Today I had to report to the court to do jury duty, and my name got called for a trial. I had been hoping my name wouldn't get called, but it did, and I ended up getting selected for the jury, meaning I have to go back tomorrow. Fortunately, the trial is supposed to end by tomorrow (I think) so that's good. But if I get out before the usual end time (4:30) I still have to go into work - Augie told me this when I called work to let them know I'd been put on a jury and had to serve tomorrow. So I have to dress for work tomorrow.
Due to the regulations jurors must follow, I can't talk about the details of the case right now. Afterwards, I'll likely blog about it, though.
For some reason, this sort of thing makes me really nervous. I'm not sure if it's just my extreme introverted nature or if it's the gravity of having to decide someone's fate with 11 total strangers. I did get really nervous during the jury selection questions.
***
On a related note, I saw a TV commercial the other day for some school with vocational degrees. The one featured was for paralegals. This is an occupation that came up in the top 10 occupations for me on the Strong Inventory, and one that I've had some interest in for awhile since I took a class in legal transcription and liked it.
After today, though, I am not sure I want to be a paralegal or in any law-related profession. Maybe I was spooked by the jury selection process, I don't know.
I keep telling myself - or my conscience does - to trust God with this whole career thing, but I just can't resist the need to plan ahead what field I want to go in after college as a fallback plan if my writing doesn't work out. I mean, it's good to plan ahead - I even asked my mom if this was the right thing, since I felt that maybe it meant I didn't trust God, and she said it was the right thing.
I'm hoping that the class I'm taking through church - called "Discover Your Spiritual Gifts" - will help give me direction. I may want to take some career inventories again (though I may end up with the same results as I did 3 years ago).
I just started re-reading the book Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey, a book I got about 3/4 of the way through before the powers that be at Loaves and Fishes wouldn't let me read while watching the front counter anymore. In it, Yancey talks about his study of Exodus and Leviticus and concludes that if God were to directly reveal his will to us to the same extent as he did to the Israelites back then, our following of him would be based more on obedience than faith. As Galatians 2:21 says, "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose" (ESV). Or as the New Living Translation (a translation that the Bible I had in junior high was in) puts it: "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."
I am someone who tries to follow all the rules - at work, at school, in life. Since I am as falliable as everyone else, I fail often at this. It bugs the heck out of me.
When doing the spiritual gifts test for my class, though I didn't have the scoring sheet (the teacher has that, and he's going to help us score it next class meeting), I saw somewhat of a pattern emerging. I think that, as with the previous paper test I took, my #1 gift might be missionary. Now, I do enjoy learning about other cultures and I do well with languages. But I don't do well socially, and my school life going to a private Christian school that was predominantly white makes me rather ignorant in how to interact with those of different races and religions.
This semester, when they had a job fair at school, I went around the tables and picked up some flyers. One of the "businesses" there was the Peace Corps. I was looking at one of their flyers the other day and it said that one way to make you stand out as a candidate is to learn one year of French or two years of Spanish. This was followed by a comment stating "Currently, there is a much greater need for French speakers than for Spanish speakers."
That stood out to me because I am a French minor. So I have taken more than 1 year of French. The only one of their programs that I was interested in though was English Teaching, and you need tutoring experience for that. I got recommended as a tutor twice at MiraCosta and the one time I did apply I didn't get a tutoring job.
They also have a program that combines Peace Corps volunteering with grad school. Either you can do the Master's International program, where you go to school first and then volunteer, or Fellows/USA, where you volunteer first and then go to school.
I just don't know though - the volunteering alone is a 27 month commitment, which is a long time. Granted, three of those months you're in training, but still. I'd have to quit my current job to do it, since you can't get any other employment while on a leave of absence from Stater Bros.
Dang, career stuff is so dang difficult!!!!
Since leaving the courthouse, I haven't been able to relax. I don't know if it's the can of Coke I drank during the lunch break (Coke makes me a little ADD for some reason...yet I still drink it) or something else.
I think all this free time is driving me crazy, which may seem odd to anyone reading this. When I was in school, I felt there wasn't enough free time, but now that I have free time, I don't know what to do with myself.
I have been listening to the talks for Randy Ingermanson's Fiction 101 course (although I gave it a few days off, and then got frustrated with it because the tracks were playing in random order). I also am doing research for my current novel-in-progress, Darkly Bound. Today, I took some handwritten notes from a book called The Nomadic Alternative, which I got from the Cal State library. I got this book so I could research nomadic life as a basis for my witch-siren characters. It's interesting, but it was hard to find what would apply to me, so I went through the table of contents and marked the parts I thought might be relevant. I also did this for the other book I had with me, a book called The Gypsies, which is also for witch-siren research (the odd thing is, all I want to research is them and their culture, but books on this have been ridiculously hard to find). In the Gypsies book though, I marked certain pages of the bibliography (so I could find more and hopefully more relevant books) as well as a page in the index.
So far in my research I have researched London, mythology, and theater/drama terms (my main character is a stage manager at a theater). Aside from those and the nomad and Gypsies books, I found two great books on the behind-the-scenes workings of theaters: Theatrical Design and Production and a gem I hadn't found in my catalog searches, The Stage Management Handbook (which, though from 1992, should still provide some basic information).
I haven't decided what play the theater's last-ditch play will be. I'm tempted to do Macbeth, since many theaters in financial trouble will produce it to try to make revenue (yet another suggestive aspect of the "Macbeth curse"). But for the sake of my story I think it would be cool to do a play that sort of mirrors Avalon's own journey. I may have to make one up for the sake of the story. Just so I don't try to write my story to fit a theme (Randy Ingermanson says in his Theme talk that if you do that, you'll come off sounding preachy).
Randy Ingermanson also talks about your main character having a goal, and makes it sound like there should only be one. But right now my main character has three goals: break her curse, find her father, and keep the theater from going under. I can think of a good motivation for all three: a motivation of stability/order. I guess I can figure that out later though. (The first draft is meant to be chaotic, says Randy Ingermanson).
Gah!! I can't take this thinking anymore. It's making me worry too much. I'm going to go now. I don't want to stay up too late since I have court tomorrow. Good night!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
I got a Wii!
Well, I have finally entered the new console generation. I traded in my GameCube for a Wii!
Here's some pics of the Wii (reduced in size):
The Box (though mine is preowned, it was in the original box)
The Wii itself
I hold up the Wiimote and Nunchuk
Ok, so the Wii isn't cordless.
With my dad's help, I got my TV, VCR, and the Wii all hooked up. I had problems setting up the internet on the Wii and getting it to read discs, but I solved those. The trouble was that the SSID for the internet connection was wrong, and I was putting the discs in the wrong way. It still won't read the first disc of Tales of Symphonia though. I just cleaned it with a soft cotton cloth and water, like Nintendo recommends, and we'll see what happens.
I didn't end up buying the Wii game I thought I would, because when I asked the guy at the video game store which was better, Wii Fit or EA Sports Active, he said Wii Fit, but Wii Fit costs $90 (since it comes with the Balance Board). There's a new Wii Fit game coming out in a few months though, Wii Fit Plus, so I may just wait for that. I checked out the used Wii games, and ended up getting one I'd read about in Nintendo Power and thought was interesting: Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. It was cheap ($22.49 used, after the savings from the GameStop EDGE card they persuaded me to get), plus I like RPG's.
Here's a picture:
With the $10 from my GameCube trade-in and money saved from the GameStop EDGE card, the grand total was (after our city's ridiculously high sales tax of 9.25%, raised from the general state rate of 8.25%, due to our city needing revenue for a new City Hall) $248.05, less than the retail price of a new Wii system alone. Sometimes buying used pays off.
Recently, I subscribed to a site called Blogger Link Up which was recommended on a writing blog I read. I figured I could promote myself as a writer by doing some guest blogging, and Blogger Link Up - designed to link bloggers to other bloggers or to link bloggers to those who want to get bloggers' attention - helps one do that. I already got two guest blogging requests. One is for a upcoming satellite TV station called Punch TV. I'm not sure what I'd be blogging on for them though, since I said in my guest blogging request that I would be willing to blog about Christianity, Christian writing, or fiction writing. We also don't have satellite TV at home (we have digital cable).
The other was for a blog called Catholic Charismatic Prophecies, which asked me to do a book review. I don't have much experience doing reviews, though, and I'm neither Catholic nor Charismatic.
I sent polite e-mails to both these requests, not flat-out rejecting them, but to ask some questions to help determine whether I should blog for them or not.
I have to go do jury duty tomorrow, so I'm going to try not to stay up too late tonight. I also need to be sure I have my summons handy. So, good night!
Here's some pics of the Wii (reduced in size):
The Box (though mine is preowned, it was in the original box)
The Wii itself
I hold up the Wiimote and Nunchuk
Ok, so the Wii isn't cordless.
With my dad's help, I got my TV, VCR, and the Wii all hooked up. I had problems setting up the internet on the Wii and getting it to read discs, but I solved those. The trouble was that the SSID for the internet connection was wrong, and I was putting the discs in the wrong way. It still won't read the first disc of Tales of Symphonia though. I just cleaned it with a soft cotton cloth and water, like Nintendo recommends, and we'll see what happens.
I didn't end up buying the Wii game I thought I would, because when I asked the guy at the video game store which was better, Wii Fit or EA Sports Active, he said Wii Fit, but Wii Fit costs $90 (since it comes with the Balance Board). There's a new Wii Fit game coming out in a few months though, Wii Fit Plus, so I may just wait for that. I checked out the used Wii games, and ended up getting one I'd read about in Nintendo Power and thought was interesting: Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. It was cheap ($22.49 used, after the savings from the GameStop EDGE card they persuaded me to get), plus I like RPG's.
Here's a picture:
With the $10 from my GameCube trade-in and money saved from the GameStop EDGE card, the grand total was (after our city's ridiculously high sales tax of 9.25%, raised from the general state rate of 8.25%, due to our city needing revenue for a new City Hall) $248.05, less than the retail price of a new Wii system alone. Sometimes buying used pays off.
Recently, I subscribed to a site called Blogger Link Up which was recommended on a writing blog I read. I figured I could promote myself as a writer by doing some guest blogging, and Blogger Link Up - designed to link bloggers to other bloggers or to link bloggers to those who want to get bloggers' attention - helps one do that. I already got two guest blogging requests. One is for a upcoming satellite TV station called Punch TV. I'm not sure what I'd be blogging on for them though, since I said in my guest blogging request that I would be willing to blog about Christianity, Christian writing, or fiction writing. We also don't have satellite TV at home (we have digital cable).
The other was for a blog called Catholic Charismatic Prophecies, which asked me to do a book review. I don't have much experience doing reviews, though, and I'm neither Catholic nor Charismatic.
I sent polite e-mails to both these requests, not flat-out rejecting them, but to ask some questions to help determine whether I should blog for them or not.
I have to go do jury duty tomorrow, so I'm going to try not to stay up too late tonight. I also need to be sure I have my summons handy. So, good night!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
I beat the first Phoenix Wright game!
Yessss!! After what seems like forever of playing this game off and on, I finally beat it just moments ago!
For a while I didn't play it because I was stuck on the part of the DS-exclusive 5th case ("Rise from the Ashes") where you have to prove that the supposed "Blue Badger shadow" Ema Skye saw was actually the "unstable jar" you have in the Court Record. But, thankfully, I found a diagram online (as well as a screenshot) showing how to turn the jar so it proves that fact, and was able to move on and beat the game!
Here's the diagram: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/lestor/jar_badger_puzzle.jpg
And the screenshot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/lestor/IMG_1088.jpg
Now, I confess, I did actually use a walkthrough on this game. The walkthrough said what statements to press in cross-examination and what evidence to present and when. It also said where to go, who to talk to, and what to do during investigation. But then, isn't that the same info that is included in official players' guides? I don't feel that I cheated. Some games - especially fantasy games - you can't get through very well without a little help. Players' guides are also useful for dungeon maps and to determine you've got all the items you need from a place (especially dungeons). They also often give advice on how to defeat bosses (very useful with the myriad of element-based bosses in Tales of Symphonia). The Tales of Symphonia players' guide also provides a full bestiary - useful in completing the Monster List.
Anyway, I was putting off playing the other Phoenix Wright game I own, Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, until I beat this game, so now I can play that one. That game's the third in the series, though, so I might want to get the second one (Phoenix Wright: Justice for All) and play it first. I don't know if it matters plot-wise or not. Then there's the newest game in the US, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, and the new Miles Edgeworth-themed spin-off (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth) that was just recently released in Japan.
I am also considering getting a Wii. The game store by the movie theatre has preowned ones for $200 (about $50 cheaper than a new one, which would be a big savings if I bought a game also). It can play my GameCube games, so I wouldn't have to get rid of those. I would have to keep the GameCube memory cards I have, though, since GameCube games played on the Wii need GameCube memory cards to save, and since I'm not likely to find any for sale anymore, I might as well hold on to the ones I have, if they're usable. (I had one that got so messed up, I couldn't use it anymore, even though physically speaking it was fine). The trouble is, if the ones I have get messed up, I'm in a pickle.
Another benefit of a Wii is the fact that it is wireless - no cords! Since I can't even quite figure out how to plug my TV and VCR in to the nearest plug right now (since the plug's covered by my bookcase, which I had moved there when the carpet was replaced recently), I most certainly don't want a game system with lots of wires. I guess maybe I should figure out how to plug the TV in first, although I could just plug it in somewhere else in the room for a bit until I am able to plug it in behind the bookcase.
If I buy a Wii, I may buy a Wii game with it. I'm thinking something simple to start - Wii Fit, Wii Music, or EA Sports Active. Although Wii Fit requires that you buy that heavy, humongous Balance Board too (which can also be used to help simulate a drum kit in Wii Music). EA Sports Active is usable right out of the box, with the extra equipment (leg bands and a resistance band) packaged with the game. So I may get that one. I need the exercise.
Well that was pretty much all I was going to say. Bye!
For a while I didn't play it because I was stuck on the part of the DS-exclusive 5th case ("Rise from the Ashes") where you have to prove that the supposed "Blue Badger shadow" Ema Skye saw was actually the "unstable jar" you have in the Court Record. But, thankfully, I found a diagram online (as well as a screenshot) showing how to turn the jar so it proves that fact, and was able to move on and beat the game!
Here's the diagram: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/lestor/jar_badger_puzzle.jpg
And the screenshot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v313/lestor/IMG_1088.jpg
Now, I confess, I did actually use a walkthrough on this game. The walkthrough said what statements to press in cross-examination and what evidence to present and when. It also said where to go, who to talk to, and what to do during investigation. But then, isn't that the same info that is included in official players' guides? I don't feel that I cheated. Some games - especially fantasy games - you can't get through very well without a little help. Players' guides are also useful for dungeon maps and to determine you've got all the items you need from a place (especially dungeons). They also often give advice on how to defeat bosses (very useful with the myriad of element-based bosses in Tales of Symphonia). The Tales of Symphonia players' guide also provides a full bestiary - useful in completing the Monster List.
Anyway, I was putting off playing the other Phoenix Wright game I own, Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, until I beat this game, so now I can play that one. That game's the third in the series, though, so I might want to get the second one (Phoenix Wright: Justice for All) and play it first. I don't know if it matters plot-wise or not. Then there's the newest game in the US, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, and the new Miles Edgeworth-themed spin-off (Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth) that was just recently released in Japan.
I am also considering getting a Wii. The game store by the movie theatre has preowned ones for $200 (about $50 cheaper than a new one, which would be a big savings if I bought a game also). It can play my GameCube games, so I wouldn't have to get rid of those. I would have to keep the GameCube memory cards I have, though, since GameCube games played on the Wii need GameCube memory cards to save, and since I'm not likely to find any for sale anymore, I might as well hold on to the ones I have, if they're usable. (I had one that got so messed up, I couldn't use it anymore, even though physically speaking it was fine). The trouble is, if the ones I have get messed up, I'm in a pickle.
Another benefit of a Wii is the fact that it is wireless - no cords! Since I can't even quite figure out how to plug my TV and VCR in to the nearest plug right now (since the plug's covered by my bookcase, which I had moved there when the carpet was replaced recently), I most certainly don't want a game system with lots of wires. I guess maybe I should figure out how to plug the TV in first, although I could just plug it in somewhere else in the room for a bit until I am able to plug it in behind the bookcase.
If I buy a Wii, I may buy a Wii game with it. I'm thinking something simple to start - Wii Fit, Wii Music, or EA Sports Active. Although Wii Fit requires that you buy that heavy, humongous Balance Board too (which can also be used to help simulate a drum kit in Wii Music). EA Sports Active is usable right out of the box, with the extra equipment (leg bands and a resistance band) packaged with the game. So I may get that one. I need the exercise.
Well that was pretty much all I was going to say. Bye!
Monday, June 15, 2009
I need to slow down, but I can't
The last few days I have been very restless. My mind can't stay on one thing very long - even when I'm working on focused work like I did last night making the last part of Act 25 of the Dark Mercury Arc Fandub Project, my mind feels like it's going in all directions at once. It's like ADD, except that I can actually sit still and still have this happen.
I tried going to bed earlier last night, since I was really tired and figured I needed a good night's sleep. I went to bed about 10:30 p.m. and got up at 8 a.m. But I am still restless today.
It could be my period; I'm always really restless on the first day of it and sometimes before.
I do admit I have been having trouble getting more sleep since school let out; even on days I'm off or when I get off work early in the day (as has been happening now that they're splitting me between bakery and grocery), I have found myself staying up till 1am.
I also paid for access to a download site so I could get this torrent of the Wedding Peach omake (since the person whose Veoh channel I was watching that series on doesn't have the second part of the first omake or the second omake uploaded) and then I had to install this program and I still couldn't get to the file. I regret dropping $35 on this stupid thing, but I don't think I can take it back.
I've also been working on my websites. My personal site is up. Its URL is www.bibliophilegirl.net. My author site is almost ready; I just need to decide what content the "unpublished works" section will have. I also need to figure out how to make my contact and newsletter forms work. I'm very inexperienced with more complex HTML such as forms. In fact, I had a hard enough time with the DIV layout I made (and it only looks good in Internet Explorer; I tested it in Firefox, Opera, and Safari, and it looks bad in those...I don't think Firefox can read CSS). The contact form (the HTML for which I got from a book) has to be linked to a CGI file, which I don't know how to make. The newsletter one is linked to www.kickstartcart.com, the site I am sending my newsletter through (I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to because the "e-mail broadcasting" option was disabled under my free trial, but then I called their tech support and the guy helped me out and upgraded my account for me so the broadcasting would work. I still have to pay $29.99 a month or something like that for the service, but it does have a very nicely made service, and Randy Ingermanson recommends it).
I also used the free Google External Keyword Tool that Randy Ingermanson recommended to generate META tag keywords for both my sites, which helped a lot. Though my hosting site (www.godaddy.com) sells a product that can submit your site to a bunch of search engines, it's an expensive thing (comes to $86.28 for the year!) so I think I will handle that myself. If I can get my sites listed through the Open Directory Project that will help (although it took them forever to list me last time, so maybe not).
I've got to leave for work now, but I'll post more later.
I tried going to bed earlier last night, since I was really tired and figured I needed a good night's sleep. I went to bed about 10:30 p.m. and got up at 8 a.m. But I am still restless today.
It could be my period; I'm always really restless on the first day of it and sometimes before.
I do admit I have been having trouble getting more sleep since school let out; even on days I'm off or when I get off work early in the day (as has been happening now that they're splitting me between bakery and grocery), I have found myself staying up till 1am.
I also paid for access to a download site so I could get this torrent of the Wedding Peach omake (since the person whose Veoh channel I was watching that series on doesn't have the second part of the first omake or the second omake uploaded) and then I had to install this program and I still couldn't get to the file. I regret dropping $35 on this stupid thing, but I don't think I can take it back.
I've also been working on my websites. My personal site is up. Its URL is www.bibliophilegirl.net. My author site is almost ready; I just need to decide what content the "unpublished works" section will have. I also need to figure out how to make my contact and newsletter forms work. I'm very inexperienced with more complex HTML such as forms. In fact, I had a hard enough time with the DIV layout I made (and it only looks good in Internet Explorer; I tested it in Firefox, Opera, and Safari, and it looks bad in those...I don't think Firefox can read CSS). The contact form (the HTML for which I got from a book) has to be linked to a CGI file, which I don't know how to make. The newsletter one is linked to www.kickstartcart.com, the site I am sending my newsletter through (I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to because the "e-mail broadcasting" option was disabled under my free trial, but then I called their tech support and the guy helped me out and upgraded my account for me so the broadcasting would work. I still have to pay $29.99 a month or something like that for the service, but it does have a very nicely made service, and Randy Ingermanson recommends it).
I also used the free Google External Keyword Tool that Randy Ingermanson recommended to generate META tag keywords for both my sites, which helped a lot. Though my hosting site (www.godaddy.com) sells a product that can submit your site to a bunch of search engines, it's an expensive thing (comes to $86.28 for the year!) so I think I will handle that myself. If I can get my sites listed through the Open Directory Project that will help (although it took them forever to list me last time, so maybe not).
I've got to leave for work now, but I'll post more later.
Friday, May 29, 2009
An amazing discovery
I have made an amazing discovery. I thought I was alone as a Christian who liked to write fantasy and science fiction. There certainly wasn't anybody in my life I could talk to about it.
BUT I AM NOT ALONE.
When leafing through the websites section at the back of my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction, I saw a link to a website called Where the Map Ends. (I also found the link to Randy Ingermanson's site there, which I visited not long ago - I was pleasantly surprised to learn Ingermanson is a Christian). Anyway, I went to this site, and through it found a deluge of other stuff about writing Christian "speculative fiction" (the catch-all publishing category for fiction "speculating" about different worlds than ours, such as sci-fi, fantasy, and alternate history). I even joined two forums I found through this searching: The Anamoly, the official forum of Where the Map Ends, and Christian Anime Alliance, a forum about anime and manga for Christians. There was even a thread in The Anamoly about the problem of whether to use magic in Christian fantasy (which I also saw a good article about on some other site), an issue I've been struggling with myself.
Even though it wasn't the greatest day today - I hurt my foot at work and the side of my left foot is throbbing as I type this - I am happy because I feel like I have made a breakthrough. It's almost like an answer to prayer, though I don't remember specifically praying for this. I know I prayed for career guidance, but not quite like this.
*****
In other news:
As I said, I hurt my foot. I tripped, except I didn't trip on anything or over anything - my foot just sort of tilted (it does that sometimes). My mom says it's my shoes. I'm going to go look for new work shoes tomorrow, regardless of how my foot feels (because my mother will make me go regardless).
I also have to clean my room tomorrow, although the floor is pretty much clean except for some laundry on the floor. I can't even do my laundry tomorrow because the guys currently working on our house pulled out the washer and dryer, so they're not hooked up for use right now. Because I didn't keep my end of the bargain with my parents and consistently keep my room clean, my rent got raised. I get paid tomorrow so I should have enough money to pay the higher rent for June and still have money left over, even though I made some big purchases recently (like some manga, a ridiculously high $50 for an online career test that really didn't do anything for me, and of course, my new iPod).
When I bought my manga, I also bought a book called The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference. I have been reading it through, even though you're not supposed to do that with "reference" books. But it's my first time through, so I don't know what info in it might be of use to me. Compiled by editors for Writers Digest and with a very nice introduction by fantasy fiction legend Terry Brooks, it's a pretty useful book. I don't really see anything in it of too much use to me specifically at the moment, but it's much more digestible than Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, a book considered a must-read for aspiring sci-fi and fantasy writers (a book I didn't understand at all, which might be because I haven't read any of Card's novels). It is, like it sounds, a reference book. It contains a whole chapter on magic, for example, and one on witchcraft (which provides a rather thorough treatment of Wicca, more so I think than what I read in the Christian book Dewitched: What You Need to Know About the Dangers of Wicca and Witchcraft). There's also info on armor and armies, weapons, and even fantasy races (in which they blame Tolkien for the current stereotypes of many of the races listed, especially elves and dwarves).
I also came across a site when I was browsing Where the Map Ends on my iPod this morning while waiting for the bus (one of the rare places besides my house where I can get our home wifi signal) that provides a program for mapmaking. It's targeted mostly toward RPG makers, but is supposed to be useful for authors too. The site is called ProFantasy Software and its main mapmaking program is called Campaign Cartographer (the current version being Campaign Cartographer 3). They also have a bunch of add-ons to this program, including a sci-fi add-on called Cosmographer Pro that lets you create galaxies and spaceships. You have to pay for the software, I think, but they have demos you can download, so I may do this if I decide I need to. I read on some site (Holly Lisle's, I think) that it's good to draw a map of your world if you're writing fantasy, but I stink at drawing and know nothing about cartography (mapmaking).
I'm also trying to decide which I like better, fantasy or sci-fi. Fantasy is easier for me to write because I've read a lot of fantasy. But I have attempted sci-fi mainly because I like technology and computers. (I have only seen one story that combined fantasy with technology in a cool way - the game Tales of Symphonia, with its magitechnology, technologically created things that were magic because they required mana to function). You can't really introduce technology into a fantasy world because of the tradition of medieval settings for fantasy. The only way to do it is through the alternate-universe idea (à la Philip Pullman) or through fantasy steampunk, in which case the technology has to be steam-powered due to the typical Victorian or Edwardian setting of steampunk.
I also am not sure about my decision to set my sci-fi novels in London; it seemed like a logical place at the time, mainly because the UFG or United Federation of Galaxies - which I am now calling the UIIC or United Interplanetary and Intersidereal Council, to avoid legal difficulties with Star Trek canon (which has a United Federation of Planets) - was going to be part of the plot, and a big city like London seemed like a logical place for it to be based. (Then again, Star Trek's United Federation of Planets is based in San Francisco).
I am somehow reluctant to write about the area in which I actually live, because to my knowledge nothing much of note has happened historically in the San Diego area, other than the city of San Diego being the site of the first mission founded by Junípero Serra, San Diego de Alcala. But then I guess I'm not writing historical fiction, am I? Anyway...it's late. I should go to bed now. Good night.
BUT I AM NOT ALONE.
When leafing through the websites section at the back of my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction, I saw a link to a website called Where the Map Ends. (I also found the link to Randy Ingermanson's site there, which I visited not long ago - I was pleasantly surprised to learn Ingermanson is a Christian). Anyway, I went to this site, and through it found a deluge of other stuff about writing Christian "speculative fiction" (the catch-all publishing category for fiction "speculating" about different worlds than ours, such as sci-fi, fantasy, and alternate history). I even joined two forums I found through this searching: The Anamoly, the official forum of Where the Map Ends, and Christian Anime Alliance, a forum about anime and manga for Christians. There was even a thread in The Anamoly about the problem of whether to use magic in Christian fantasy (which I also saw a good article about on some other site), an issue I've been struggling with myself.
Even though it wasn't the greatest day today - I hurt my foot at work and the side of my left foot is throbbing as I type this - I am happy because I feel like I have made a breakthrough. It's almost like an answer to prayer, though I don't remember specifically praying for this. I know I prayed for career guidance, but not quite like this.
*****
In other news:
As I said, I hurt my foot. I tripped, except I didn't trip on anything or over anything - my foot just sort of tilted (it does that sometimes). My mom says it's my shoes. I'm going to go look for new work shoes tomorrow, regardless of how my foot feels (because my mother will make me go regardless).
I also have to clean my room tomorrow, although the floor is pretty much clean except for some laundry on the floor. I can't even do my laundry tomorrow because the guys currently working on our house pulled out the washer and dryer, so they're not hooked up for use right now. Because I didn't keep my end of the bargain with my parents and consistently keep my room clean, my rent got raised. I get paid tomorrow so I should have enough money to pay the higher rent for June and still have money left over, even though I made some big purchases recently (like some manga, a ridiculously high $50 for an online career test that really didn't do anything for me, and of course, my new iPod).
When I bought my manga, I also bought a book called The Writer's Complete Fantasy Reference. I have been reading it through, even though you're not supposed to do that with "reference" books. But it's my first time through, so I don't know what info in it might be of use to me. Compiled by editors for Writers Digest and with a very nice introduction by fantasy fiction legend Terry Brooks, it's a pretty useful book. I don't really see anything in it of too much use to me specifically at the moment, but it's much more digestible than Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, a book considered a must-read for aspiring sci-fi and fantasy writers (a book I didn't understand at all, which might be because I haven't read any of Card's novels). It is, like it sounds, a reference book. It contains a whole chapter on magic, for example, and one on witchcraft (which provides a rather thorough treatment of Wicca, more so I think than what I read in the Christian book Dewitched: What You Need to Know About the Dangers of Wicca and Witchcraft). There's also info on armor and armies, weapons, and even fantasy races (in which they blame Tolkien for the current stereotypes of many of the races listed, especially elves and dwarves).
I also came across a site when I was browsing Where the Map Ends on my iPod this morning while waiting for the bus (one of the rare places besides my house where I can get our home wifi signal) that provides a program for mapmaking. It's targeted mostly toward RPG makers, but is supposed to be useful for authors too. The site is called ProFantasy Software and its main mapmaking program is called Campaign Cartographer (the current version being Campaign Cartographer 3). They also have a bunch of add-ons to this program, including a sci-fi add-on called Cosmographer Pro that lets you create galaxies and spaceships. You have to pay for the software, I think, but they have demos you can download, so I may do this if I decide I need to. I read on some site (Holly Lisle's, I think) that it's good to draw a map of your world if you're writing fantasy, but I stink at drawing and know nothing about cartography (mapmaking).
I'm also trying to decide which I like better, fantasy or sci-fi. Fantasy is easier for me to write because I've read a lot of fantasy. But I have attempted sci-fi mainly because I like technology and computers. (I have only seen one story that combined fantasy with technology in a cool way - the game Tales of Symphonia, with its magitechnology, technologically created things that were magic because they required mana to function). You can't really introduce technology into a fantasy world because of the tradition of medieval settings for fantasy. The only way to do it is through the alternate-universe idea (à la Philip Pullman) or through fantasy steampunk, in which case the technology has to be steam-powered due to the typical Victorian or Edwardian setting of steampunk.
I also am not sure about my decision to set my sci-fi novels in London; it seemed like a logical place at the time, mainly because the UFG or United Federation of Galaxies - which I am now calling the UIIC or United Interplanetary and Intersidereal Council, to avoid legal difficulties with Star Trek canon (which has a United Federation of Planets) - was going to be part of the plot, and a big city like London seemed like a logical place for it to be based. (Then again, Star Trek's United Federation of Planets is based in San Francisco).
I am somehow reluctant to write about the area in which I actually live, because to my knowledge nothing much of note has happened historically in the San Diego area, other than the city of San Diego being the site of the first mission founded by Junípero Serra, San Diego de Alcala. But then I guess I'm not writing historical fiction, am I? Anyway...it's late. I should go to bed now. Good night.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
New iPod, website stuff, career thoughts
Well, thankfully, after my Nano broke, I had enough money to replace my iPod right away, and so I got...an IPOD TOUCH! Yay! For around $295, I got an 8G iPod Touch, a hard case, and a set of screen protectors (I'm not taking any chances).
I got the Touch because of the ability to have apps. That was something I wish I had on my Nano. I saw the iPhone commercials that advertised the apps, and I really wanted them. I tried not to go overboard buying apps, but with some of those combined with some American Idol songs I bought, I spent about $40, according to my last iTunes receipt! So I have to be careful from now on.
They have so many apps in the App Store on iTunes (the iPod Touch itself actually comes with the App Store on it as well, but it's not identical to the one on iTunes). Some of them (especially the games) are really weird. I guess this is what happens when you let just anyone create an app.
A good number of the apps cost money, though most of them don't cost that much (they're usually in the 99¢-$2.99 range). The only expensive ones are some of the games, like Cake Mania 3 and Dance Dance Revolution S, as well as some of the higher-end productivity or business apps. There are a lot of free ones as well, though most of the free ones are "lite" versions (demos, basically) of paid apps -- although that is kind of nice in case you're not sure you want to buy an app. There are many free apps that are not demos though, such as the Facebook app (one of the first I downloaded) and the Dictionary.com app (which lets you look up words even without wifi on -- which is really nice).
One of the coolest things about the iPod Touch though is that IT CAN GO ONLINE. It uses wi-fi to do this, and the wifi is free as far as I can tell. Granted, I can't always get a wifi signal. (I downloaded an app called "WiFi Trak" that can tell you what wifi networks are in the area, which should help, since the iPod's regular wifi settings don't always detect all the networks around). To my mother, this is the coolest thing about the device. I find it cool too, though the internet has limits compared to surfing the internet on my laptop. For one, it's sometimes hard to click links on a page because the writing is often so small (you can zoom the screen though, or turn the iPod sideways, which makes it get bigger). Also, although the iPod Touch comes with a separate little YouTube thing (separate from the iPod's default web browser, Safari), you can't do all the things you would normally do on YouTube with it (like check your inbox or anything else specific to your account). It's good for just watching clips though, if anything, and you can still search for videos.
I am pretty satisfied with the apps I have downloaded, though I've deleted some I realized weren't useful. I also deleted the DDR game because it was too hard (I'm not good at regular DDR anyway). I have yet to find a good app for blogging on this blog on the go (I'm trying a lite version of an app right now that supports Blogger, but I can't quite figure out how it works). At present, the apps I have on my iPod are:
My personal site is going to be called Still Waters, after Psalms 23:2-3, which says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake." It has a blue theme.
My writing site (which I may use a pre-made layout on to make it look more professional, at least till I can get more web design skills) will be called Forest of Light, after the elves' home in my Walden stories. It's also got a verse tied to it: "Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel" (Isaiah 44:23). This makes me think of how things must've been after the Great War (the name of which I may change). It will have a forest theme, and to this effect I took several pictures of trees on my cell phone to use in the design.
I made a banner for Still Waters just now using my trial of Paint Shop Pro 7 (which I prefer to the new Paint Shop Pro; I have the CD for 7 but I can never get it to install right on my laptop) and it actually looks pretty good. I picked a color that fits into my color scheme, and by choosing certain stroke and fill colors and a texture, ended up with text that has a faded look, which is pretty cool. I made one the size of a blog header, which is big enough for me. I did have to move my other layers (my links, iframe, and a layer I put the Psalms 23 verse in) down a few pixels so they wouldn't be too close to the banner. But it looks fine.
I thought last night that maybe I should consider a career in web design, since I like making websites. MiraCosta has a certificate program in Web Design. But I don't know if my current major would work for that sort of job. I guess it would since I'm emphasizing in writing. I may need to talk to a career counselor about this. Because if I need to change my major, it would be better to do it now while it's still early.
Well, I want to go out and do some stuff today, since I'm off of work and some guys are working on our house anyway. Bye!
I got the Touch because of the ability to have apps. That was something I wish I had on my Nano. I saw the iPhone commercials that advertised the apps, and I really wanted them. I tried not to go overboard buying apps, but with some of those combined with some American Idol songs I bought, I spent about $40, according to my last iTunes receipt! So I have to be careful from now on.
They have so many apps in the App Store on iTunes (the iPod Touch itself actually comes with the App Store on it as well, but it's not identical to the one on iTunes). Some of them (especially the games) are really weird. I guess this is what happens when you let just anyone create an app.
A good number of the apps cost money, though most of them don't cost that much (they're usually in the 99¢-$2.99 range). The only expensive ones are some of the games, like Cake Mania 3 and Dance Dance Revolution S, as well as some of the higher-end productivity or business apps. There are a lot of free ones as well, though most of the free ones are "lite" versions (demos, basically) of paid apps -- although that is kind of nice in case you're not sure you want to buy an app. There are many free apps that are not demos though, such as the Facebook app (one of the first I downloaded) and the Dictionary.com app (which lets you look up words even without wifi on -- which is really nice).
One of the coolest things about the iPod Touch though is that IT CAN GO ONLINE. It uses wi-fi to do this, and the wifi is free as far as I can tell. Granted, I can't always get a wifi signal. (I downloaded an app called "WiFi Trak" that can tell you what wifi networks are in the area, which should help, since the iPod's regular wifi settings don't always detect all the networks around). To my mother, this is the coolest thing about the device. I find it cool too, though the internet has limits compared to surfing the internet on my laptop. For one, it's sometimes hard to click links on a page because the writing is often so small (you can zoom the screen though, or turn the iPod sideways, which makes it get bigger). Also, although the iPod Touch comes with a separate little YouTube thing (separate from the iPod's default web browser, Safari), you can't do all the things you would normally do on YouTube with it (like check your inbox or anything else specific to your account). It's good for just watching clips though, if anything, and you can still search for videos.
I am pretty satisfied with the apps I have downloaded, though I've deleted some I realized weren't useful. I also deleted the DDR game because it was too hard (I'm not good at regular DDR anyway). I have yet to find a good app for blogging on this blog on the go (I'm trying a lite version of an app right now that supports Blogger, but I can't quite figure out how it works). At present, the apps I have on my iPod are:
- Facebook - Like the YouTube thing, this app doesn't let you do every single thing you can do on the regular Facebook. It does let you see your news feed, profile, friends, and inbox, as well as chat and change your status and photo on the go, though, so it's pretty decent. (Half the time all I do on Facebook is change my status once and a while and check my inbox and fan pages). Plus, it's free!
- AIM - There are two apps for AIM, the paid version and the free version. The free version has ads, otherwise it's exactly the same as the paid version. I went ahead and paid the $2.99 needed for the paid version because I didn't want ads. It basically lets you IM on the go (I haven't IM'd anybody from it yet though).
- Yahoo! Messenger - I only started using Yahoo! Messenger because I had a friend who had an MSN account and couldn't use AIM. This is a free app, unlike AIM, and pretty much has the usual features of YIM.
- LinkedIn - I couldn't believe this app was free! Basically, this app works similar to the Facebook app in that it simulates a social networking site, in this case LinkedIn, a social network for those looking for work to connect with employers. It's pretty cool.
- BlogWriter Lite - This is that Blogger-supporting app I was telling you about. I haven't quite figured out how it works (for one, it says this blog has 0 posts, which is far from true!). This app also lets you subscribe to RSS feeds, though I may end up doing that with this free app called Daisy Feed I'm thinking of downloading later.
- YouSave! Lite - A "lite" version of a paid app that I'm trying out. This app allows you to put in the regular price of something that's marked down, then its discount percentage. When you do, the app will tell you how much the discounted price of the item will be! Nifty, huh? I'm a bargain person, so it's a great thing to have.
- Consumerreports.org Mobile News and Video - Basically what it sounds like. I know my dad would want this app - he's a big fan of Consumer Reports. It's useful if you want to buy something but you're not sure what brand or something like that.
- Now Playing - Basically lets you find movie times and such, also lets you see movie releases on DVD. Pretty cool.
- Library - A cool app with a cute icon (a little teddy bear with books - go here to see it). Using your current location, it helps you find libraries near you. It's from a developer called DoubleTapApps, all of whose apps are targeted to families with young kids. I tried it, it basically puts pins in a map for the libraries near you based on your current location (apparently the iPod Touch has limited GPS capabilities -- not as much capability as the iPhone though). And like I said, the icon is really cute.
- Pedometer - This is one of the first apps I downloaded, and it's really useful. It counts your steps, like a pedometer usually does, and counts the calories burned. You can also keep a log of your daily totals. The first day I used it, I walked over 4,000 steps!
- MyGrades Lite - I'm going to try this out with my summer class to see if I want to get the full version for fall. Basically, you put in your assignments and what you got on them, and the app calculates your grade in the class. It's really nice to know where you're at, especially around test time.
- iHomework - Basically an app that acts as a school planner. It got really good reviews on iTunes. It was only 99¢ too. If it works out, I won't have to buy a planner for school, meaning one less thing to carry in my backpack.
- Classics - This 99¢ app was rated high in the Books section of the App Store. It was also featured in the "Read" iPhone commercial. Basically, it lets you read classic books. It comes with a preloaded selection of books that I assume can be updated as they update the app. The books appear as covers on a bookshelf, then you can open them and read them like a real book, à la Kindle. (There's actually a real Kindle app in the App Store too - and it's free, so I may try it).
- Pollen Journal Lite - The lite version of an app that lets you know the pollen count near you and keep track of your allergy symptoms. This is a nice app for me because I am allergic to pollen. Supposedly, using the journal function helps the app to determine which types of pollen allergens you are very allergic to. Pretty cool.
- WordReference.com French-English Dictionary - Yay! I am so happy there is an app for this. I use wordreference.com all the time, especially for looking up French words. And it was free too, amazingly enough. It will be nice to have this on the go, especially since both of the French teachers I've had so far at CSUSM don't like you to use laptops in class.
- Dictionary.com - Basically an app version of the famous dictionary website. It also features thesaurus capabilities. As I said before, you can search for words without having wifi on; some of the capabilities, like Word of the Day, do require wifi though. Still, pretty cool, and FREE.
- WiFiTrak - A really decent app for finding a wifi signal wherever you are. This is nice because the default wifi settings on the iPod Touch don't always detect all nearby networks.
- IndieBound - This is a quirky little free app developed by the American Booksellers Association. It basically gives you book recommendations from indie bookstores (and if you like a book, the app will link you to the site of an indie bookstore where you can get it), as well as providing a book search and a location-based indie business finder (it can find more than just indie bookstores). That's pretty neat. As a former employee of an indie bookstore, I'm definitely all for supporting indie businesses.
- Urbanspoon is an app I read about in Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine. Basically, based on your location and info you give it (like that you want an Italian restaurant), it finds restaurants for you. Pretty cool, no?
- Tennis ATP/WTA is an app that provides pro tennis scores, which I find interesting only because tennis is the only pro sport I ever watch by myself (I'll watch baseball if my dad or brother is watching it and I'm eating dinner or something), and not even that often.
- France24 Live - This is an interesting app. It lets you watch live news video in English, French, or Arabic in a variety of categories. When I first tried it, I watched a report from the Cannes Film Festival. I figure watching this will help with my French (I know that watching subtitled anime helped my Japanese pronunciation, so hopefully this will help my French pronunciation).
- Newsdesk - A pretty basic app that gives you the top headlines in a nice skim-able format. Nice way to keep up on what's going on in the world. You can skim world news, Science and Technology news, and Entertainment news with this app. It's viewable without wi-fi on, but you need wi-fi on to update it.
- Lemonde.fr - A news app for the French newspaper Le Monde. Again, like NewsDesk, you can view it without wifi on, but you need wifi to update it. I figured I should read news in French to keep my skills up.
- K-WAVE - An app that lets you listen to K-WAVE, a Christian station based around here.
- Y! Music - An app for Yahoo! Music and its radio thing, Launch.
- Pandora - A free (!?) app for the famous internet radio site Pandora.
- Pinball - The most basic pinball game I could find. I don't need fancy stuff, I just wanted to play pinball, so I got this.
- iMahjong Premium - I'm a big fan of computer mahjong, and have been since way back when I had the PC game Taipei on my Windows 3.1-running computer (which was in the early '90's). This game has really nice graphics and is pretty easy to play. It does also have a hint system if you get stuck, which is really nice.
- MiniShogi - I have decided I want to try to learn shogi, or Japanese chess. I haven't played this game yet but it looks interesting.
- SmartGo - Aside from shogi, I've also decided I want to learn to play the Asian board game go. I read the tutorial and it sounds easy and hard at the same time. It's sort of like checkers or chess in that there's white and black pieces and you try to capture your opponents' pieces, but other than that, it's unlike any board game I've ever played.
- Solitaire - You can't go wrong with Solitaire. This is always a nice game to play if you need to kill time.
- Jeopardy! - Basically an iPod version of the classic game show.
- EvilOverlord - An app created by Thomas Cherry that displays "rules" from the famous Evil Overlord List. The app also allows you to create a to-do list of evil schemes and send an "emergency beacon" (basically a location-based thing showing where you are) to alert your henchmen of your current location. I'm a big fan of the Evil Overlord List, so I definitely wanted to get this.
My personal site is going to be called Still Waters, after Psalms 23:2-3, which says, "He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake." It has a blue theme.
My writing site (which I may use a pre-made layout on to make it look more professional, at least till I can get more web design skills) will be called Forest of Light, after the elves' home in my Walden stories. It's also got a verse tied to it: "Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel" (Isaiah 44:23). This makes me think of how things must've been after the Great War (the name of which I may change). It will have a forest theme, and to this effect I took several pictures of trees on my cell phone to use in the design.
I made a banner for Still Waters just now using my trial of Paint Shop Pro 7 (which I prefer to the new Paint Shop Pro; I have the CD for 7 but I can never get it to install right on my laptop) and it actually looks pretty good. I picked a color that fits into my color scheme, and by choosing certain stroke and fill colors and a texture, ended up with text that has a faded look, which is pretty cool. I made one the size of a blog header, which is big enough for me. I did have to move my other layers (my links, iframe, and a layer I put the Psalms 23 verse in) down a few pixels so they wouldn't be too close to the banner. But it looks fine.
I thought last night that maybe I should consider a career in web design, since I like making websites. MiraCosta has a certificate program in Web Design. But I don't know if my current major would work for that sort of job. I guess it would since I'm emphasizing in writing. I may need to talk to a career counselor about this. Because if I need to change my major, it would be better to do it now while it's still early.
Well, I want to go out and do some stuff today, since I'm off of work and some guys are working on our house anyway. Bye!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
OMG I can't believe that this happened!!
When I went to get ready to go to church today, I wasn't sure where my iPod was. Finally, I found it in the pocket of my jeans. It looked like the backlight was on. No problem, I thought. Sometimes the buttons get pushed in my pocket when I don't lock them. But then there was more.
A dark spot with a tiny spider crack in it, with a dark blotchy line running from it, all of this under the glass.
Having seen this before (including with my laptop), I knew exactly what was wrong. My iPod screen had cracked. How exactly, I don't know. But it did. It apparently happened sometime between when I turned my iPod off last night about 7:30 p.m. so I could watch my fully-downloaded torrent of Mew and the Wave-Guiding Hero Lucario (the Japanese version of Lucario and the Mystery of Mew) and this morning.
I tried plugging my iPod into my laptop in hopes that I could restore it, but it didn't pop up in iTunes or as a drive on my computer (as it does sometimes). I did a diagnostic through iTunes and it said my iPod was not found.
I can't get it fixed cause it's been more than a year since I bought this iPod, meaning my warranty with Apple has run out.
So the verdict is: MY IPOD IS BROKEN!!!
I can't believe this happened!!
I have figured out that all that can be done is to buy a new iPod. After all, iTunes still works, and I want to still be able to listen to my podcasts, if anything (especially since I listen to my church's sermons as podcasts for the days I miss church because of work). I don't like the new Nanos that much. I may get an iPod Touch, since I keep saying that I want to be able to have apps, and I don't need an iPhone because I have a perfectly good cell phone. I have enough money in my checking account to buy a new iPod (and I just got paid on Friday too, come to think of it). I will buy some sort of case for it that covers the screen or some sort of screen protector so that this screen thing doesn't happen again.
A friend of mine from the bus has a Zune, iPod's direct competitor, so maybe I'll look into that too. Not sure though.
I'm going to eat lunch now, since I have to be at work at 5. Just thought I'd report that.
A dark spot with a tiny spider crack in it, with a dark blotchy line running from it, all of this under the glass.
Having seen this before (including with my laptop), I knew exactly what was wrong. My iPod screen had cracked. How exactly, I don't know. But it did. It apparently happened sometime between when I turned my iPod off last night about 7:30 p.m. so I could watch my fully-downloaded torrent of Mew and the Wave-Guiding Hero Lucario (the Japanese version of Lucario and the Mystery of Mew) and this morning.
I tried plugging my iPod into my laptop in hopes that I could restore it, but it didn't pop up in iTunes or as a drive on my computer (as it does sometimes). I did a diagnostic through iTunes and it said my iPod was not found.
I can't get it fixed cause it's been more than a year since I bought this iPod, meaning my warranty with Apple has run out.
So the verdict is: MY IPOD IS BROKEN!!!
I can't believe this happened!!
I have figured out that all that can be done is to buy a new iPod. After all, iTunes still works, and I want to still be able to listen to my podcasts, if anything (especially since I listen to my church's sermons as podcasts for the days I miss church because of work). I don't like the new Nanos that much. I may get an iPod Touch, since I keep saying that I want to be able to have apps, and I don't need an iPhone because I have a perfectly good cell phone. I have enough money in my checking account to buy a new iPod (and I just got paid on Friday too, come to think of it). I will buy some sort of case for it that covers the screen or some sort of screen protector so that this screen thing doesn't happen again.
A friend of mine from the bus has a Zune, iPod's direct competitor, so maybe I'll look into that too. Not sure though.
I'm going to eat lunch now, since I have to be at work at 5. Just thought I'd report that.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Finally, a break...but there's still much to think about
FINALLY! Finals are over, and I can get some rest. Well, I'll be working still this summer, and I start a summer class on July 9th. But still.
Finals were killer. I had to finish my author paper, which I had to reprint half of at the last minute because I'd forgotten some citations in my bibliography (I had to reprint more than just the bibliography because adding stuff pushes everything down). I had to do my take-home history final at the last minute because of all the other stuff, and the essay was a pain in the butt, even with some prep work done beforehand. I also forgot to say in the "terms/short answer" section that Saddam Hussein "was" the former leader of Iraq instead of "is" (I should've said "was" because he's dead). And based on a map I checked my answers on afterwards, I missed all but one of the countries on the outline Middle East map we were supposed to fill out (I got Syria right, but missed on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan...I only remembered where Syria should be because I know it's right above Israel).
My French final was easy, as expected. My American Lit final (not the paper, but the actual final itself) was easier because we could use the study guide on both parts, as opposed to just one. The first part gives you 13 passages, 10 of which you must do. You must identify each passage by the work it's from and the work's author, state a theme the passage illustrates, and show how the passage illustrates the theme. I'm not sure how I did on the themes. I'm sure they were right themes (not totally out of left field) but maybe not what she's looking for. I did good identifying the works and authors because I only pick passages that I can recognize that information for. Some are more obvious than others. The second part is based on the study guide itself. She gives us a big long study guide of around 50 questions or so, 20 or 25 of which are actually on the test. But you don't know which ones will be on the test, so it's good to fill out the whole study guide. I did this, and pretty much copied my answers off of my study guide, with a few alterations in some cases.
As I said, I am starting a summer class on July 9th. This in the second summer intersession or "block," which begins July 8th (which is a Wednesday; the scheduling is a little odd because of having to accomodate the 4th of July holiday in the first summer block). Because my class is a Tuesday/Thursday class, it begins on July 9th. I verified this with the people who make the academic calendars. The class is Lit & Writing 320, a class called "Sacred Texts." I am taking it for my last upper division G.E. class, which has to be in Arts & Humanities. The catalog description for the class basically says that it looks at different sacred texts from a literary standpoint. The detailed description on the Lit & Writing department website (which looks a lot better than the other department websites I've seen, if I may say so, even the French one) says that the particular class I'm taking will study Islam in comparison with Judaism and Christianity by exploring how their sacred texts "characterize and sometimes define common concepts and issues such as life, death, marriage, social decorum, government, economics, art, and architecture." It sounds interesting. It's like when I took Asian Philosophy and Religion at MiraCosta and the teacher said she was going to teach about Islam (which is not an Asian religion, of course) because she felt it was misunderstood.
I am also enrolled for fall already. I am taking two Lit & Writing classes - a core class, LTWR 300B, called "History of Literary Commentary II," and an elective class, LTWR 318, called "Small Press Publishing." The first class basically studies "current trends in critical theory." My friend Stephanie said I should take the A section first, but the A section is a night class this fall, which doesn't work with my schedule (with the bus and all). Plus, Dr. Cucinella (my lit teacher these last two semesters) is teaching it, and I need a break from her. Plus, there's no rule saying that you have to take them in order. The major worksheet just says LTWR 300A is a recommended prerequisite.
The second class is described as "practical training in manuscript soliciting, editing, publishing, and distributing." As an unpublished author, I could really use this. As a "small press" class, it probably won't look at dealing with big publishers, but it's something. Plus it's being taught by Sandra Doller, the faculty advisor for the Creative Writing Community I've been hearing about through the "ltwrundergrad" mailing list (e-mail mailing lists can be annoying as heck, but this one is actually useful). It's a group of creative writers on campus who recently got recognized as an official club. Now that French Club is going to meet bimonthly rather than every week, I should be able to get involved in this club too. I went to one of their writing workshops this semester and read my short story "The Tale of Lady Victoria." The people there thought it was really good and said it would work as part of a larger book (which is my intention; I intend to create some sort of "tales" anthology with this and my other "Walden stories") or, with some editing, as a standalone piece.
The two other classes I am taking are related to my minor, French. I am taking French 312, French Composition and Advanced Oral Practice. Technically, I should take French 311 (Advanced French) next, but the way the courses are being offered schedule-wise I have to take them backwards. Dr. Anover said there wouldn't be a problem as far as what we need to know for the class. I am also taking History 318, a class called Society and Culture in Early Modern Europe. This is for a course substitution for my minor elective, since the French classes listed on the minor worksheet for that requirement are getting cut. Dr. Anover already said it would count (I sent her an e-mail with the catalog description). I'm a little worried because when I enrolled it said it had to be counted as a upper-division G.E. course for arts and humanities, so I wasn't sure we'd able to use it for my minor. But I'm already taking my course for that requirement this summer, so hopefully it will work out. I may e-mail Dr. Anover about it just in case. Okay, I just did that.
There was also an e-mail from my history teacher from the 13th asking if I'd be on campus later in the week to return this book called A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America that I'd lent to her. I e-mailed her back telling her she could keep it. I wasn't too into the book anyway, and I don't have much bookshelf space as it is.
With school out of the way for now, I am thinking about other things. One of those things is my career. A few things prompted this. One was thinking about what to do with my free time this summer, and the thing that jumped to my mind was to work on the personal/writing website that I had been working on in small increments as I had time but was now stuck on. I looked up some stuff on what to include in a writing website and decided I'd have to make two separate websites, one personal and one professional. I have to make some website to prove my skill in order to apply for the fanlistings I want to make anyway, so I will make my personal site for that. This will also give me a site to link to my personal Blogger blog from, since I don't want to link to that blog from my professional site since I am very candid about things on there, including frustrations about work. Although, I just realized that if I link to my Alera Gynne fanfic from my professional site, they might look at my personal blog anyway, since they're under the same account and thus share the same profile.
There. I fixed that. I deleted the blog from my personal blog account and set it up under a new account under the e-mail I intend to use for my "professional" site and am already using for my job-related profiles on the social networks LinkedIn and ZoomInfo, networks I found out about from a Fortune article I found online. I don't want to give it out here, but basically it's an e-mail with my full real first and last name and my middle initial. I created it as an alternate e-mail when we couldn't get into our regular Yahoo accounts.
I'm really hungry, so I'll write more later.
Finals were killer. I had to finish my author paper, which I had to reprint half of at the last minute because I'd forgotten some citations in my bibliography (I had to reprint more than just the bibliography because adding stuff pushes everything down). I had to do my take-home history final at the last minute because of all the other stuff, and the essay was a pain in the butt, even with some prep work done beforehand. I also forgot to say in the "terms/short answer" section that Saddam Hussein "was" the former leader of Iraq instead of "is" (I should've said "was" because he's dead). And based on a map I checked my answers on afterwards, I missed all but one of the countries on the outline Middle East map we were supposed to fill out (I got Syria right, but missed on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan...I only remembered where Syria should be because I know it's right above Israel).
My French final was easy, as expected. My American Lit final (not the paper, but the actual final itself) was easier because we could use the study guide on both parts, as opposed to just one. The first part gives you 13 passages, 10 of which you must do. You must identify each passage by the work it's from and the work's author, state a theme the passage illustrates, and show how the passage illustrates the theme. I'm not sure how I did on the themes. I'm sure they were right themes (not totally out of left field) but maybe not what she's looking for. I did good identifying the works and authors because I only pick passages that I can recognize that information for. Some are more obvious than others. The second part is based on the study guide itself. She gives us a big long study guide of around 50 questions or so, 20 or 25 of which are actually on the test. But you don't know which ones will be on the test, so it's good to fill out the whole study guide. I did this, and pretty much copied my answers off of my study guide, with a few alterations in some cases.
As I said, I am starting a summer class on July 9th. This in the second summer intersession or "block," which begins July 8th (which is a Wednesday; the scheduling is a little odd because of having to accomodate the 4th of July holiday in the first summer block). Because my class is a Tuesday/Thursday class, it begins on July 9th. I verified this with the people who make the academic calendars. The class is Lit & Writing 320, a class called "Sacred Texts." I am taking it for my last upper division G.E. class, which has to be in Arts & Humanities. The catalog description for the class basically says that it looks at different sacred texts from a literary standpoint. The detailed description on the Lit & Writing department website (which looks a lot better than the other department websites I've seen, if I may say so, even the French one) says that the particular class I'm taking will study Islam in comparison with Judaism and Christianity by exploring how their sacred texts "characterize and sometimes define common concepts and issues such as life, death, marriage, social decorum, government, economics, art, and architecture." It sounds interesting. It's like when I took Asian Philosophy and Religion at MiraCosta and the teacher said she was going to teach about Islam (which is not an Asian religion, of course) because she felt it was misunderstood.
I am also enrolled for fall already. I am taking two Lit & Writing classes - a core class, LTWR 300B, called "History of Literary Commentary II," and an elective class, LTWR 318, called "Small Press Publishing." The first class basically studies "current trends in critical theory." My friend Stephanie said I should take the A section first, but the A section is a night class this fall, which doesn't work with my schedule (with the bus and all). Plus, Dr. Cucinella (my lit teacher these last two semesters) is teaching it, and I need a break from her. Plus, there's no rule saying that you have to take them in order. The major worksheet just says LTWR 300A is a recommended prerequisite.
The second class is described as "practical training in manuscript soliciting, editing, publishing, and distributing." As an unpublished author, I could really use this. As a "small press" class, it probably won't look at dealing with big publishers, but it's something. Plus it's being taught by Sandra Doller, the faculty advisor for the Creative Writing Community I've been hearing about through the "ltwrundergrad" mailing list (e-mail mailing lists can be annoying as heck, but this one is actually useful). It's a group of creative writers on campus who recently got recognized as an official club. Now that French Club is going to meet bimonthly rather than every week, I should be able to get involved in this club too. I went to one of their writing workshops this semester and read my short story "The Tale of Lady Victoria." The people there thought it was really good and said it would work as part of a larger book (which is my intention; I intend to create some sort of "tales" anthology with this and my other "Walden stories") or, with some editing, as a standalone piece.
The two other classes I am taking are related to my minor, French. I am taking French 312, French Composition and Advanced Oral Practice. Technically, I should take French 311 (Advanced French) next, but the way the courses are being offered schedule-wise I have to take them backwards. Dr. Anover said there wouldn't be a problem as far as what we need to know for the class. I am also taking History 318, a class called Society and Culture in Early Modern Europe. This is for a course substitution for my minor elective, since the French classes listed on the minor worksheet for that requirement are getting cut. Dr. Anover already said it would count (I sent her an e-mail with the catalog description). I'm a little worried because when I enrolled it said it had to be counted as a upper-division G.E. course for arts and humanities, so I wasn't sure we'd able to use it for my minor. But I'm already taking my course for that requirement this summer, so hopefully it will work out. I may e-mail Dr. Anover about it just in case. Okay, I just did that.
There was also an e-mail from my history teacher from the 13th asking if I'd be on campus later in the week to return this book called A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America that I'd lent to her. I e-mailed her back telling her she could keep it. I wasn't too into the book anyway, and I don't have much bookshelf space as it is.
With school out of the way for now, I am thinking about other things. One of those things is my career. A few things prompted this. One was thinking about what to do with my free time this summer, and the thing that jumped to my mind was to work on the personal/writing website that I had been working on in small increments as I had time but was now stuck on. I looked up some stuff on what to include in a writing website and decided I'd have to make two separate websites, one personal and one professional. I have to make some website to prove my skill in order to apply for the fanlistings I want to make anyway, so I will make my personal site for that. This will also give me a site to link to my personal Blogger blog from, since I don't want to link to that blog from my professional site since I am very candid about things on there, including frustrations about work. Although, I just realized that if I link to my Alera Gynne fanfic from my professional site, they might look at my personal blog anyway, since they're under the same account and thus share the same profile.
There. I fixed that. I deleted the blog from my personal blog account and set it up under a new account under the e-mail I intend to use for my "professional" site and am already using for my job-related profiles on the social networks LinkedIn and ZoomInfo, networks I found out about from a Fortune article I found online. I don't want to give it out here, but basically it's an e-mail with my full real first and last name and my middle initial. I created it as an alternate e-mail when we couldn't get into our regular Yahoo accounts.
I'm really hungry, so I'll write more later.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Catching up on stuff
Wow! I don't know how I haven't written in so long. All I can say is that there has been really nothing to write about, plus school has kept me busy. Work too.
First a couple blog-related announcements. First, I have claimed this blog on the blog search site Technorati. You can see a link in my "Links" section in the blog sidebar that will allow you to add the blog to your "favorites" on that site. I had a lot of trouble claiming it and then it turned out the only problem was that I was putting "www" in the URL, and I didn't need to. Doi! Anyway, the second announcement is that I now have a second blog on this account! Entitled Le Journal Intime d'Alera Gynne, it's the home of my Harry Potter-based fanfic about my character Alera Gynne. It's written in French, however, so you'll need to know it (preferably at my level, which is intermediate) to understand it. You can check it out through the link in the sidebar or at this link: http://aleragynnestory.blogspot.com/.
School will be out on the 14th. I can't believe the time is already here. The stress is mounting with finals and papers and stuff. Thank heavens my history teacher changed the due date on our second essay or I would've been freaking out on Wednesday night having that paper and the PowerPoint for my Lit class. I managed to finish the history paper today (after having to totally rethink it after looking over the prompt again and breaking it down into smaller elements like I did with the last essay for this class - this really helps when you get super long essay prompts) and a few days ago, after bringing my author paper to my Theory and Practice of K-12 Writing Instruction class (where we were learning about teaching revision and were asked to bring in our own papers), got my paper down to size there too.
I have a teaching philosophy paper due on the 7th for my Theory and Practice of K-12 Writing Instruction class that I need to start. I was going to work on it this last week since there was no other homework in that class, but the history paper (which was originally due on April 30th) preoccupied me. In this paper, we had to compare the Vietnam War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's HARD. Trust me. I think I did a good job though (although my paper was 6 pages when she wanted 5), considering I had to cite in Chicago style, which I'm not very familiar with.
For my author paper, I need to write the last two parts and edit the major works and themes section. It's a lot. This is on top of the aforesaid teaching philosophy paper and tons of history reading (there are these three books on the syllabus that for some reason our teacher tacked on to the reading schedule at the END of the semester) And then finals too. Gah!!
I also had a computer issue. My backspace key, space bar, and enter key all stopped working. Fortunately, I called Dell and got a new keyboard overnighted to me via FedEx, which they assured me I could install myself (my warranty doesn't cover having someone come out to do it for me). Unfortunately, they did not include the tech sheet they said they would and I had to find instructions on the Net. I spent about an hour just getting the key cover off using a flat-head screwdriver, and then I couldn't unscrew the keyboard, so I gave up. Mum helped me with the keyboard today though, and it turned out that the reason I couldn't unscrew the keyboard was because I had the wrong kind of screwdriver (I was using the flat-head one from my eyeglasses repair kit, and I needed a Phillips-head).
Work is stressful right now; I didn't have time to do everything on Wednesday night this week and so yesterday Shelly (my boss) was hopping mad with me. I am distraught about what to do, especially since Juan apparently gets away with just doing basic cleaning (the basic closing stuff, that is) while I do everything on the list -- even the extra cleaning Shelly asks for -- which takes longer and thus sometimes causes me to not finish my work, and I get in trouble. It's not fair! I did the best I could last night, although I didn't have time to do the floors. I had to go to lunch late because I had to wait for Alma from service deli to get back from her lunch. Plus I lost some time after 10pm (I worked till 11 last night) having to go to the office to hear Jeff (the assistant manager) read a memo about swine flu to me and two other employees that I had already read myself when it was posted on the office door upstairs.
Oh yes, as I'm sure you people reading this know, THERE'S AN EPIDEMIC GOING ON. It's of a strain of influenza said to come from pigs, hence the name "swine flu" (although I've heard some people are calling it "H1 N1 Influenza" now because farmers are complaining that they'll lose profits from it being called "swine flu," due to the common misconception that it is foodborne and thus you can get it from eating or handling pork, which is NOT TRUE). Anyway, the epidemic started in Mexico. The first cases in the U.S. were some New York college students who went down to Mexico for spring break (despite the State Department travel warning already in place advising people not to travel to Mexico because of the drug cartel-related violence going on). It's now spreading around the world. I don't think there's been any person-to-person cases yet; I think it's all just people who have been to Mexico recently at this point.
It's pretty late, and I want to go to church today (Sunday; I started this just before midnight on Saturday) since I don't have to work till 5. I stayed up a little later than usual because I was doing laundry. So I think I'm going to go.
Oh one more thing. Today while going through a Yahoo! Games list of 10 free games, I came across an online game called Free Realms. It's basically a free, kid-friendly fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). You can still pay for premium content (either with a credit card or with gift card-style cards you buy at places like Target or Wal-Mart, similar to how you buy cards for Zwinky or Gaia Online), but the bulk of the game is free. You can read more about it here. I played it for a little bit. It's fun, but the controls take some getting used to. (I've never played an MMO). Their in-game tutorials are very helpful. You also get to try a bunch of different jobs, something not always possible in highly job-based fantasy RPG's (like many of the Final Fantasy games). I've learned how to be a Chef, a Pet Trainer, and a Brawler (the basic combat category) so far. The graphics are also really good considering it streams straight from the site's server to your computer (no disc or any such thing required).
Ok I really ought to go. It's nearly 1am and I still want to take a shower before bed. Good night!
First a couple blog-related announcements. First, I have claimed this blog on the blog search site Technorati. You can see a link in my "Links" section in the blog sidebar that will allow you to add the blog to your "favorites" on that site. I had a lot of trouble claiming it and then it turned out the only problem was that I was putting "www" in the URL, and I didn't need to. Doi! Anyway, the second announcement is that I now have a second blog on this account! Entitled Le Journal Intime d'Alera Gynne, it's the home of my Harry Potter-based fanfic about my character Alera Gynne. It's written in French, however, so you'll need to know it (preferably at my level, which is intermediate) to understand it. You can check it out through the link in the sidebar or at this link: http://aleragynnestory.blogspot.com/.
School will be out on the 14th. I can't believe the time is already here. The stress is mounting with finals and papers and stuff. Thank heavens my history teacher changed the due date on our second essay or I would've been freaking out on Wednesday night having that paper and the PowerPoint for my Lit class. I managed to finish the history paper today (after having to totally rethink it after looking over the prompt again and breaking it down into smaller elements like I did with the last essay for this class - this really helps when you get super long essay prompts) and a few days ago, after bringing my author paper to my Theory and Practice of K-12 Writing Instruction class (where we were learning about teaching revision and were asked to bring in our own papers), got my paper down to size there too.
I have a teaching philosophy paper due on the 7th for my Theory and Practice of K-12 Writing Instruction class that I need to start. I was going to work on it this last week since there was no other homework in that class, but the history paper (which was originally due on April 30th) preoccupied me. In this paper, we had to compare the Vietnam War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's HARD. Trust me. I think I did a good job though (although my paper was 6 pages when she wanted 5), considering I had to cite in Chicago style, which I'm not very familiar with.
For my author paper, I need to write the last two parts and edit the major works and themes section. It's a lot. This is on top of the aforesaid teaching philosophy paper and tons of history reading (there are these three books on the syllabus that for some reason our teacher tacked on to the reading schedule at the END of the semester) And then finals too. Gah!!
I also had a computer issue. My backspace key, space bar, and enter key all stopped working. Fortunately, I called Dell and got a new keyboard overnighted to me via FedEx, which they assured me I could install myself (my warranty doesn't cover having someone come out to do it for me). Unfortunately, they did not include the tech sheet they said they would and I had to find instructions on the Net. I spent about an hour just getting the key cover off using a flat-head screwdriver, and then I couldn't unscrew the keyboard, so I gave up. Mum helped me with the keyboard today though, and it turned out that the reason I couldn't unscrew the keyboard was because I had the wrong kind of screwdriver (I was using the flat-head one from my eyeglasses repair kit, and I needed a Phillips-head).
Work is stressful right now; I didn't have time to do everything on Wednesday night this week and so yesterday Shelly (my boss) was hopping mad with me. I am distraught about what to do, especially since Juan apparently gets away with just doing basic cleaning (the basic closing stuff, that is) while I do everything on the list -- even the extra cleaning Shelly asks for -- which takes longer and thus sometimes causes me to not finish my work, and I get in trouble. It's not fair! I did the best I could last night, although I didn't have time to do the floors. I had to go to lunch late because I had to wait for Alma from service deli to get back from her lunch. Plus I lost some time after 10pm (I worked till 11 last night) having to go to the office to hear Jeff (the assistant manager) read a memo about swine flu to me and two other employees that I had already read myself when it was posted on the office door upstairs.
Oh yes, as I'm sure you people reading this know, THERE'S AN EPIDEMIC GOING ON. It's of a strain of influenza said to come from pigs, hence the name "swine flu" (although I've heard some people are calling it "H1 N1 Influenza" now because farmers are complaining that they'll lose profits from it being called "swine flu," due to the common misconception that it is foodborne and thus you can get it from eating or handling pork, which is NOT TRUE). Anyway, the epidemic started in Mexico. The first cases in the U.S. were some New York college students who went down to Mexico for spring break (despite the State Department travel warning already in place advising people not to travel to Mexico because of the drug cartel-related violence going on). It's now spreading around the world. I don't think there's been any person-to-person cases yet; I think it's all just people who have been to Mexico recently at this point.
It's pretty late, and I want to go to church today (Sunday; I started this just before midnight on Saturday) since I don't have to work till 5. I stayed up a little later than usual because I was doing laundry. So I think I'm going to go.
Oh one more thing. Today while going through a Yahoo! Games list of 10 free games, I came across an online game called Free Realms. It's basically a free, kid-friendly fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). You can still pay for premium content (either with a credit card or with gift card-style cards you buy at places like Target or Wal-Mart, similar to how you buy cards for Zwinky or Gaia Online), but the bulk of the game is free. You can read more about it here. I played it for a little bit. It's fun, but the controls take some getting used to. (I've never played an MMO). Their in-game tutorials are very helpful. You also get to try a bunch of different jobs, something not always possible in highly job-based fantasy RPG's (like many of the Final Fantasy games). I've learned how to be a Chef, a Pet Trainer, and a Brawler (the basic combat category) so far. The graphics are also really good considering it streams straight from the site's server to your computer (no disc or any such thing required).
Ok I really ought to go. It's nearly 1am and I still want to take a shower before bed. Good night!
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Road to Emmaus message, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" reaction
Today is Palm Sunday, and I don't have to be at work till 6pm, so I was able to go to church. They just started a new series at my church called "Sightings: Jesus in the Old Testament." The logo looks like this (an obvious play on the movie Signs):
Today the sermon was from Luke 24 and was on how the newly-resurrected Jesus used the Old Testament to tell the two men on the road to Emmaus about himself. The verse goes: "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27, English Standard Version). The pastor pointed out that with these guys, disappointed as they were at their expectations of a Messiah not being fulfiled, Jesus didn't go back to what he did on Earth - he knew from asking them about what they were talking about that they knew that stuff. Instead, he went back to the Old Testament - the Jews' foundational text - and pointed out where he had shown up then and what he had done.
In the King James Version (which I also have a copy of), it says, "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Expound means "to set forth or state in detail." Basically, he not only told them these things, but went into detail about them. The Greek word there is diermeneuo, which means "to unfold the meaning of what is said, explain, expound" and also (interestingly) "to translate into one's native language." Like a lot of Greek words in the Bible, it's a combination of two other words: Dia, which is defined as "a primary preposition denoting the channel of an act" and has been translated as a long list of English words and phrases that fit that definition (such as "through" and "by the means of"), and Hermeneuo, which means "to explain in words, expound," "to interpret," or "to translate what has been spoken or written in a foreign tongue into the vernacular." More interesting still, the word Hermeneuo, according to the lexicon I'm using, is "from a presumed derivative of" the word Hermes, as in the Greek god, who was apparently associated with language (makes sense since he was a herald).
Anyway, the word can be said to mean, therefore, "the channel through which words are explained." The "translation" tie is interesting, because a translation also helps to explain words.
The sermon stuck with me mainly because it touches on a key issue I have been having: resolving the Old Testament with my supposedly New Testament-based faith. There's always a lot of debate in Christian circles about whether we have to follow the old Jewish laws and all that, for one, and I never figured out how that stuff applied to me either. One explanation I've heard is that we are to do them if they are repeated in the New Testament (although this is tricky, because we should obviously follow the Ten Commandments, and not all of them are repeated in the New Testament). A good number of them are.
I guess one could say the Ten Commandments are repeated, because Jesus said that the two greatest commands were "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." The Ten Commandments are pretty much covered under these. If you love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, you wouldn't worship other gods, make idols, or take his name in vain, and you'd observe the Sabbath as holy. That's Commandments 1-4. Then, if you loved your neighbor as yourself, you'd honor your parents and you wouldn't murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet. That's Commandments 5-10.
There's one passage I find interesting on this note. It's Mark 12:28-34. Here it is (in ESV):
It's interesting where Jesus starts. He starts with the phrase "Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Any Jew in the crowd that day (Jesus was in the Temple teaching during this passage) would've recognized those words: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. It's the first part of the Shema Yisrael (sometimes known as just the Shema), a key text in Jewish prayer services. They'd all heard it, and probably prayed it themselves. Then Jesus continues with "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Veohavto Ays Adonoy Elohecho Bechol Levovcho Uvechol Nafshecho Uvechol Meodecho. This is yet another part of the Shema. Then he gives the second command: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is from the book of Leviticus, the third book of Moses, where much of the Jewish traditional law comes from. His audience - including his questioner, who as a scribe would be well-educated in the writings of Moses - would be familiar with this (as would Jesus himself, who received a typical Jewish male's education while on Earth, we can assume, seeing how he did with the teachers at the Temple at age 12).
The scribe responds with saying, "You're right. This is all true." But he goes further. He says to do these things is "much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."
I wouldn't be surprised if that scribe got in a heap of trouble after this. I mean, think about where we are when this exchange takes place. In the TEMPLE. You want to see sacrifices - this is where it all happens. We know priests and other holy men are present at this moment, due to the questioning of Jesus by them that took place before this. Those guys were probably in utter horror at this scribe's words. I mean, he is defending words that come straight from the Mosaic law, which is fine. But Mosaic law also instituted the sacrifice system that this scribe is so veiledly bashing by saying to do these commands Jesus mentions is "much more" than those sacrifices. Actually, the NIV makes this even more clear - this translation says that he says these commands are "more important" than the sacrifices. Wow. That scribe was taking a serious risk, and I think he probably knew it. The Greek word used there is pleion, which means "greater in quantity, the more part, very many, greater in quality, superior, more excellent." Wait! "Greater in quality"? Is that what the guy's saying? That these commands are "greater in quality" and "superior" to the sacrifices? Uh-oh. VERY risky thing to say, especially in the Temple with law-loving priests and Pharisees around.
Yet Jesus sees the risk, I think. The next verse says Jesus "saw that he answered wisely." The King James says "discreetly," meaning with discretion or prudence. In other words, in a discerning way. The guy's using his brain. And Jesus rewards the risk! He says, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." Huh.
Apparently this whole situation dumbfounded the religious leaders, cause the story ends with "And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions." These leaders had asked Jesus questions about the source of his authority, about paying taxes to the oppressive Roman government, and about the resurrection believed to happen at the end of days (along with an implied question about the "levirate marriage" tradition, where a brother of a dead man was required to marry his brother's widow so that the woman might have children to carry on the dead man's name). These are all heady subjects. Yet with just this one thing about commandments and sacrifices, they're so scared (there's certainly fear there; notice the phrase "no one dared to ask him") they stop asking Jesus stuff. I wonder why.
Anyway, enough about that.
Just before writing this, I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for my U.S. lit class. I've read it before (in high school) but this time it struck me differently. Maybe because I read it as one long story rather than a few chapters at a time as in high school. (Maybe there's some merit to reading the whole book in one go after all). I felt more for poor Uncle Tom being taken from his family and sold down South, for poor Eliza trying to remain with her child, for the saintly Evangeline who dies too soon. I found deeper contempt for the cruel slave owner Simon Legree as well.
But strangely enough this book touched me on a religious note as well. Seeing Uncle Tom relying on God even through the horrible treatment by Legree, and by his example getting Cassy and even Legree's two cruel overseers, Sambo and Quimbo, interested in God, really touched me. I found myself thinking, "I wish I had faith like that."
During the sermon today, the pastor talked about how Jesus saw how small of a concept of Jesus the two men on the road to Emmaus had, and so he expanded their view by showing how he'd appeared in the Old Testament. I realize now I too have a small concept of Jesus. I might have thought he was big once, but, like the word sown among rocks, it didn't sink down deep enough. I always thought myself more like the weeds in that parable, where the word is choked by "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches" and "proves unfruitful." But maybe I'm a bit of both.
I was very "Christian" once. But then came high school. BOOM. My Grandma dies, despite all our prayers. BOOM. The whole Kyle fiasco, from which my heart emerged feeling broken. BOOM. A really tough junior year academically (not to mention 9/11 the fall of that year). BOOM. My other grandmother dies after never recovering from a stroke.
And since then...BOOM. My maternal grandfather died. BOOM. My friend Tammy does a 180 and becomes an evolution-defending atheist, and my arguments to the contrary make no impact. BOOM. I join InterVarsity, and then leave it, feeling unfulfilled by what it has to offer. BOOM. Kyle returns into my life, and I have to forcibly ignore him to finally get him off my back. BOOM. I lose a job I really liked at a Christian bookstore and am without a job for three months. BOOM. No responses from a whole ton of résumés I sent out for office jobs I was qualified for (thanks to all the office skill classes I'd taken). BOOM. I get transferred after only about 2 months at the store I'm at. BOOM. My other grandfather dies after a long struggle with a stomach illness. BOOM. My uncle dies about 6 months later, leaving my poor aunt parentless and a widow. BOOM. University work becomes hard for me to handle, and the inability to go to church for months on end due to work gets to me. BOOM. I get transferred yet again, after about a year and a half at the Encinitas store. BOOM. With my superiors apparently not satisfied with my bakery work, I get put out on the floor instead, where I admit I didn't do too well (maybe due to lack of training). BOOM. After finally getting back in the bakery, our department manager, who I liked, is demoted and transferred, supposedly because our work as employees isn't enough to make her look like a good manager. BOOM. I do something on the phone I shouldn't have done, and am frantic about being fired for it. BOOM. My hours have been being cut so much that I didn't have enough for my health insurance hour requirement for weeks (until I finally spoke up).
I know it's bad to focus on the negative, but I can't help it. I have to get out this feeling.
I'm going to go now so I can change shirts for work and stuff before I have to go. Later.
Oh, P.S. I made a video for Ravenclaw Hour, an Earth Hour-esque event done on MyLeaky, the Harry Potter community on The Leaky Cauldron that I'm a part of. Here it is. Enjoy!
Today the sermon was from Luke 24 and was on how the newly-resurrected Jesus used the Old Testament to tell the two men on the road to Emmaus about himself. The verse goes: "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27, English Standard Version). The pastor pointed out that with these guys, disappointed as they were at their expectations of a Messiah not being fulfiled, Jesus didn't go back to what he did on Earth - he knew from asking them about what they were talking about that they knew that stuff. Instead, he went back to the Old Testament - the Jews' foundational text - and pointed out where he had shown up then and what he had done.
In the King James Version (which I also have a copy of), it says, "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Expound means "to set forth or state in detail." Basically, he not only told them these things, but went into detail about them. The Greek word there is diermeneuo, which means "to unfold the meaning of what is said, explain, expound" and also (interestingly) "to translate into one's native language." Like a lot of Greek words in the Bible, it's a combination of two other words: Dia, which is defined as "a primary preposition denoting the channel of an act" and has been translated as a long list of English words and phrases that fit that definition (such as "through" and "by the means of"), and Hermeneuo, which means "to explain in words, expound," "to interpret," or "to translate what has been spoken or written in a foreign tongue into the vernacular." More interesting still, the word Hermeneuo, according to the lexicon I'm using, is "from a presumed derivative of" the word Hermes, as in the Greek god, who was apparently associated with language (makes sense since he was a herald).
Anyway, the word can be said to mean, therefore, "the channel through which words are explained." The "translation" tie is interesting, because a translation also helps to explain words.
The sermon stuck with me mainly because it touches on a key issue I have been having: resolving the Old Testament with my supposedly New Testament-based faith. There's always a lot of debate in Christian circles about whether we have to follow the old Jewish laws and all that, for one, and I never figured out how that stuff applied to me either. One explanation I've heard is that we are to do them if they are repeated in the New Testament (although this is tricky, because we should obviously follow the Ten Commandments, and not all of them are repeated in the New Testament). A good number of them are.
I guess one could say the Ten Commandments are repeated, because Jesus said that the two greatest commands were "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." The Ten Commandments are pretty much covered under these. If you love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, you wouldn't worship other gods, make idols, or take his name in vain, and you'd observe the Sabbath as holy. That's Commandments 1-4. Then, if you loved your neighbor as yourself, you'd honor your parents and you wouldn't murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet. That's Commandments 5-10.
There's one passage I find interesting on this note. It's Mark 12:28-34. Here it is (in ESV):
"And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he [Jesus] answered them well, asked him, 'Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, 'The most important is, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these.' And the scribe said to him, 'You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.' And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions."This scribe gets it, I guess. Somewhere in the Old Testament - I forget where - God says he desires obedience more than sacrifice.
It's interesting where Jesus starts. He starts with the phrase "Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Any Jew in the crowd that day (Jesus was in the Temple teaching during this passage) would've recognized those words: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. It's the first part of the Shema Yisrael (sometimes known as just the Shema), a key text in Jewish prayer services. They'd all heard it, and probably prayed it themselves. Then Jesus continues with "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Veohavto Ays Adonoy Elohecho Bechol Levovcho Uvechol Nafshecho Uvechol Meodecho. This is yet another part of the Shema. Then he gives the second command: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is from the book of Leviticus, the third book of Moses, where much of the Jewish traditional law comes from. His audience - including his questioner, who as a scribe would be well-educated in the writings of Moses - would be familiar with this (as would Jesus himself, who received a typical Jewish male's education while on Earth, we can assume, seeing how he did with the teachers at the Temple at age 12).
The scribe responds with saying, "You're right. This is all true." But he goes further. He says to do these things is "much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."
I wouldn't be surprised if that scribe got in a heap of trouble after this. I mean, think about where we are when this exchange takes place. In the TEMPLE. You want to see sacrifices - this is where it all happens. We know priests and other holy men are present at this moment, due to the questioning of Jesus by them that took place before this. Those guys were probably in utter horror at this scribe's words. I mean, he is defending words that come straight from the Mosaic law, which is fine. But Mosaic law also instituted the sacrifice system that this scribe is so veiledly bashing by saying to do these commands Jesus mentions is "much more" than those sacrifices. Actually, the NIV makes this even more clear - this translation says that he says these commands are "more important" than the sacrifices. Wow. That scribe was taking a serious risk, and I think he probably knew it. The Greek word used there is pleion, which means "greater in quantity, the more part, very many, greater in quality, superior, more excellent." Wait! "Greater in quality"? Is that what the guy's saying? That these commands are "greater in quality" and "superior" to the sacrifices? Uh-oh. VERY risky thing to say, especially in the Temple with law-loving priests and Pharisees around.
Yet Jesus sees the risk, I think. The next verse says Jesus "saw that he answered wisely." The King James says "discreetly," meaning with discretion or prudence. In other words, in a discerning way. The guy's using his brain. And Jesus rewards the risk! He says, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." Huh.
Apparently this whole situation dumbfounded the religious leaders, cause the story ends with "And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions." These leaders had asked Jesus questions about the source of his authority, about paying taxes to the oppressive Roman government, and about the resurrection believed to happen at the end of days (along with an implied question about the "levirate marriage" tradition, where a brother of a dead man was required to marry his brother's widow so that the woman might have children to carry on the dead man's name). These are all heady subjects. Yet with just this one thing about commandments and sacrifices, they're so scared (there's certainly fear there; notice the phrase "no one dared to ask him") they stop asking Jesus stuff. I wonder why.
Anyway, enough about that.
Just before writing this, I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for my U.S. lit class. I've read it before (in high school) but this time it struck me differently. Maybe because I read it as one long story rather than a few chapters at a time as in high school. (Maybe there's some merit to reading the whole book in one go after all). I felt more for poor Uncle Tom being taken from his family and sold down South, for poor Eliza trying to remain with her child, for the saintly Evangeline who dies too soon. I found deeper contempt for the cruel slave owner Simon Legree as well.
But strangely enough this book touched me on a religious note as well. Seeing Uncle Tom relying on God even through the horrible treatment by Legree, and by his example getting Cassy and even Legree's two cruel overseers, Sambo and Quimbo, interested in God, really touched me. I found myself thinking, "I wish I had faith like that."
During the sermon today, the pastor talked about how Jesus saw how small of a concept of Jesus the two men on the road to Emmaus had, and so he expanded their view by showing how he'd appeared in the Old Testament. I realize now I too have a small concept of Jesus. I might have thought he was big once, but, like the word sown among rocks, it didn't sink down deep enough. I always thought myself more like the weeds in that parable, where the word is choked by "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches" and "proves unfruitful." But maybe I'm a bit of both.
I was very "Christian" once. But then came high school. BOOM. My Grandma dies, despite all our prayers. BOOM. The whole Kyle fiasco, from which my heart emerged feeling broken. BOOM. A really tough junior year academically (not to mention 9/11 the fall of that year). BOOM. My other grandmother dies after never recovering from a stroke.
And since then...BOOM. My maternal grandfather died. BOOM. My friend Tammy does a 180 and becomes an evolution-defending atheist, and my arguments to the contrary make no impact. BOOM. I join InterVarsity, and then leave it, feeling unfulfilled by what it has to offer. BOOM. Kyle returns into my life, and I have to forcibly ignore him to finally get him off my back. BOOM. I lose a job I really liked at a Christian bookstore and am without a job for three months. BOOM. No responses from a whole ton of résumés I sent out for office jobs I was qualified for (thanks to all the office skill classes I'd taken). BOOM. I get transferred after only about 2 months at the store I'm at. BOOM. My other grandfather dies after a long struggle with a stomach illness. BOOM. My uncle dies about 6 months later, leaving my poor aunt parentless and a widow. BOOM. University work becomes hard for me to handle, and the inability to go to church for months on end due to work gets to me. BOOM. I get transferred yet again, after about a year and a half at the Encinitas store. BOOM. With my superiors apparently not satisfied with my bakery work, I get put out on the floor instead, where I admit I didn't do too well (maybe due to lack of training). BOOM. After finally getting back in the bakery, our department manager, who I liked, is demoted and transferred, supposedly because our work as employees isn't enough to make her look like a good manager. BOOM. I do something on the phone I shouldn't have done, and am frantic about being fired for it. BOOM. My hours have been being cut so much that I didn't have enough for my health insurance hour requirement for weeks (until I finally spoke up).
I know it's bad to focus on the negative, but I can't help it. I have to get out this feeling.
I'm going to go now so I can change shirts for work and stuff before I have to go. Later.
Oh, P.S. I made a video for Ravenclaw Hour, an Earth Hour-esque event done on MyLeaky, the Harry Potter community on The Leaky Cauldron that I'm a part of. Here it is. Enjoy!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Spring break, a confession, catching Giratina
Yay! Spring break is finally here, with it officially starting tomorrow [30th - I started writing this on the 29th]. It won't be all play and no work, I'm afraid - I have my author paper to work on, as well as a lesson plan for my other Lit class. Plus I have to finish reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is a whopping 400+ pages. Fortunately, since I started reading it early (right after finishing our Emerson and Hawthorne readings), I'm already about halfway through.
A week or so ago, I made a big move. I wrote an e-mail to my parents confessing to them how years ago I had done something very wrong which they never knew about. (I'd rather not say what that thing is here). However, I typed in my mom's e-mail address wrong so she didn't get it, but I didn't re-send the e-mail because it looked like it still went to my dad, and I knew he would share it with my mom. But, my dad hasn't said anything to me about the e-mail either, which makes me wonder if he has even received it. Hmmm...
I made some progress this morning on Sprite Fire, my personal and writing website-in-progress. I realized today it might be tough for people to read my stories and stuff as a long block of text in the iframe. I thought of a few solutions: have it open in a new window, provide it as a Word document download, or have it open as a PDF file. The new window option is probably the most viable and would just require some basic HTML changes. I'll have to sleep on it.
I finally got more hours this week, thanks to having an opportunity to tell Augie (the store manager) that I wasn't getting enough hours for my insurance. I still get three days off this week, though, and with there being no school they'll be full days off, which is great. I haven't made plans yet. I will probably try to go to Balboa Park one of those days cause there's some good exhibitions going on.
Speaking of exhibitions, the Asperger's activity group is going to Comic-Con again this year, and I've already bought my ticket (since tickets sell fast). Since when you're at the Con, you can already get tickets for the following year's con, I will probably do so, since I am thinking that gives you the best chance of getting the 4-day ticket, which lets you in all 4 days of the Con plus the Preview Night the night before the Con starts. I've never gone all 4 days, even though I totally could if it were possible, since I actually live in the San Diego area.
I am playing Pokémon Pearl again, having put it in my DS recently to get Regigigas from the recent ToysRUs event. (I was playing Princess Debut, which I beat recently). I want to get farther in it before I buy Platinum (the "third game" in the Diamond & Pearl generation, which was released recently in the US). I didn't get Pearl until almost a year after its release, so I guess I'm behind most of the people on say, the Pallet Tribune forum. I have seen 215 Pokémon in my National Dex, and obtained 108. That's out of 490 (not including Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus). In my Sinnoh Dex, I've seen all 150 but only caught 85. Of the 65 Sinnoh Dex Pokémon I do not have, I'm pretty sure I can catch most of them. Some of them I can't catch cause they're exclusive to Diamond version. Some are evolutions of Pokémon that I have. So it's doable.
With the National Dex, though, we're talking 278 more Pokémon to see and 385 more to catch, if you count Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus (I have Shaymin from a recent ToysRUs event and can get Darkrai through a wi-fi mission for Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia once I beat it; Arceus has yet to be released). That's a lot!
One of the Pokémon you can't catch till after the National Dex is Giratina, and I caught it today during my lunch break. (I was asked to stay later than scheduled, which is why I had a lunch; I was only supposed to work for four hours). It's level 70 and has a nasty type combo of Ghost and Dragon. It has Earth Power, Heal Block, Safeguard, and Shadow Force (its signature move) as its attacks. Heal Block (which prevents you from healing for several turns) is the most annoying of these, especially since Shadow Force in particular does a LOT of damage. However, Shadow Force is a 2-turn move (like Fly or Dig) so you can use the free turn you gain there to use a protective move like Protect, Safeguard, Light Screen, or Reflect so that you will hopefully not get hit quite as hard (Giratina's attacks can break through Protect though - fortunately for me when that happened I had a Light Screen set up too so that helped) or maybe a healing move (I think I used Roost once on one of those turns), if you're not Heal Blocked.
I went against it initially with my GameStop-event Deoxys, which has the powerful Psychic move Psycho Boost. It did damage Giratina somewhat. That attack sharply lowers your Special Attack, though, after you use it. Deoxys was KO'd by Giratina sadly (maybe cause my Deoxys was only level 50 and Giratina is level 70). I sent out my ToysRUs Shaymin next and whittled down Giratina's HP a bit using Energy Ball. I think Shaymin was knocked out too. Then I used my level 65 Luxray, which used both Thunder and Crunch to damage Giratina, and later my Staraptor, which whittled down the HP even more using Steel Wing.
Long story short, I caught Giratina with a Dusk Ball and a sliver of HP. It took quite a few Poké Balls though - I was afraid I would run out of them. I used up all my few Ultra Balls and then tried Heal Balls, Dusk Balls, a Great Ball, and a Timer Ball. Finally, a Dusk Ball and a sliver of HP did the trick.
That's pretty much it. Good night!
A week or so ago, I made a big move. I wrote an e-mail to my parents confessing to them how years ago I had done something very wrong which they never knew about. (I'd rather not say what that thing is here). However, I typed in my mom's e-mail address wrong so she didn't get it, but I didn't re-send the e-mail because it looked like it still went to my dad, and I knew he would share it with my mom. But, my dad hasn't said anything to me about the e-mail either, which makes me wonder if he has even received it. Hmmm...
I made some progress this morning on Sprite Fire, my personal and writing website-in-progress. I realized today it might be tough for people to read my stories and stuff as a long block of text in the iframe. I thought of a few solutions: have it open in a new window, provide it as a Word document download, or have it open as a PDF file. The new window option is probably the most viable and would just require some basic HTML changes. I'll have to sleep on it.
I finally got more hours this week, thanks to having an opportunity to tell Augie (the store manager) that I wasn't getting enough hours for my insurance. I still get three days off this week, though, and with there being no school they'll be full days off, which is great. I haven't made plans yet. I will probably try to go to Balboa Park one of those days cause there's some good exhibitions going on.
Speaking of exhibitions, the Asperger's activity group is going to Comic-Con again this year, and I've already bought my ticket (since tickets sell fast). Since when you're at the Con, you can already get tickets for the following year's con, I will probably do so, since I am thinking that gives you the best chance of getting the 4-day ticket, which lets you in all 4 days of the Con plus the Preview Night the night before the Con starts. I've never gone all 4 days, even though I totally could if it were possible, since I actually live in the San Diego area.
I am playing Pokémon Pearl again, having put it in my DS recently to get Regigigas from the recent ToysRUs event. (I was playing Princess Debut, which I beat recently). I want to get farther in it before I buy Platinum (the "third game" in the Diamond & Pearl generation, which was released recently in the US). I didn't get Pearl until almost a year after its release, so I guess I'm behind most of the people on say, the Pallet Tribune forum. I have seen 215 Pokémon in my National Dex, and obtained 108. That's out of 490 (not including Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus). In my Sinnoh Dex, I've seen all 150 but only caught 85. Of the 65 Sinnoh Dex Pokémon I do not have, I'm pretty sure I can catch most of them. Some of them I can't catch cause they're exclusive to Diamond version. Some are evolutions of Pokémon that I have. So it's doable.
With the National Dex, though, we're talking 278 more Pokémon to see and 385 more to catch, if you count Darkrai, Shaymin, and Arceus (I have Shaymin from a recent ToysRUs event and can get Darkrai through a wi-fi mission for Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia once I beat it; Arceus has yet to be released). That's a lot!
One of the Pokémon you can't catch till after the National Dex is Giratina, and I caught it today during my lunch break. (I was asked to stay later than scheduled, which is why I had a lunch; I was only supposed to work for four hours). It's level 70 and has a nasty type combo of Ghost and Dragon. It has Earth Power, Heal Block, Safeguard, and Shadow Force (its signature move) as its attacks. Heal Block (which prevents you from healing for several turns) is the most annoying of these, especially since Shadow Force in particular does a LOT of damage. However, Shadow Force is a 2-turn move (like Fly or Dig) so you can use the free turn you gain there to use a protective move like Protect, Safeguard, Light Screen, or Reflect so that you will hopefully not get hit quite as hard (Giratina's attacks can break through Protect though - fortunately for me when that happened I had a Light Screen set up too so that helped) or maybe a healing move (I think I used Roost once on one of those turns), if you're not Heal Blocked.
I went against it initially with my GameStop-event Deoxys, which has the powerful Psychic move Psycho Boost. It did damage Giratina somewhat. That attack sharply lowers your Special Attack, though, after you use it. Deoxys was KO'd by Giratina sadly (maybe cause my Deoxys was only level 50 and Giratina is level 70). I sent out my ToysRUs Shaymin next and whittled down Giratina's HP a bit using Energy Ball. I think Shaymin was knocked out too. Then I used my level 65 Luxray, which used both Thunder and Crunch to damage Giratina, and later my Staraptor, which whittled down the HP even more using Steel Wing.
Long story short, I caught Giratina with a Dusk Ball and a sliver of HP. It took quite a few Poké Balls though - I was afraid I would run out of them. I used up all my few Ultra Balls and then tried Heal Balls, Dusk Balls, a Great Ball, and a Timer Ball. Finally, a Dusk Ball and a sliver of HP did the trick.
That's pretty much it. Good night!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A convicting book, an unfulfilling life, and other things
Just a moment ago I finally finished reading Elizabeth George's book Loving God With All Your Mind, which I got for Christmas. I had been reading it, but had to put it aside when school started and I had to do reading for that. This week I finally had a light reading week for school, so I decided to pick it up again, and I read it all day today.
The book is...well, I hesitate to say "amazing." I misuse that word a good deal. I guess "convicting" is a better word. I had read a little blurb about the book in a CBD catalog when I was thumbing through said catalog looking for books I might want to ask for for Christmas. But that did not prepare for me for the book's content.
I thought the book would primarily be about thoughts or the intellect, and part of it is about that. But it covers so much more, using six verses -- Philippians 4:8, Matthew 6:34, Philippians 3:13-14, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11, and Romans 11:33 -- to cover the topics of our thought life, the problem of worry, "pressing for the prize," "counting on God's goodness," living according to God's plan, and accepting things we don't understand. Such an interesting approach.
I was a bit cynical about the first section, which talked about only thinking about what is true and real -- about right now, not about the "if onlys" (the past) or the "what ifs" (the future), because the present is the only thing you have control over. (It vaguely reminds me of an oft-used quote that goes: "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the 'present'"). I agree that the past is gone and we can't do anything about it. But the future...we can't completely ignore it, right? I remember growing up being told all the time about having an "eternal perspective" cause this life is only temporary. Do stuff that matters for eternity, they say. That sounds like a plan-for-the-future-don't-just-live-for-the-here-and-now concept.
I have pretty much always been future-minded. I agonized (and still do) for long periods of time over what my major was going to be, because I didn't want to major in something, work in it for 20 years, and then realize I hated it and have to go back to school and what-not to start all over again. Also, in a sort of warped sense of spirituality, I was desperately trying to find some way to involve God in my plans, cause of the whole "God's will" thing, and also because I was afraid that if I just went with my own desires and instincts, I might look back, either later in this life or when my life is evaluated in the next, and realize I missed opportunities for God to use me because I went on the career path I wanted without knowing for sure if it was his will.
At the same time I have wallowed in the past. I prayed really hard for my grandma, who was ill with cancer, to live and find Jesus. But she died, and as far as I know she died without God. I was really mad at God. I guess I was expecting some sort of miracle like what had happened in junior high when I, along with a bunch of other people from our junior high group, prayed for one of the leaders's daughter to get well from a potentially fatal illness. And she did.
Just when I thought I was starting to get over my grandma's death, the Kyle debacle happened. His sister Rhoda, who I already knew, introduced us at TNL (Tuesday Night Live, the high school group at church) one night. He went to a different school than me, so we communicated primarily over the phone. We did see each other a few times. Being prompted by a friend, I invited him to our school's Christmas Progressive Dinner, which turned out to be very uncomfortable since the friend who suggested I invite him, who was supposed to show up with her boyfriend and hang out with me and Kyle, never showed up. Kyle didn't know anyone, and I'm not all that good at introducing friends to other people, so we ended up hanging out together, just us, pretty much the whole night. At the ice-skating rink that we all went to after going to houses for the food courses (the point of a progressive dinner), Kyle and I ended up on a bench by an empty rink, watching the guy go over it with a buffer thing. I was cold (naturally) and Kyle offered to put his arms around me to keep me warm. I let him. He put his arms around my waist. Nothing compromising happened, but it was very weird. I felt like I had done something wrong by allowing a guy to touch me like that.
Long story short, Kyle turned out not to be the Christian I thought he was and ended up being a insensitive, perverted jerk. Not only did he call me at times when his girlfriend was over, but I found out later he and his girlfriend had had sex. I already knew he was into the usual sexy images guys like, thanks to some comics he lent me of a series called Project A-ko (which almost became an installment of Cream Lemon, one of the most well-known hentai series). But somehow I ignored this, or something like that. Anyway, after his girlfriend clearly displayed her displeasure about what she perceived to be an invitation from me to her boyfriend to go to a school event with me (which wasn't true - while I had mentioned the event to him in small talk, since it was coming up, I never actually invited him), and Kyle didn't seem to care even though I confronted him with it, I had to break things off. The first stage of this process ended on Valentine's Day, 2001, when I told him not to call me as much (yes, on Valentine's Day). I finally ended all ties in August of that year by telling him not to call me anymore (he thought we were still in contact because Amy had convinced me to call him about Comic-Con, not knowing I'd broken things off with him). All was well for a bit, until I started at Mira Costa in the fall of 2003. One day during my first or second semester there, he showed up behind me -- totally randomly -- while I was at a Bible study for Intervarsity. I made it plain then and in subsequent encounters at the bus station that I wanted nothing to do with him. The last time I saw him, he said he was moving out of the area. Good riddance, I said. I haven't seen him since, and I've finally stopped agonizing about him, except at times when random things spark the memories of that time.
I suppose in the end I was better off, because as I said he and his girlfriend had sex. I don't think they were together that much longer after that. But I say I was better off because had I pursued a relationship with him despite my own reservations and those of my parents, the girl he pushed to have sex could have been me. And in a way, Rosanne (the girlfriend) was a Godsend, because it was her existence that kept me from pursuing a dating relationship with Kyle. I may be weak in areas of love -- falling for a guy emotionally way too fast, as my relationship with Kyle showed me all too well -- but I'm not stupid. You don't date a guy who's already attached. And guys don't have relationships with other girls when they're dating. There's a word for that: "two-timer." And generally, being a "two-timer" is really bad.
After all that, I lost my other grandma in my senior year of high school, and my grandfathers and an uncle in the years since. Also, I've been struggling with career choice, because I believe I have a talent in writing - one that can be used for God - and yet I have writer's block and unfinished manuscripts. I also have yet to "officially" win a writing contest (I got published in a couple poem books and in the 2003 edition of Anthology of Short Stories for Young Americans, but that wasn't cause I won so much as the fact that everyone who submitted something pretty much got published in those).
My Asperger's has posed a problem as well. I don't know what steps to take to get a firm diagnosis, and my mother promised she'd look up this guy her friend Laura knows, and she has yet to do so. As an adult, diagnosing the disease would be rather difficult anyway.
I also wallow in the past in regards to driving. I say, "if only I'd gotten my license at 16 like everybody else." I would probably have had a bigger job pool to choose from, I would be able to go and do things a lot easier (like going to museums and other places that would take most of a day to reach by public transit), and I wouldn't have been hit by a car (I was hit while jaywalking in my rush to catch a bus so as to make my connection to get home). Yet, I have met people on the bus who have become friends of a sort.
Also, I despair in my relationship situation. I've never dated a guy, and I'm 24. By the world's standards, I should have or should have had a boyfriend by now. I mean, people get married at my age. And I don't care if I seem younger -- people at work constantly think I'm 19 or 20 -- I am the age I am, halfway to thirty with no license, no car, no guy. Pretty depressing!
So anyway, I was saying that I was cynical about that first section. I was like, "It doesn't make any sense to only focus on now. What about planning for the future?" God condones that (just look at the famous "go to the ants, thou sluggard" passage). So I wasn't convinced.
The second section, though, hit me hard. It was on worry, and I am a perpetual worrywart. I worry about not being able to finish school in two years like I planned. I worry about the talking-to the morning person will get if I'm not able to finish my closing duties due to circumstances beyond my control (like having to help customers, either at the bakery or the service deli). I worry on occasion about my finances. I worry, even though I'm in a rather secure union job, that one little slip-up will tip the scales to the wrong side, and I'll get fired. (I think this stems from getting let go by Loaves and Fishes, partly cause I didn't work on social skills that I was supposed to work on, but wasn't sure how or chose not to address).
The following sections also spoke to me. The issues George was addressing were ones that spoke exactly to the struggles I'm having. I thought her recommendations good and practical, but was unsure how exactly to carry them out in my life.
Now I am in an awkward situation. This book has clearly convicted me, showing me areas I need to work on and showing how I really don't love God with all my mind. But another part of me doesn't want to put the things I've learned into practice. What motivates that side I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the defense mechanisms I've used to shut myself off from others, being afraid to trust anyone since the Kyle affair, which for me felt like a breach of trust. Maybe it's the fact that that affair, along with the 5 deaths in my family and personal struggles, have made it hard for me to trust God. Maybe it's simply my seemingly instinctive fear of change (an instinct that may be a result of my Asperger's). More likely than not, it's past experience that motivates my anti-practice feelings -- I've had supposed "revivals" in my faith before, but they had no lasting impact on my life, to the point that I began to think they hadn't really happened, that I'd just made them up to make my Christian life appear to be going more smoothly than it actually was.
It's interesting that so much of George's book is about emotions, like worry for instance. It's common wisdom that the seat of our emotions is the heart. Hence we say, "I took it to heart," "He broke my heart," "She died of a broken heart," and so on. Even the Bible says to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind," as if the "heart" and the "mind" were separate things. Even I considered myself someone who knew Christ and Christianity in my head, but not in my heart. Like Sunni Gummi of the long-ago Gummi Bears show, I had the recipe for strength-giving Gummi Juice in my head but not my heart.
But then again, relating emotions to the mind makes sense -- our thoughts influence what we do, and the physical system that governs our emotions -- the limbic system -- is actually part of the brain.
I did a word search for both the Hebrew and Greek words used in that "love the Lord your God..." verse (which is originally in Hebrew but quoted in Greek in the New Testament) and the words all seemed somewhat related (except "strength") to the will. So it more or less says love God with your thoughts and your will. This goes with Jesus's words where he says, "If you love me, you will obey my commands."
The ever-popular "Message Bible," which speaks in today's language, reads like this: "Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!" That kind of summarizes it, I think (though perhaps in a bit too simplistic manner).
~~
I need time to think about the book and what it says. Also, there's a Growth and Study Guide for this book. I think I will get it and use it when I read the book the second time.
~~
On happier notes...
School has started and we are now in week 4. There's been lots of reading to do, and I spent a large amount of time (and print card money) today making photocopies from reference books for my author paper for US lit (basically a repeat of the paper I did last semester for Dr. Cucinella, just with a different author). I didn't have time to photocopy articles from the Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism books, but I did photocopy all the others, and I wrote down which articles I want from the Lit Crit books.
They're giving out SHAYMIN this week at Toys R Us for the Diamond & Pearl game, more likely than not to promote the US TV debut of Giratina and the Sky Warrior, the 11th Pokemon film and the place where Shaymin made its anime debut. I went and got it yesterday. I'm so happy. With the "$5 off any Pokemon game" coupon I got from this promotion, I bought Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, which I have started playing. It seems rather interesting and cute. The Mystery Dungeon games, for those who don't know, are about a human (your character) who somehow gets turned into a Pokemon. You then (in your Poke-form) join up with other Pokemon to form teams that go out and get treasure (not unlike Final Fantasy, especially the Crystal Chronicles spin-offs). Your Poke-form is determined by a short personality quiz and "aura test" (conducted by having you place your finger on the touch screen) given at the beginning of the game. Being a naive, innocent female with a "mystical purple" aura, my Poke-form is a Skitty. I was a bit disappointed because I bought the game because it had Piplup in it, and I wanted to be Piplup. But no worries, I was able to pick Piplup as my partner Pokemon (a role, no doubt, akin to Montblanc's role in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance -- dang, I miss that game. I wish I hadn't lost it). I nicknamed my partner "Pip" (I almost did "Pippi," which is what I named the female baby Piplup I bred from my Empoleon, but not knowing the gender of my Poke-partner, I went with "Pip," a gender-safe choice). My own nickname was hard to pick. I thought about it, and finally went with "Lizzie."
The main reason I started already playing Mystery Dungeon was because I couldn't find the game of Imagine: Interior Designer, another game I bought recently, which I thought was in my bag in the pocket I'd put my DS in. But it wasn't. I rushed back to the locker room at work and looked under the lockers and in my locker and didn't find it, and it wasn't in my room when I came home. So I threw away the box. *sigh* Another game lost.
I got a new cell phone to replace my old one which has having problems. It's the Moto W755. Here's a pic:
Pretty cool looking, eh? I like it quite a bit. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles, but it does have a camera and a tip calculator (features I missed from my first cell phone) and even has the bonus of being an mp3 player and having the capability to record and send video messages. I also was able to download actual ringtones onto my phone using a free application called VZW Tones Deluxe. You have to pay for the ringtones but they're pretty cheap ($2.99 per ringtone). I got quite a few good ones already - a few Christian songs, a couple songs off the "Valentine's Day" feature list, and quite a few from the app's Motown feature list featured in honor of Black History Month.
Ok I am getting pretty tired (I didn't get a lot of sleep last night) so I am going to stop here. Good night.
The book is...well, I hesitate to say "amazing." I misuse that word a good deal. I guess "convicting" is a better word. I had read a little blurb about the book in a CBD catalog when I was thumbing through said catalog looking for books I might want to ask for for Christmas. But that did not prepare for me for the book's content.
I thought the book would primarily be about thoughts or the intellect, and part of it is about that. But it covers so much more, using six verses -- Philippians 4:8, Matthew 6:34, Philippians 3:13-14, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11, and Romans 11:33 -- to cover the topics of our thought life, the problem of worry, "pressing for the prize," "counting on God's goodness," living according to God's plan, and accepting things we don't understand. Such an interesting approach.
I was a bit cynical about the first section, which talked about only thinking about what is true and real -- about right now, not about the "if onlys" (the past) or the "what ifs" (the future), because the present is the only thing you have control over. (It vaguely reminds me of an oft-used quote that goes: "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the 'present'"). I agree that the past is gone and we can't do anything about it. But the future...we can't completely ignore it, right? I remember growing up being told all the time about having an "eternal perspective" cause this life is only temporary. Do stuff that matters for eternity, they say. That sounds like a plan-for-the-future-don't-just-live-for-the-here-and-now concept.
I have pretty much always been future-minded. I agonized (and still do) for long periods of time over what my major was going to be, because I didn't want to major in something, work in it for 20 years, and then realize I hated it and have to go back to school and what-not to start all over again. Also, in a sort of warped sense of spirituality, I was desperately trying to find some way to involve God in my plans, cause of the whole "God's will" thing, and also because I was afraid that if I just went with my own desires and instincts, I might look back, either later in this life or when my life is evaluated in the next, and realize I missed opportunities for God to use me because I went on the career path I wanted without knowing for sure if it was his will.
At the same time I have wallowed in the past. I prayed really hard for my grandma, who was ill with cancer, to live and find Jesus. But she died, and as far as I know she died without God. I was really mad at God. I guess I was expecting some sort of miracle like what had happened in junior high when I, along with a bunch of other people from our junior high group, prayed for one of the leaders's daughter to get well from a potentially fatal illness. And she did.
Just when I thought I was starting to get over my grandma's death, the Kyle debacle happened. His sister Rhoda, who I already knew, introduced us at TNL (Tuesday Night Live, the high school group at church) one night. He went to a different school than me, so we communicated primarily over the phone. We did see each other a few times. Being prompted by a friend, I invited him to our school's Christmas Progressive Dinner, which turned out to be very uncomfortable since the friend who suggested I invite him, who was supposed to show up with her boyfriend and hang out with me and Kyle, never showed up. Kyle didn't know anyone, and I'm not all that good at introducing friends to other people, so we ended up hanging out together, just us, pretty much the whole night. At the ice-skating rink that we all went to after going to houses for the food courses (the point of a progressive dinner), Kyle and I ended up on a bench by an empty rink, watching the guy go over it with a buffer thing. I was cold (naturally) and Kyle offered to put his arms around me to keep me warm. I let him. He put his arms around my waist. Nothing compromising happened, but it was very weird. I felt like I had done something wrong by allowing a guy to touch me like that.
Long story short, Kyle turned out not to be the Christian I thought he was and ended up being a insensitive, perverted jerk. Not only did he call me at times when his girlfriend was over, but I found out later he and his girlfriend had had sex. I already knew he was into the usual sexy images guys like, thanks to some comics he lent me of a series called Project A-ko (which almost became an installment of Cream Lemon, one of the most well-known hentai series). But somehow I ignored this, or something like that. Anyway, after his girlfriend clearly displayed her displeasure about what she perceived to be an invitation from me to her boyfriend to go to a school event with me (which wasn't true - while I had mentioned the event to him in small talk, since it was coming up, I never actually invited him), and Kyle didn't seem to care even though I confronted him with it, I had to break things off. The first stage of this process ended on Valentine's Day, 2001, when I told him not to call me as much (yes, on Valentine's Day). I finally ended all ties in August of that year by telling him not to call me anymore (he thought we were still in contact because Amy had convinced me to call him about Comic-Con, not knowing I'd broken things off with him). All was well for a bit, until I started at Mira Costa in the fall of 2003. One day during my first or second semester there, he showed up behind me -- totally randomly -- while I was at a Bible study for Intervarsity. I made it plain then and in subsequent encounters at the bus station that I wanted nothing to do with him. The last time I saw him, he said he was moving out of the area. Good riddance, I said. I haven't seen him since, and I've finally stopped agonizing about him, except at times when random things spark the memories of that time.
I suppose in the end I was better off, because as I said he and his girlfriend had sex. I don't think they were together that much longer after that. But I say I was better off because had I pursued a relationship with him despite my own reservations and those of my parents, the girl he pushed to have sex could have been me. And in a way, Rosanne (the girlfriend) was a Godsend, because it was her existence that kept me from pursuing a dating relationship with Kyle. I may be weak in areas of love -- falling for a guy emotionally way too fast, as my relationship with Kyle showed me all too well -- but I'm not stupid. You don't date a guy who's already attached. And guys don't have relationships with other girls when they're dating. There's a word for that: "two-timer." And generally, being a "two-timer" is really bad.
After all that, I lost my other grandma in my senior year of high school, and my grandfathers and an uncle in the years since. Also, I've been struggling with career choice, because I believe I have a talent in writing - one that can be used for God - and yet I have writer's block and unfinished manuscripts. I also have yet to "officially" win a writing contest (I got published in a couple poem books and in the 2003 edition of Anthology of Short Stories for Young Americans, but that wasn't cause I won so much as the fact that everyone who submitted something pretty much got published in those).
My Asperger's has posed a problem as well. I don't know what steps to take to get a firm diagnosis, and my mother promised she'd look up this guy her friend Laura knows, and she has yet to do so. As an adult, diagnosing the disease would be rather difficult anyway.
I also wallow in the past in regards to driving. I say, "if only I'd gotten my license at 16 like everybody else." I would probably have had a bigger job pool to choose from, I would be able to go and do things a lot easier (like going to museums and other places that would take most of a day to reach by public transit), and I wouldn't have been hit by a car (I was hit while jaywalking in my rush to catch a bus so as to make my connection to get home). Yet, I have met people on the bus who have become friends of a sort.
Also, I despair in my relationship situation. I've never dated a guy, and I'm 24. By the world's standards, I should have or should have had a boyfriend by now. I mean, people get married at my age. And I don't care if I seem younger -- people at work constantly think I'm 19 or 20 -- I am the age I am, halfway to thirty with no license, no car, no guy. Pretty depressing!
So anyway, I was saying that I was cynical about that first section. I was like, "It doesn't make any sense to only focus on now. What about planning for the future?" God condones that (just look at the famous "go to the ants, thou sluggard" passage). So I wasn't convinced.
The second section, though, hit me hard. It was on worry, and I am a perpetual worrywart. I worry about not being able to finish school in two years like I planned. I worry about the talking-to the morning person will get if I'm not able to finish my closing duties due to circumstances beyond my control (like having to help customers, either at the bakery or the service deli). I worry on occasion about my finances. I worry, even though I'm in a rather secure union job, that one little slip-up will tip the scales to the wrong side, and I'll get fired. (I think this stems from getting let go by Loaves and Fishes, partly cause I didn't work on social skills that I was supposed to work on, but wasn't sure how or chose not to address).
The following sections also spoke to me. The issues George was addressing were ones that spoke exactly to the struggles I'm having. I thought her recommendations good and practical, but was unsure how exactly to carry them out in my life.
Now I am in an awkward situation. This book has clearly convicted me, showing me areas I need to work on and showing how I really don't love God with all my mind. But another part of me doesn't want to put the things I've learned into practice. What motivates that side I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the defense mechanisms I've used to shut myself off from others, being afraid to trust anyone since the Kyle affair, which for me felt like a breach of trust. Maybe it's the fact that that affair, along with the 5 deaths in my family and personal struggles, have made it hard for me to trust God. Maybe it's simply my seemingly instinctive fear of change (an instinct that may be a result of my Asperger's). More likely than not, it's past experience that motivates my anti-practice feelings -- I've had supposed "revivals" in my faith before, but they had no lasting impact on my life, to the point that I began to think they hadn't really happened, that I'd just made them up to make my Christian life appear to be going more smoothly than it actually was.
It's interesting that so much of George's book is about emotions, like worry for instance. It's common wisdom that the seat of our emotions is the heart. Hence we say, "I took it to heart," "He broke my heart," "She died of a broken heart," and so on. Even the Bible says to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind," as if the "heart" and the "mind" were separate things. Even I considered myself someone who knew Christ and Christianity in my head, but not in my heart. Like Sunni Gummi of the long-ago Gummi Bears show, I had the recipe for strength-giving Gummi Juice in my head but not my heart.
But then again, relating emotions to the mind makes sense -- our thoughts influence what we do, and the physical system that governs our emotions -- the limbic system -- is actually part of the brain.
I did a word search for both the Hebrew and Greek words used in that "love the Lord your God..." verse (which is originally in Hebrew but quoted in Greek in the New Testament) and the words all seemed somewhat related (except "strength") to the will. So it more or less says love God with your thoughts and your will. This goes with Jesus's words where he says, "If you love me, you will obey my commands."
The ever-popular "Message Bible," which speaks in today's language, reads like this: "Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got!" That kind of summarizes it, I think (though perhaps in a bit too simplistic manner).
~~
I need time to think about the book and what it says. Also, there's a Growth and Study Guide for this book. I think I will get it and use it when I read the book the second time.
~~
On happier notes...
School has started and we are now in week 4. There's been lots of reading to do, and I spent a large amount of time (and print card money) today making photocopies from reference books for my author paper for US lit (basically a repeat of the paper I did last semester for Dr. Cucinella, just with a different author). I didn't have time to photocopy articles from the Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism books, but I did photocopy all the others, and I wrote down which articles I want from the Lit Crit books.
They're giving out SHAYMIN this week at Toys R Us for the Diamond & Pearl game, more likely than not to promote the US TV debut of Giratina and the Sky Warrior, the 11th Pokemon film and the place where Shaymin made its anime debut. I went and got it yesterday. I'm so happy. With the "$5 off any Pokemon game" coupon I got from this promotion, I bought Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, which I have started playing. It seems rather interesting and cute. The Mystery Dungeon games, for those who don't know, are about a human (your character) who somehow gets turned into a Pokemon. You then (in your Poke-form) join up with other Pokemon to form teams that go out and get treasure (not unlike Final Fantasy, especially the Crystal Chronicles spin-offs). Your Poke-form is determined by a short personality quiz and "aura test" (conducted by having you place your finger on the touch screen) given at the beginning of the game. Being a naive, innocent female with a "mystical purple" aura, my Poke-form is a Skitty. I was a bit disappointed because I bought the game because it had Piplup in it, and I wanted to be Piplup. But no worries, I was able to pick Piplup as my partner Pokemon (a role, no doubt, akin to Montblanc's role in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance -- dang, I miss that game. I wish I hadn't lost it). I nicknamed my partner "Pip" (I almost did "Pippi," which is what I named the female baby Piplup I bred from my Empoleon, but not knowing the gender of my Poke-partner, I went with "Pip," a gender-safe choice). My own nickname was hard to pick. I thought about it, and finally went with "Lizzie."
The main reason I started already playing Mystery Dungeon was because I couldn't find the game of Imagine: Interior Designer, another game I bought recently, which I thought was in my bag in the pocket I'd put my DS in. But it wasn't. I rushed back to the locker room at work and looked under the lockers and in my locker and didn't find it, and it wasn't in my room when I came home. So I threw away the box. *sigh* Another game lost.
I got a new cell phone to replace my old one which has having problems. It's the Moto W755. Here's a pic:
Pretty cool looking, eh? I like it quite a bit. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles, but it does have a camera and a tip calculator (features I missed from my first cell phone) and even has the bonus of being an mp3 player and having the capability to record and send video messages. I also was able to download actual ringtones onto my phone using a free application called VZW Tones Deluxe. You have to pay for the ringtones but they're pretty cheap ($2.99 per ringtone). I got quite a few good ones already - a few Christian songs, a couple songs off the "Valentine's Day" feature list, and quite a few from the app's Motown feature list featured in honor of Black History Month.
Ok I am getting pretty tired (I didn't get a lot of sleep last night) so I am going to stop here. Good night.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The state of our economy
Today they were hiring at my work. They put out a notice saying they were going to take applications and do interviews between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. this afternoon.
And man did they come! As I said to Lisa, the CSR I was bagging for, it's proof of the sad state of our economy. The hiring didn't even start till 1, and (according to Lisa - I was on break at the time) people started lining up at 12:15! I must have directed at least 15-20 people to where to go just in the last fifteen minutes before hiring started alone! And when I got off work at 3pm, when the hiring was supposed to end, there was still a long line of people waiting!
The only time I have ever seen such a line that I was not in was when I went to Barnes and Noble one day when some midnight release party (for Harry Potter, I think) was supposed to happen. When I left the store around 6 p.m., people were already getting in line. Yeah, seriously. And the only times I've waited in such a line is when I've gone to concerts and such events, and also when I had to wait in line to get my badge at Comic-Con last year and then to get into the Harry Potter panel I was late to thanks to the long badge pickup line I'd just waited in.
I finished The Freedom Writers Diary today. It sounds like all the Writers got to go to college -- and some of them were the first in their families to do so. One of them, whose story comes up in a couple entries, died though before the group's trip to Europe, when the double lung transplant she'd gotten to help deal with her cystic fibrosis was rejected by her body. That was sad. (Frankly, before reading this book, I didn't know you could even get a lung transplant, let alone a double lung transplant, but knowing what I know about CF and what it does to your lungs, I'm glad she at least got it).
I also brought with me this book from my Web Page Fundamentals class called Cool HTML for Web Pages and a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction (a rare find indeed, especially since I found it at a secular bookstore, no less), but I was tired today and didn't get much reading done in either of them. I think I was tired due to having only 6 hours of sleep, plus my period started today (sort of; I saw red on my TP when I went to the bathroom, but my underwear didn't have any blood on it, as usually happens since my period often starts while I'm asleep or in some other situation where I can't easily get to the bathroom right away) after a false alarm yesterday (I get false alarms sometimes - I'll think I'm having the discomfort I usually get on the first day of my period, and so I'll put on a pad, and then look at it later, and there's no blood).
This is the second time I've read any of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction. Despite it being more of a reference book, I have actually read it all the way through. I was put off by it initially because of the author saying science fiction and fantasy were a hard sell in the Christian market (this from a guy who coauthors cozy mysteries with his wife, when mystery is still pretty rare in the Christian market), since those are the genres of the stuff I've primarily been writing for the last few years. But when I looked again, I saw there were two publishers he listed in the book that specifically do take fantasy and/or speculative fiction or both. One is Multnomah. Multnomah is a Christian imprint of Random House, so its acceptance of speculative fiction (the blanket term in literary circles for fantasy, science fiction, and their various cousins and subgenres) is not surprising to me. After all, Random House is also the proud owner of one of the most well-known (if not the most well-known) science fiction and fantasy imprints out there, Del Rey. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think of the Star Wars novels or the pioneering fantasy book The Sword of Shannara. Both of those are/were published by Del Rey. And of course, Del Rey is now so big it has a manga division, as I've mentioned in the past in reference to the Del Rey mangas I own (Pichi Pichi Pitch Mermaid Melody, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE,
and xxxHolic). The other publisher is Strang Communications, which publishes speculative fiction under an imprint called "Realms." I've heard of Strang from my days at Loaves and Fishes, but I think pretty much everything I've seen published by them was nonfiction. I could be wrong about that though.
At any rate, this gives me some hope.
I had plans to tie together Us Against the World, Darkly Bound (the tentative title of my Avalon Jacobs story, chosen for when I submitted a chapter of it -- a very BAD chapter -- to Anime Angels), and an as-yet-untitled planned book about the Christian Youth Alliance, starring a girl named Emily who is Avalon's niece. But while Darkly Bound and the CYA story work well together since they are related somewhat, Us Against the World was written totally independently of the other two and would take a good deal of revising to tie it to the others.
In the notebook I brought with me to write down notes from the books, I found a page where I'd tried to plan out what books and story collections I'd do about Walden. Here's the list:
Novels
- The Elven Princess
- Hirion and Estelle: A Love Story of the Great War
- The Last Age Begins
- The End of Bitterness
Story Collections
- Tales of the Days Before the Great War
- Tales of the Great War
- Tales After the Great War
- Dwarven Tales
- Dwelven Tales
- Sea-people Tales
The "story collection" ones are more tentative than anything else; but giving them generic titles gives me an idea of which tales I would do in them. Tales of the Nuri Fidele (elves) and men would be in the first three collections, whereas the other races - dwarves, dwelves, and sea-people - would be featured in the other three, as the titles suggest.
I might rename the war due to the term "The Great War" often being used for World War I.
Also, if I do write these tales, I will probably have to make a timeline of Walden events, a la Tolkien. I have written a few "Tales of Walden" already, as separate stories. They are called "The Tale of Lady Victoria," "How the Irvin Settled With the Sea-People," and "The Paradise Charm." Also, though it is not named, I did technically write the Tale of Argus and Alan, which would be a dwelvish tale.
Ah yes, dwelves. My one success at originality in a series that could end up very Tolkien-like. Dwelves are a mix of dwarves and elves, resulting both from the marriage of Hirion and Estelle and from marriages between elves and dwarves when people from Linus's group in "How the Irvin Settled with the Sea-People" settled in the Forest of Light with the elves for protection from men trying to take their land.
Ok I hate to end this here but I'm pretty tired again and can't think of anything to say. Goodnight.
And man did they come! As I said to Lisa, the CSR I was bagging for, it's proof of the sad state of our economy. The hiring didn't even start till 1, and (according to Lisa - I was on break at the time) people started lining up at 12:15! I must have directed at least 15-20 people to where to go just in the last fifteen minutes before hiring started alone! And when I got off work at 3pm, when the hiring was supposed to end, there was still a long line of people waiting!
The only time I have ever seen such a line that I was not in was when I went to Barnes and Noble one day when some midnight release party (for Harry Potter, I think) was supposed to happen. When I left the store around 6 p.m., people were already getting in line. Yeah, seriously. And the only times I've waited in such a line is when I've gone to concerts and such events, and also when I had to wait in line to get my badge at Comic-Con last year and then to get into the Harry Potter panel I was late to thanks to the long badge pickup line I'd just waited in.
I finished The Freedom Writers Diary today. It sounds like all the Writers got to go to college -- and some of them were the first in their families to do so. One of them, whose story comes up in a couple entries, died though before the group's trip to Europe, when the double lung transplant she'd gotten to help deal with her cystic fibrosis was rejected by her body. That was sad. (Frankly, before reading this book, I didn't know you could even get a lung transplant, let alone a double lung transplant, but knowing what I know about CF and what it does to your lungs, I'm glad she at least got it).
I also brought with me this book from my Web Page Fundamentals class called Cool HTML for Web Pages and a book called The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction (a rare find indeed, especially since I found it at a secular bookstore, no less), but I was tired today and didn't get much reading done in either of them. I think I was tired due to having only 6 hours of sleep, plus my period started today (sort of; I saw red on my TP when I went to the bathroom, but my underwear didn't have any blood on it, as usually happens since my period often starts while I'm asleep or in some other situation where I can't easily get to the bathroom right away) after a false alarm yesterday (I get false alarms sometimes - I'll think I'm having the discomfort I usually get on the first day of my period, and so I'll put on a pad, and then look at it later, and there's no blood).
This is the second time I've read any of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Christian Fiction. Despite it being more of a reference book, I have actually read it all the way through. I was put off by it initially because of the author saying science fiction and fantasy were a hard sell in the Christian market (this from a guy who coauthors cozy mysteries with his wife, when mystery is still pretty rare in the Christian market), since those are the genres of the stuff I've primarily been writing for the last few years. But when I looked again, I saw there were two publishers he listed in the book that specifically do take fantasy and/or speculative fiction or both. One is Multnomah. Multnomah is a Christian imprint of Random House, so its acceptance of speculative fiction (the blanket term in literary circles for fantasy, science fiction, and their various cousins and subgenres) is not surprising to me. After all, Random House is also the proud owner of one of the most well-known (if not the most well-known) science fiction and fantasy imprints out there, Del Rey. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think of the Star Wars novels or the pioneering fantasy book The Sword of Shannara. Both of those are/were published by Del Rey. And of course, Del Rey is now so big it has a manga division, as I've mentioned in the past in reference to the Del Rey mangas I own (Pichi Pichi Pitch Mermaid Melody, Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE,
and xxxHolic). The other publisher is Strang Communications, which publishes speculative fiction under an imprint called "Realms." I've heard of Strang from my days at Loaves and Fishes, but I think pretty much everything I've seen published by them was nonfiction. I could be wrong about that though.
At any rate, this gives me some hope.
I had plans to tie together Us Against the World, Darkly Bound (the tentative title of my Avalon Jacobs story, chosen for when I submitted a chapter of it -- a very BAD chapter -- to Anime Angels), and an as-yet-untitled planned book about the Christian Youth Alliance, starring a girl named Emily who is Avalon's niece. But while Darkly Bound and the CYA story work well together since they are related somewhat, Us Against the World was written totally independently of the other two and would take a good deal of revising to tie it to the others.
In the notebook I brought with me to write down notes from the books, I found a page where I'd tried to plan out what books and story collections I'd do about Walden. Here's the list:
Novels
- The Elven Princess
- Hirion and Estelle: A Love Story of the Great War
- The Last Age Begins
- The End of Bitterness
Story Collections
- Tales of the Days Before the Great War
- Tales of the Great War
- Tales After the Great War
- Dwarven Tales
- Dwelven Tales
- Sea-people Tales
The "story collection" ones are more tentative than anything else; but giving them generic titles gives me an idea of which tales I would do in them. Tales of the Nuri Fidele (elves) and men would be in the first three collections, whereas the other races - dwarves, dwelves, and sea-people - would be featured in the other three, as the titles suggest.
I might rename the war due to the term "The Great War" often being used for World War I.
Also, if I do write these tales, I will probably have to make a timeline of Walden events, a la Tolkien. I have written a few "Tales of Walden" already, as separate stories. They are called "The Tale of Lady Victoria," "How the Irvin Settled With the Sea-People," and "The Paradise Charm." Also, though it is not named, I did technically write the Tale of Argus and Alan, which would be a dwelvish tale.
Ah yes, dwelves. My one success at originality in a series that could end up very Tolkien-like. Dwelves are a mix of dwarves and elves, resulting both from the marriage of Hirion and Estelle and from marriages between elves and dwarves when people from Linus's group in "How the Irvin Settled with the Sea-People" settled in the Forest of Light with the elves for protection from men trying to take their land.
Ok I hate to end this here but I'm pretty tired again and can't think of anything to say. Goodnight.
