That's It.

I'm done with this semester. I just sent in my last essay.

I've been feeling a bit better the past few days which leads me to believe a lot of my being sick really has been stress. It's still not totally gone though. I just want to sleep for a while.

I also managed to get my registration confirmed today. Every semester I have issues with registration and this year was no exception. I went up to campus to find out what this fine was about during the trip I found out some stuff that I really should have been told about months ago. But that's neither here nor there I guess. The important thing is that I'm all set for next semester, barring textbooks.

While I was up there, I went through the postcards I'd giving to Minnick so far - I couldn't recall which ones I'd already given him in the past. Luckily, I've managed to avoid giving him any repeats =) Finally got to see his new office, which is very shiny compared to the one in the English department. Not that I actually know what the one in the English department looks like under all those books he has stacked in there. Spent almost an hour just chatting with him around campus and now I feel so much better about life - I had no idea how much I needed to just talk to someone for a little while. Not about anything in particular, just not about school or working or what have you. I feel so much more relaxed for it.

October

One of my favorite months <3 Been having some lovely weather lately - kinda grey and rainy, though not very much rain. It's very relaxing.

I didn't catch up on as much homework as I would have liked over the weekend, but I managed a lot. Mainly my Lit. journal. Need to finish some linguistic stuff before Thursday too, and get my Algebra website issue straightened out, but I feel a little more balanced than I did last week.

Other than that, I've been working on a piece for Poetry Screams. Dr. Minnick is wonderfully helpful and I really do need to buy him lunch sometime. It's the least I owe him. Currently on my third draft of this thing; my library group aside, I don't have much occasion to share my writing with people I know IRL. And even less occasion to ask advice from people who really know what they're doing.

He really wants me to do something with those postcards though - apparently that's a publishable idea. I'm not really sold on that, but I guess I can at least mull it over and try some things. I'm glad he likes reading them because I really enjoy writing them X3

This is Pretty Cool

Got this in the mail today, from DrippingWords:

The outside

The inside

It's a collection of most of the color poems from myself and people around dA. And will possibly expand to include the people of Goodreads where the form has apparently taken off as well =D 

I knew she was making me something for my birthday, but I didn't see this coming at all. I also have a new penpal (assuming I can manage full letters on a regular basis anyway).

Meanwhile, Minnick has been encouraging me to take pictures or keep notes of my Postcard Fiction project, so here's what that looks like as well:

I try to make the story and picture match when I can, with varied levels of success. The latest batch of pieces I wrote were directly inspired by some of the cards I've bought online which turned out pretty nicely. I'm glad he seems to like reading them because I really enjoy writing them <3 I like the extra dimension the card gives to the story.

Epic Postcard Post

Finally found a way to take decent photos of these things. I've had trouble getting the stupid lighting right because my room is a weird place that eats bright light. Turns out all I have to do is balance them on top of the lamp.

I said I was going to try and post them all, but I don't feel like posting 34 pictures. But here's a general look at my collection thus far. As always, click to make them bigger.

Top and clockwise; cards from Russia, Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark.

Left to right; from Brazil, Finland, Turkey, Croatia, and Ukraine.

This one is fairly large. Russian

The card ID is Denmark, with a Romanian stamp, and the sender is from Germany.

From a 13 year old in Belarus. The backside had an Olympics marker on it.

This batch here is from people I actually know, mostly through dA. From top left going clockwise we have cards from Cassildra, Bill/Phaldus, Xlntwtch, DrippingWords, and DoodlerTM.

My love of Autumn is well documented. Denmark

I think this is my favorite card so far. Click to see all the lovely details.

May post more later, but probably not XD

Postcard Fiction

I wrote it a thousand times on my 1940’s typewriter, practiced the words mentally a million times, mouthed the sentence into my pillow every night for years – but only said it once, aloud, to your casket.

I enjoy one-sentence flash fic. This one was prompted by the photo one one of these cute little postcards I ordered that came in yesterday. Part of that project I mentioned last entry, that I've decided to name Postcard Fiction. I'm really enjoying the idea a lot now that I've had time to mull it over more. I have so many cards now, and I bought a few stamps to play with and I think I can have a bit of fun to pass around throughout the year.

First Day Back

You know how you get good ideas at weird times? That happened to me last night.

I went to bed early like a good student is supposed to; 2 AM, I'm still awake, and I think to myself I should have written some postcards to stuff in the professor's mailboxes. Instead of rolling over and ignoring the impulse, I realized it actually was a good idea, got up, fished out a card, and wrote a welcome back message for Dr. Minnick. But only one since it was so late.

I've since written one to the new linguistics professor, welcoming him to campus, and I've had time to refine the idea after some stuff in Adolescent Lit. But I'll get there momentarily.

My day began with History of the English Language (the one the new professor is teaching). My first impressions are that it's going to be a rigorous course, but an interesting one. After the usual syllabus stuff, we got to do some decoding with runic script, which was pretty neat. It's hard to say from one class if I'm going to like it or not - if it is going to be a lot of decoding like that, it might get old quickly. Then again, I do like puzzles. We'll see.

Next up is Algebra. The first day was not promising - we couldn't get into the classroom. On the bright side, we left quickly.

Approaches to Literature seems pretty fun so far. My initial impression was of an easy A. I think it will be a mostly reading and discussion sort of class, which tend to be my favorites. And we're reading Calvino in there later this year and I believe I've made my love of Calvino clear in the past <3

And thus we come to Adolescent Literature and I don't need to tell anyone how much I love this class. I enjoy the books, I enjoy the discussions, I love the professor - I'm here for the fun of it.

I've mentioned Minnick and I were swapping writing projects back and forth, and today he made a point of starting class with a close reading of a piece of flash fiction because he knew I would be there. Which is where I got a second idea for my postcard thing - he loves flash fic and one-sentence stories and all those really brief forms of writing. In short, fragments. So I've like to write a new one on a postcard say, every week, and stuff it in his mailbox. One of the names for flash fiction is "postcard fiction," so it's rather satisfying that way. And I do have an abundance of postcards now that I've started to make my own.

I dunno, *I* thought it was a neat idea. And it'll keep me in a bit of practice.

Making Postcards

(Mostly for some of the deviantART people XD)

Since postcards have been difficult to find around here, I've decided to invest in making my own. I went to a craft store on Tuesday to browse for some ideas and walked out with a stack of scrapbook paper. I was interested in the stamp section, but stamps are apparently ridiculously expensive. I kinda knew that, but not really. Luckily, I have a birthday coming up in September.

Some of the cards I've made so far:

 

 

   

 

 

See one you like? Note me (on dA) with an address =D I love sending mail <3

Item Get

Usually when I'm on the hunt for a particular item, I have a hard time finding exactly what it is I want. One thing is the right size, but the wrong color, good material, but too expensive, and so on. Today was a moment of serendipity.

My postcard collection has been growing, and I needed a place to begin keeping them. This was perfect. I loved the postal theme when I saw it and sprang the six bucks. I feel very accomplished.

Eventually I need to catalog my postcards here as well XD

Wish You Were Here

The always delightful Bill of the never updated blog has seen fit to send me a postcard from his exile in San Francisco. Some time ago while Skyping, I informed him that I would probably cry if he didn't send me one for my collection while he was out interning in California. And today, I got my card:

That's a "wish you were here" postcard. Classic. First one to grace my collection. That's also a picture of Alcatraz.

I can't tell if he's being earnest or snarky, but either way I got a good laugh out of it.

On the backside, translated to the best of my ability (Bill, your handwriting makes me feel better about my own. You'll have to inform me if I got it all right):

You're probably one of the only people who'll understand this. I love the ocean. Oakland's a major shipping port, so the Bay is always full of great ships, full of products from far away. The pier and marinas always mpllandsoud* like commerce. Also, burgers.

Love,
Bill 

*(I think this was supposed to say "smell and sound" but it's hard to make out.)

I feel like sending a bunch of postcards now <3 I just so happen to have the perfect ones:

 

I bought this set on Etsy a while back. I haven't gotten an opportunity to use them - yet.

Mail, mail, mail

I got a postcard a few days ago. That reminded me...

I F$&#ING LOVE MAIL =DDDDD

So I'm going on a postcard sending spree and you're all invited. Note me an address on my dA account if you want one. Or Skype me. Or e-mail. Whatever, I have lots of stamps and stuff I'm not using because sending international got expensive all of a sudden.

By the way, several of you who've noted me addresses in the past, well, you used school addresses. Which is fine when you're in school, but not during the summer!

Also, I have no idea what's up with Round Robin. I hope that it got sent/ is going to be sent soon.

Four More to My Collection

A bunch of postcards came in a rush this week XD Here are the latest four;

 This one is the biggest one I've received yet. I couldn't get a decent picture though, so I had to do some cropping in editing. The sender is Kaat from the Netherlands, a 30 year old store manager.

 From Poland! The Tatras Mountains and Belianska Cave, the largest cave and only open one in the Tatras. The entrance is 890 miles above sea level. The sender is Komad, who lives near the border of Slovakia, where this card is from.

 This one had no words :/ It's from Belarus, but that's all I got aside from some nice animal stamps on the backside (an otter, a wolf, a mongoose, and some daffodils if you're interested). It appears to be a stadium of some sort, though it could be an amusement park for all I know.

This one is (obviously) from Ukraine. There's a lot of writing on the back, but I can't read it. Partly because it's in shiny green gel pen, but the writing is also in cursive. The combination of the two is difficult to make out.

From what I can make out, the sender is a student and just finished taking exams. They enjoy music and drinking warm tea.

Adventures in Construction

While I often like to think of myself as someone who enjoys making things, in practice I'm not especially good at it. I can make origami stars like a boss, but my talents don't stretch much further.

Point is, I bought some storage shelving at Target because I loved the last one I bought that much. I had been using several storage towers, but my new unit has rendered most of them obsolete and I actually have some floorspace now. I can even open my closet door all the way.

I'm one of those people that hoardes every little thing, just in case it turns out to be useful. Scraps of pattern, kinck-knacks, stickers - anything with crafting potential. One would think my lessons in trying to build things where the instructions are laid out for you clear cut would deter me from future projects where I'd have to wing it, but I just can't seem to learn.

Last of the postcards today, until more arrive in the mail! :D

 From Lithuania - I seem to send and receive a lot of cards from the Eastern European area for some reason. Perhaps the stats average out more as you keep sending mail.

The photo on the card is by photographer Betsy Spink titled "Mellow Pages."

Distressed and rough around the edges, this phone directory looked how I felt. But there it lay, in its beautiful tree like resemblance.
 

One from Poland - the sender happened to note I liked horses. Not really much to say about this one; what ya see is what ya get.

Oddly foggy tonight; good night to get a fire going. Unfortunately, it's also the Cotton Bowl, thus my grandparents monopolize the fireplace. We don't even have any marshmallows in this house. And that realization has birthed another one - we have no whipped cream, thus making hot chocolate is pointless. Just like my life.

The Weatherman is a Rain God

I had a lot to talk about today. But I forgot most of it, so I'm just going to ramble about for a while.

Transliterations has a new contest prompt for those interested in modernizing some mythology. Luckily, my Professional Muse is quite the mythology buff; I will be taking on a Hindu story about the god Indra and his battle with the dragon Vritra. Every time it rains, it's a recreation of thier battle.

I have decided my Indra reincarnate shall be a weatherman for the lulz. Leaning towards rival meteorologists, working for differnet news stations. I thought about having my protaganist go to the pet store and unknowingly buy a snake that tured out to be a reincarnate of his ancient rival, but it's easier to write two humans. I may have taken some inspiration from Douglas Adams on this one. More specifically, his Rain God character. I usually found Adams' throwaway gags and characters to be the best ones.

Because my Muse likes to lecture, I now know enough about Hindu mythology to give a crash course to a class of ten year olds. We've also decided there needs to be a crossover fic with Paul Bunyan and the bull Nandi. Hinduism just happens to have a race of giants that I'm sure I could tie in :P I'll keep things updated here for those interested in the mysterious writing process of mine.

But I doubt I'll get much of it done tonight. Have some more postcards.

 This one is from Belarus, which was the first time I had to go dig out a map to figure out where it came from. It's a fairly small nation that declared soverignty during the break-up of the USSR. I'd tell you what this is a picture of, but I don't know - I believe the language is Russian and if I were to guess I'd say it's a petting zoo. The sender didn't clarify, identifying it only as a "place of relaxation" in his city.



 A card from Finland - "Suomi" is not a city as I first thought, but the Finnish word for Finland :D Once again though, the sender didn't offer much information about themselves or the card.

I can understand that really - it's difficult to say much in such a small space, combinded with writing to a complete stranger. I suppose I can consider myself lucky in this instance to have trained myself into brevity with my writing, even if my penmanship leaves much to be desired.

Finland though is one of those countries I don't know much about but probably wouldn't mind visiting. It looks like a wonderfully scenic country and I'm pretty sure it's far north enough to get the Aurora at night - one of the reasons I'd love to travel North in the future.

This Post Turned Into a Memoir

Having been sick for much of the week, I took most of the day to sleep in; I got up around 2:00PM today. Then spent most of the remaining daylight fuming because my Internet was, once again, broken. I have since fixed it obviously, by ripping out all the cords and plugging them back in. Three times. Why it didn't work the first time is beyond the scope of my knowledge and I am forced to conclude that the machines are in fact sentient and they hate me.

Finally got things working around 6:00PM and found not as many messages in my dA inbox as I feared, though I did miss the chat event I had been planning on attending. Oh well, there will be more in the future.

Tara has pointed out to me that this is slowly becoming a daily blog, which wasn't really intended XD I'll probably slow down with the posting so often once school starts up or I run out of postcards to share (two more posts at this rate). Until then, more postcards!

 Terrible photo quality on this - apologies. The lighter colored cards get a lot of glare.

This one happens to be a homemade postcard; the paper is a bit thinner than normal and the pictures were both taken by the sender. The one in the top right corner is some sort of market scene - the lower right is a boat.

The sender was from Malaysia and also provided a return address so I can send a card back to her, which doesn't happen that often. Usually there's no address at all except your own, so it's neat to be able to return the favor.

I've been to Idaho once, but only very briefly - as in, just a few minutes. I got the opportunity to visit Yellowstone National Park with my grandparents several years ago and our route took us through a quick stretch of the state.

This card was my first request - usually, Postcrossing works by getting a random address, but users are allowed to message specific members and ask if they would like to do a postcard exchange. This makes it easier if you're out to get a card from every country or state. The lady who sent this card was the first person to send me one of those messages :) She also wrote quite a lot on the backside - apparently she used to live near a site with a herd of some 200 horses. After a rash of widfires though, the herd has been considerably reduced. Only 30 came back and some of the others were adopted into ranches in Utah and Nevada.

I'd love to go out West again one day. Both of my trips - Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon - were made with my grandparents. Unfortunately, my grandfather seems to subscribe to the philosophy of "go just to say you've been;" we didn't even spend an entire day at Yellowstone. Just stayed long enough to watch some geysers. Pretty big letdown really (though I'm still grateful to have gotten to go). The world out there looks more or less the way your average Western depicts it - huge open spaces, big cloudless skies, few trees. The scenery is just amazing in every direction.

I didn't understand it at the time, but I've also had the privelage of standing on a certain corner in Winslow, Arizona :P It wasn't far from most of the stuff we were there to see - the Canyon, the Petrified Forest, the Painted Desert, Meteor Crater. I've also been to the Four Corners, seen the Great Salt Lake, and I think that may be it for my Western landmarks. I've been to a lot more in the other direction XD

Totally Not Bribing Anyone

I'm using Blogger this go around as a friend is also using it and told me it was pretty simple to use. I already like it much more than I did LiveJournal :D Said friend also ceased posting for a few days, which I later found out was due to technology issues. Long story short; I told him I could not, in good conscience, link him here until he started posting again.

Since he has, everyone should go annoy him here. Be really obnoxious; he'll love it.

But really; Bill's a good friend of mine and has been for many years. He's very interesting in his blogs when he wants to be and would be a damn good writer if he weren't so lazy :P I'm sure he would appreciate a few new hellos over there. When he finally gets around to conquering the world sometime this century, I'm sure he'll remember you and your kind words. (And me and my backhanded, jestery compliments, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.)

More postcards!

This was the first card I received through Postcrossing. This one comes from Brussles, Belgium. There's also a stamp on the back of the plan of a bascillica, which I'm only telling you about to show case my Art History nerdiness (I nearly majored in Art History). The sender was actually from Latvia though, and had been living in Brussels for the past three years.

This one is (obviously) from Indonesia. I chose to showcase these two together becuase the top one was the first card I received; this one was the first that someone else got to send :) The statute in the picture is not actually a statue - it's a mummy. A mummified war god of the Dani tribe, a tribe that still exists today in the Baliem Valley and is fairly easy to reach. Aside from smoked mummies, they're well known for one of their unusual customs; when someone in the village dies, one finger of all of his female relatives is cut off. Despite missionary efforts, the hands of the Dani women continue to be mutilated.

Since I throughly lambasted "Snuff" last time, I feel like I should make it up (and relieve my feelings of being a terrible person), by telling everyone how awesome Discworld is. "Snuff" was an anomaly for me - I've loved nearly every Pratchett book I've ever picked up. There were only two I couldn't get into at all and did not finish; by and large the series is hilarious. I'd recommend "Mort" or "Guards, Guards!" for series newcomers as each one is the beginnings of their own arc, but if you're asking for faves it's a toss up. "Night Watch" is the darkest, but also one of the best; "Reaper Man" has the best atmosphere for me, though I didn't like the wizards sub-plot that much (I spent most of my time hoping we'd go back to Death soon, which was probably the problem XD); "Hogfather" is rather seasonal being a sporking of Christmas, but is probably the most uplifing and the funniest of the three. By and large though, if you pick up anything with the name Terry Pratchett on the cover, you're in for a good read.

Long post is getting long. I cease here. I shall return with more postcards!

First Post!

Starting the year with origami stars and snail mail :D

Counting myself, there are, as of this posting, nine players in the Round Robin game of mine. I haven't decided if I want to keep using the current notebook that apparently isn't as full as I would have expected given that most of the players are writers, or just start a new book with the new year. Decisions, decisions.

I think I'm going to go ahead and let this one play out. It gives the newest participants time to jump in and get a feel for how the game works and the older particpants aren't immediately handed shipping costs again XD There's also the issue of what happens to a full notebook, which I'm going to have to confront eventually. It seems unfair to just keep it, but I can't keep passing it around either. If the game goes on long enough, eventually everyone will have a full notebook for themselves I guess, but I don't see anyone playing that long, especially if it takes a while to fill a 100 page notebook.

 Meanwhile, my postcard collection is growing at a steady rate =D

These two are from Russia - the windmill is from a small town called Tula, near Moscow. Apparently, the winters there are quite cold (the sender doesn't like that D:) The sender was also an architect, so naturally would be fond of buildings. It's one of my favorite cards so far.




 The second is (obviously) from St. Petersburg, though the sender was actually from Moscow. They picked up this card on vacation I believe. The picture quality came out strangely because my camera is a silly point and shoot :/

The goat probably has my favorite story behind it. It' not actually a postcard - it's a greeting card. The sender (Poland) had a library book on them at the time and couldn't go into the store to buy a postcard without the book setting off the alarm. So I got a card with a goat eating a flower instead XD Apparently, they've had to explain multiple times that they weren't stealing anything.





I've got quite a few more in my collection - I'd like to start putting them all here as I recieve them :) Expect more cards soon enough!

New year stuff - nah. I've never done resolutions or set goals for myself, though I've begun taking on projects so that I can feel accomplished when they're done. Last summer was a bottle of origami stars which left me with a nervous tic around origami paper for quite a while. I'm getting back into it though and have three or four glass bottles I'd like to fill up. They make fantastic display pieces and gifts.

My official project, as it were, is a poem a month based on the Eastern Zodiac. A bit cliche, but it was given to me by a friend and no one had any better ideas, least of all me. And said friend usually doesn't steer me wrong :P