a piece missing in the top left corner (not sure that it can be see from this photo...maybe if you squint).  So technically it's sort of worthless if it's missing a piece; I glued it together anyway though.  Just in case I find the missing piece.

Yeah, it's our current president!  Personally, I don't like any of the Republican candidates running in the primaries right now.  Obama has done what he could with the resources he had in my opinion...but, not bringing politics into it.  This puzzle was such a pain to do because all of the pieces were exactly the same!  (Besides the bottom bit with Obama's biography.)  Personally I think it's a bit cheesy - on the bottom it says: "Obama - a great African-American."  But I got it for Christmas and it was fun to put together.

This one isn't a pic of the whole puzzle - just a section that I liked from it. Bunch of fairies on it; it's a pretty nice puzzle.  Nothing I would ever hang on my wall, but it was fun to put together.

This one actually didn't come from the set that all of the rest of them did; I got it from the thrift store for fifty cents...and it had all of the pieces in it!  Since I love cats so much, I'm going to hang it up on my wall at school, despite the background and flowers being pink.  I utterly despise pink on most things, but this contrasts nicely.

 Last one...probably spammed with too much pictures of puzzles, but this one was a little difficult because all of the dolphins in the puzzle (there's five, but again, this is only a small section of the whole thing) were blended together.  Every puzzle seems to have a difficult spot, for anyone that actually does them.









The thing about these puzzles is that after I'm finished with them, I usually don't want them for myself.  I don't know anyone that would want these though - so if you're reading this and any of these catch your eye - I will send one of them for FREE. (Only if you're in the US, though.  I can't afford international shipping, being a poor college student and all.)  The dolphin, fairies, and Obama puzzles are all sealed with puzzle glue and are all complete with no pieces missing.  The dolphin puzzle and the fairies are 14x18 and the Obama puzzle is (I think) maybe 10.25x18.

In other news, figured out the other day that the only bookstore in this town, First Edition, is going out of business.  Geez, pretty soon the main street's gonna look like a ghost town.  The Fashion Bug in town is going out of business too.  Not that I'm interested in anything that Fashion Bug has to sell anyway - I'm not very fashionable at all and prefer being comfortable over looking sexy.  But the bookstore...now there I can get some deals.  Right now everything's only 20% off, but if I wait the prices will probably drop even further.  I'll wait and see.

Day 4: Foggy-Headed

Just did laundry today at the laundromat...which is good, because I've been running out of clothes. It also meant that I got to wash my new t-shirt. I can't wait to wear it. It's incredibly interesting, right? At the very least, my mom's in a good mood. I'm really glad about that. The last couple weeks or so have been really hard for her because her boyfriend moved out and hasn't even bothered to say hello to her. I was worried about her for awhile, but she seems to be in a better mood.

Might be going to a friend's house later for dinner and “hanging-outness.” Should be good if I can be awake for it. I'm really sluggish today. The mind's all foggy and I can't think too much. It's sort of odd because I conked out early last night. Yesterday I should have been tired (because I woke up at seven in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep), but I wasn't. Funny how bodies work weird like that.

That's all for now. Gonna write some more tomorrow! Lots more.

Day 3: Tin Whistle Musings

Lately, I've been teaching myself how to play the tin-whistle. Because I have nothing better to do.

Honestly, I just miss making music. I played xylophone and bells from fourth grade right up until my senior year of high school, but I stopped playing after I graduated and went off to college. I guess I sort of enjoyed playing it, although in actuality it was sort of boring. There wasn't enough parts in a small K-12 school for an instrument like a xylophone in the high school band, so I learned how to count...I did a lot of counting. I had always wished that I played something else that had bigger parts and sounded prettier, like the clarinet or flute. I settled with the xylophone though.

It's been a while since I've been in high school, though. So I bought myself a tin-whistle and a tin-whistle handbook, The Clarke Tin Whistle book. The handbook even came with a CD (it better, it cost fifteen bucks from Amazon). CD's helpful and I've been trying to practice a little bit every day. I think I need to get a cloth to clean it out though – even when I rinse the whistle out after I play the thing, it doesn't really “air-dry” like it says it will. Hmmph.

Anyway, I'm excited to actually play some complicated music eventually, even though I know that won't happen for months probably (especially if I get out of practice, which is liable to happen once the spring semester starts up again at the end of January). I'm glad I got the handbook though. It helpfully goes through all of the notes and even the different types of notes; half-notes, whole-notes, etc. I do remember that from playing mallet percussion at least, but still.

 Here's a picture of it (blurry as heck again, I know, but I can't help it).  It's a Clarke D Tinwhistle.  Apparently there's some kind of differentiation between it and the C whistle; I think the C whistle is higher in pitch.  So I got the D whistle just because it's the most common type of whistle.  I'm still not very good at it; squeaking and squealing occasionally...but I want to get better.  Was going to include a picture of the handbook too but it was way too blurry, even more than this.

Well, that's all I think I have to say in this post.  I'm especially happy today because one of my friends from school called...it was very good to catch up with her. I'm itching to go back to college and classes again. That time will be here before I know it, though. :)

Day 2: TTTF Monday and the Crane Machine

Hi! This is probably the first actual post by me on this blog, since yesterday was really just an introduction and all of that necessary stuff.

Every Monday, I've decided that I'm going to have “Three Things I'm Thankful For,” aka the TTTF feature. I think that it's incredibly important to remind myself of the many things that I am thankful for, especially when I'm in a crummy mood and am under the impression that everything is terrible and gloomy. (Which, by the way, is never true.) So, without further ado, here are three things that I'm thankful for.

Friendship/Friends

Need I say more? Since we're at the beginning of a new year, I've been thinking a lot about the year 2011. It was an year that saw me undergo a mass transformation of personality. Though I've always been an ultra-shy introvert, I broke out of my shell and learned who I really was in light of Good News. I've done things that I've never done before. And it would have never have happened if I didn't have friends who pushed, pulled, and poked me into taking risks, taught me about life, and convinced me to do crazy things. They have all supported and inspired me. I could name names to every person both online and in person who has been there for me and listened to me, but it would span twenty pages. Friendship is such a beautiful thing, and I'm so thankful for it.

Water

People living in first-world countries can just turn on their taps and get fresh clean water to drink and bathe with. (Well, unless you have sulfur in your water; in which a quick trip to the grocery store can yield many bottles or containers of water.) This is something that can be easily taken granted for in America. Many people in places like Africa don't even have clean drinking water for the purposes aforementioned. It's really sad to think about, since water is even more important than food to sustain life. So I'm thankful that I can get water whenever I'm thirsty. It's something I usually don't think about, but it is really something to be grateful for.

Mistakes

This is a weird one to even think about listing, but I think it's important to acknowledge that without mistakes, we wouldn't grow as people. A child isn't going to know that a stove is hot unless they try to touch it first. Then – ouch – they know it's hot and that it will burn them! A mistake ultimately teaches us something about ourselves – a character flaw, an emotion that we buried deep under the surface, or a habit that we know we should break. And gosh, I'm thankful for that!

In other news, today I went shopping at the grocery store with my sister. I played the crane game that they have in the lobby of the store and got two stuffed animals with one dollar! (Okay, so I put a dollar in before and didn't win anything. Still.)  I'm probably going to donate them to charity, maybe the Salvation Army or somewhere else. I get more of a thrill out of actually winning at the crane machine than actually getting the prizes. I already have quite a few stuffed animals of my own.

Here's the first one that I won - it's a hippo! :)  The photo quality isn't quite what I'd like it to be - I only have my flip-top phone which takes pretty blurry photos.  But it works.

Here's the second one - a pink piggy!  My sister kind of wants it, but I don't know if she'll have room to take it with her back to college.  We'll see.

For some reason I'm just very happy today.  It's supposed to snow, too! (By this time in upstate New York, we usually have snow, even if it's a little bit).  I'm excited.

Day 1: Begin at the Beginning

I think it's time to finally get serious about writing.

So here is this blog. To my real life friends, hello! To my online friends, hello! To anyone else reading this blog I send greetings to as well.

I decided to do this blog project for a bunch of different reasons. (Hopefully it will be a daily thing; if it doesn't turn out that way, I'm not going to beat myself up over it.) I first got the idea of doing a daily project when I heard someone talking about how they did a 365-day photo project of themselves last spring. I thought that was pretty cool, and the person who did it ended up learning a lot about who they were in the process of that project. But I don't have a camera and I don't really take pictures. Then this fall a friend of mine started a photo-a-day thing on Facebook, and I really loved reading about her take on life. Thus is the combined inspiration for this blog. I really just want to explore who I am through writing all of this. I've been writing in a journal/diary for years now, but something like a blog is much more public. That means I have to hone my writing to become somewhat more professional in my musings (though probably not much more at this point).  My twin sis is doing it with me!  Her blog is called Small Words, Big World.

As for the title? Credit for that goes to one of my buddies from deviantART, Lauren, aka SilverInkBlot.  You can read her blog here. (I'm known as doodlergirl on deviantART...if you'd like to check out some of my poetry, pictures, and stories, look for me there!) The word “pamplisest” means any sort of writing material that's been erased and written over on. And if you think about it, the Internet is the ultimate pamplisest. Everything on the internet is so permanent – even if you “erase” it, the most skilled computer techs can find whatever you've posted up. Honestly, though, I just thought it was a cool name.

Let's see how this goes. More to come tomorrow! :)  Oh, and happy new year!