A week to go.

So. Only a week to go unitl Samhain, and the start of NaNo 2013.

We have the kick-off party this weekend, to do some final planning (probably good, since my planning is vastly behind for writing this year. I had Scrivener all set up and ready to go this time last year, but this time around, I haven't even got around to allocating chapters yet. I just have a beginning and an end, and some stuff in the middle (which I guess is the definition of a book, but I'm a planner - winging it doesn't work for me). So far, I have Cassie (the main protagonist), Mr Shull (a "scientist", the main antagonist), Nick (A second point of view, Cassie's best friend, who may or may not be destined to die at some point in the book - if I get stuck, he may be killed off, but I would need to add someone else to give the secondary point of view), Hilde (Cassie's odd grandmother who lives up in the North), a Priestess who is fairly integral to the storyline, but doesn't have a name yet, and a bunch of side characters.

NaNo may stop at any time during the next month, if university takes over, which it likely will at some point, seeing as we have a mock exam in the first week. Ugh.
Someone remind me why I'm such an idiot as to think this is a good idea.

Next week I am going home, for a day with the family. I will have to be up at the crack of dawn to get back in time for university, but that seems to come with the territory. In any case, it means I get to go home and grab my books and things in time for Samhain, since I've been somewhat missing them, even though I rarely have time to read. The new Pagan society are having a celebration on the 2nd with a bunch of other societies. I don't think I'm going. I have U-coy dinner that night, and if I did go, I can't help but feel slightly put-off by the notion of getting a "proper priestess" in. Perhaps because I've been going it alone all my life as far as religion is concerned that it feels awkward and odd to think of someone else being in charge. It may be awkward trying to suit everyones beliefs too, since we are so varied. I'll celebrate on Samhain anyway, but I think U-coy has won as far as the weekend goes.

We actually get to chose our food for U-coy this year, which makes a huge difference. I often swither back and forth about dinners with the OTC, because there is just so much food that I feel obliged to eat, even though I literally can't eat that much, but this year it seems to be different. I chose melon for the starter and Cod fillet for the main, since I think my stomach will fare much better with relatively light food. I might even have space left for Sticky Toffee Pudding at the end.

I'll leave you all for now. I have to head down to the OTC building to collect my uni book that I left in my locker by accident. I believe I may need to update some details anyway. I have our regular NaNo meet tonight, so we'll be trying to think up and share dares, ideas and plot-bunnies and fill in flat characters and gaping plot-holes (so far we have a challenge for a busy character called Suzi, who plays a part in your novel by nudging people in the right direction. She can be a person, animal or machine who helps out when your characters are stuck, lost or in danger, though not always in the way your character would like.)

Anyway, goodbye guys. :)

Updating my music and writing like a beast

In my glass: Jasmine Green loose-leaf tea
From my iPod: Updated/extended Novel-writing playlist
From my bookshelf: Pharmacokinetics
Outside: Wet.
My mood: kinda vague and indecicive, though I don't know what about
Today's hairstyle: English braid (plain and simple for one of my very few days pottering about the house doing chores and uni work)

Ok, so today, I discovered I write like a beast when listening to Die Fledermaus, and the Barber of Seville. Who knew? Ok, so maybe it was more like I just lost track of time, since uni lab reports still took me all day, but it wasn't nearly as horrendous when I had some good music going in the background. Its henceforth been added to my Novel-writing playlist, along with the 1812 overture (which I'm currently listening to - memories of Basel tattoo finales), Carnival of the Animals, the Marriage of Figaro, a bunch of stuff by Tchaikovsky and Mozart (because they make beautiful music), general "Tom & Jerry"-type classical music (because you know - Tom and Jerry is helluva responsible for a lot of things - Classic FM was frequently referred to as "Tom & Jerry Music" when my brother and I were kids), Swan Lake Music (again, Tchaikovsky), Clair de Lune (Probably one of my favourite piano pieces ever) then breaking away from the classical theme, Wake Me Up, Thrift Shop, Let Her Go, Blurred Lines and Levitate (another great tune).

So yeah. Other than music, life has been pretty damned boring. I finished off my lab report. I have lectures and tutorials tomorrow, I've to buy ink for my printer which decided to print all the grey areas in yellow this afternoon (though still printed the black as black - go figure), and more paper since all this printing of lecture notes, lab reports, manuals, and general uni stuff has made a fair dent in my paper stack.
Whoever thought computers would see the end of all paper notes? Ha! I beg to differ.

I should probably get to bed so I can get up for my long day tomorrow. I know this was a short one. If I have time, I'll try and write to you some more, though I'll probably be planning for NaNo (yes, I'm stupidly still thinking of trying it, albeit that I'm totally stressed out half the time and have an exam mid-November. So don't shout at me if I dont write. I promise I'll try my best. I'll try my best to keep up with you too, but that isn't guaranteed either.
See you soon folks, hopefully. :)

Waiting in the library

In my glass: Summer Berry herbal tea
From my iPod: Last years Novel-writing playlist (well, its good music)
From my bookshelf: Pharmacokinetics (Maths galore! oh the joys...)
Outside: Wet. And that annoying temperature too hot to wear coats, and too cold to go without.
My mood: bored
Today's hairstyle: Nautilus with 60th street 2-prong fork

Guess who got a new camera (well, new to its new owner anyway)? Thats right,me! I'm afraid I don't have pictures to show you yet though, since I'm waiting for a cable that was missing to arrive. That and the light with this weather is crap. So many gorgeous colours, but theres stupidly little natural light. I'm tinkering with the aperture and what not, but I'm still getting used to the ins and outs of a DSLRs manual controls.

It came with two lenses. The lens on the camera is a 38-70mm, and the other was a 55-300mm. Is it any surprise I love the big one better. I got a couple of good macro shots eventually after a while, but my bee had flown off by then and I was left with just flowers. No matter. I'm sure a bit of messing with different settings will help me get to know this thing a little better. I can't wait for our beautiful winter skies. They're usually far more interesting than the occasional boring blue or continuous dull grey. Or the snow. I may need to get some filters for snow shots, since I know from experience that they can come out a little over-exposed (mostly from when I played with my dads camera - he uses a bridge, and mostly uses the auto function). Changing the ISO might result in darker areas over the rest of the image, so filters seems a good option.

So today, I am going to the second meeting for the University Pagan society. Its funny how when we get together, theres actually a surprising amount of us - theres enough of us to qualify as a society anyway. No idea what we'll do tonight. Last week was great - we just sat, drank lose-leaf teas and chatted to get to know one another (we are from all over it seems, with a decent range of beliefs too). I took some loose-leaf jasmine green tea with me today for later since I have far too much at home to drink by myself.

Being truthful, its a little weird for me. All my life, I've kind of been alone in my beliefs and religion. My mum was a christian (though not all that devout) and my father and brother are either atheists or agnostics (I think its more they don't care much to decide whether they believe or not. Maybe they did decide, but I missed that part). My friends at school were either christians (some devout, others not so much) or atheists, with one or two agnostics. (Oddly my most devout friend was most accepting of my beliefs - who would have guessed) I didn't speak much about my religion unless there was some very open moral, or religion-related discussion amongst known friends, probably because there was no-one else I knew in school (and I knew most in my year and the couple of years either side of my own) who had similar beliefs to me. I was glad "religious education" ended pretty early in school - only the major religions were ever covered (Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists were all that was covered) so the kids were uneducated as to minority beliefs. It could get very awkward, very quickly, especially as the introverted kid I was. Don't get me wrong, I like people, but they were damned exhausting. Curious people were slightly worse, and ignorant jack-asses were the worst of all by a long-shot.

So it is a bit odd to get the chance to speak freely to people that know what I'm on about. It might take a bit of trying to make myself open up properly. The people that grew up around others with similar beliefs definitely seem more open about it, but that might also be their extroverted personalities. I'm going to try for all I'm worth to keep this chance alive, because its an amazing opportunity for me.

I need to go guys. See you all soon.

Bummer...

Kinda sad that my "100th post" was only my 90th actually posted. I didn't realise the rest were drafts I hadn't finished yet. :/ Oh well, a few more to go.

Back to craziness, and my 100th post

So life is getting busy already. The lectures this year are a lot harder to get a grasp of. So for now, its just slogging along. Unfortunately, I think it means that there may be no NaNo for me this year. No way am I going to able to keep up with uni if I'm distractied with trying to write a novel. But something has given me an idea. One of the girls I follow on YouTube is currently having a go at Vlogtober. Now thats a totally cool idea, but I don't have a vlog. No matter, though, because I have a blog instead. :) I might have a go in November (though it won't be vlogtober anymore, but hey). I figure it'll be slightly more possible than novel-writing will be. My only issue will be the days where I'm without internet, which is likely to be kind of frequent with all the remembrance/OTC stuff and National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland stuff going on in November, but I'm sure I'll manage.
That reminds me, the Youth Band have two major concerts coming up. If any of you are up in Aberdeen on the 24th November, or in Glasgow on the 30th, think about coming along, especially if you are into the scottish music scene. (Click on the cities for links to information about each concert.) Hope to see some of you there.


On a totally different track, this is my 100th post. Calls for a poem, I think.
One of my long-missing poems that have been recovered from my revived Webook account. :) The upside of going back a year later is that it gives you the perspective to edit properly.

A Peek Inside the Wandering Mind of a Girl in Physics Class

Gentle, damp

A Calm Lake in the eternal expanse of the thoughts.

White sun on blue sky,

If it could indeed be called that.

A breeze fighting with lightning past the horizon

I could roll my eyes at.

Colours everywhere.

Lilies on the lake edge,

Grape vines on pine trees,

Beds of unstinging nettles underfoot.

Birds!

Big, small

blue, yellow, red

Shooting around.

Wings resembling my own,

and the angels above

and the fallen in the lake below.

A rainbow thrown between fingertips,

Joining every presence.

Colour.

Beauty.

Guess what I just found!

Ok, so I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but I remember being absolutely devastated when I one day found I couldn't log into Webook (an online site where writers can post their work and gain feedback, or just have a place they can store and have easy access to it while away from their home computer). I can't remember exactly when it was, but it was more than a year ago.
The site had just gone down, no warning, nothing, and was still down when I checked frequently throughout NaNo (well, I had loads of ideas on there that I could have used). Since the site was essentially my back-up for some of my poems, and the only home of a lot of my just-for-fun writing (like my poetry, an unfinished fantasy/sci-fi novel which I don't plan for anyone to ever read - I had only reached chapter 17 when the site went down; an idea for a plot, and various other projects I was working on with other writers on the site) a lot of my stuff seemed to just disappear off the face of the planet. I was devastated.

Anyway, the point of that backstory was, while I was surfing Grooveshark trying to find some new music to refresh my novel-writing playlist in time for NaNo, and put together a studying playlist, I randomly thought, for the first time since the crash to have a look to see what had happened to the site. What I found was surprising - not only was the webook blog back up, with new owners, admin, and an explanation for why the site had gone down (the old owners ran out of cash and pulled the plug), but the whole site was back up!

I was wary at first because the blog had mentioned signing up. But chrome automatically put in my username, so I had hope. Adding my password, I scrolled down the page to find all my projects, posts, reviews, friends and groups were ALL THERE!!!

I can't explain how happy I am to have all my old writing back.

I might start uploading last years NaNo a chapter at a time as I continue to sort out the obvious issues and fill in the gaps in the last few chapters (well, I know what happens - its note down in my storyboard, I just never actually wrote it yet. In the fast-paced way of NaNo, if I get stuck, I just skip little bits and come back later, but towards the end, I just didn't come back to fix it.) Otherwise, I'm going to get to putting a back-up of all the stuff that was previously lost into my external hard-drive and maybe a couple of pen-drives.
(wow, my old novel seems really childish, but hey, its fun-writing. Its meant to be fun -don't judge)

Which reminds me, I might make a page here for NaNo this year if I decide to go ahead. I figure if I put my writing up here, I have to be held responsible to actually write, and if I put it on a separate page, its out of the way and doesn't get mixed up with my other writing. Plus, it gives me a back-up without scrivener taking a hissy-fit at me for trying to save in more than one place (since, I'll probably write in scrivener and copy-paste into here, unless I feel like writing on my ipad, where things'll happen the other way around)

For now, I'm off to surf around webook and see whats been going on while I was away. Bye, guys

Bento experiment, last weekend before class starts

In my glass: tropical squash (or diluting juice as we call it in my family)
From my iPod: Last NaNo's Novel-writing playlist (trying to find inspiration for this years plot, in case I turn into a lunatic and decide to do it this year)
From my bookshelf: Nothing
Outside: cloudy
My mood: tired
Today's hairstyle:down most of the day, up in a cinnabun now since I was getting too hot

Evening.

So I've been sitting at my computer typing out that article (and discovering articles are really not my thing) and trying to sort out a plot for November. Sadly, this year, my plot is finding itself to be much more elusive than last year, so much so that I'm still working on finishing all the chapters in last years novel. I guess part of it is that I want all the loose ends tied up, and when you're already writing, the plot bunnies seem to multiply.
Maybe I just need to start writing new stuff again. A lot of my works in progress are losing their momentum, because theres nothing fresh coming into my folio. I used to put poetry up here, but a lot of the stuff that is left is rather dark and dreary stuff I wrote during my not-so-good times. Now that things are better for now, I'd much rather be posting stuff that matches my mood. Happy poetry is unusually difficult to write though.

In terms of the bento box idea I mentioned yesterday, I put together a simple box. I think I have a bit of work to do. I definitely need to work on the rice. Hot, it was nice, but cold, not so much. Its seemed kind of stodgy. I think next time, I'll try a different lettuce. the iceberg tasted kind of bitter for some reason. don't know why, since it was a new one. The butternut-squash-cheese ball was gooooood, though I think it could have been even better with a crunchy shell, maybe a breadcrumb coating, lightly fried. The omelette-squash wrap was good too, but the squash tasted a bit bland. I might try boiling some of my veggies with a stock cube or something. Or maybe puree it and add some spices before wrapping it. Hmm - things to think about. It's going to be a week and a half before I can pick up my first veg bag since I've still to sign up, so I have time to think about things and try them out.
I must admit though, I loved the colour, and as small as it looks when you pack the food, it does fill you up pretty quickly.

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Tai Chi and a new endeavour for the start of term.

 In my glass: Sanpellegrino lemon
From my iPod: Riders on the Storm (by Jaz Coleman and Kennedy) and Airplanes (By B.o.B)... Yeah, about as opposite as you can get
From my bookshelf: Nothing, yet.
Outside: dark
My mood: cheerful
Today's hairstyle:Celtic knot, held with my custom-made Aliarose stick (because I figured I'd go for one of my fancier sticks for the tai chi demo, rather than my usual nice, but less fancy go-to hair things)

Good evening all. This'll be a quick one since I'll be out with the guys from the band if all goes as planned.
Anyway, today we had a Tai Chi demonstration for the new Confucious Institute Opening. The demo seemed to go really well, and I think it might have been one of the best times I've done the form, which is always good. I've to finish an article for the student newspaper before uni starts on monday. I'm looking forward to seeing the garden in the Confucious Institute - I'm going to have to pop in sometime.

In terms of my new endeavour, I was trying to think of ways to eat better and spend less money this term. Part of the issue I always had with packed lunches is that after a while, they get so boring. I decided, since I have no classes on Tuesday lunchtime for the first time ever, I'm going to head down and sign up for the veg-cooperative  at the uni. You order a bag of local veg for £6 and pick it up on the tuesday after. Ok, but I was stuck with how to make it interesting, and remembered something I had come across once when I was video-surfing on youtube across various cooking channels (I think I had been looking for a recipe for pumpkin soup last autumn when I went on a video spree) - bento boxes. I have my answer. Basically, its healthy, and its pretty, and it doesn't really take all that much longer than a regular packed lunch to prepare -its the pre-cooking the short-grain rice that takes longest, but you can do a big batch and freeze it.
So I made up a few things to try tomorrow, mostly just out of left-overs in the fridge. I made up a batch of rice (but I should have left the lid on the pan until it cooled a bit,because it hasn't clumped together so well), and split it into single servings, then I made two super-thin little omelettes (I used one egg and cooked it in the biggest frying pan, before splitting it in half, adding some left-over butternut squash and rolled up. Then I still had some butternut squash left so I mashed it up and added a little soft cheese to make little balls. Everything is sitting in the fridge, above the veggie box, so I can just rip up some fresh veggies in the morning to fill up the space.

It barely took any time at all, so we'll see how well things go for me. It'll be interesting too to see how I can work in any less familiar veggies that might come in my veg back.

For now, good-bye guys :)

The Importance of Speaking Freely

In my glass: water
From my iPod: Rhythm of Love, by Plain White T's (from my Grooveshark "Happy" playlist)
From my bookshelf: Nothing. Since its Freshers, I thought it best not to start on any big books with third year looming large over me.
Outside: cool, but sunny
My mood: cheerful
Today's hairstyle: Celtic knot on wet hair

Afternoon all.
So back over on the LHC, we have a thread in the members-only Friendship Board titled "Rude Questions You've Always Wanted to ask...". Basically over there, we talk about topics which we would otherwise be hard-pressed to be able to talk about in normal society. We have a kind of unspoken agreement not to let an argument go too far, and that rude questions by definition usually elicit rude answers. But as odd as it may sound to have a thread in such a friendly forum especially dedicated to things seen as rude orto which people might take offence to, it has actually become a very valuable thread for some of us.
When I first entered the thread in early June (we were already around 2000 posts in on various issues, and the thread is still going strong with at least daily posts since) the current discussion was on the issue of illegal immigrants, and the racism felt by legal immigrants who are sometimes assumed by the community to be illegal. A difficult discussion to have in public, due to the hefty accusations or offence that could be taken by much of the community. Part of what was discussed was that racism was seen in some parts of the world, and by some people to be an inherent part of the illegal immigrant issues (for example, it would be common in their area to hear phrases like "go back to where you came from") and that made it difficult in trying to discuss the semantics of legal and illegal immigration. For example, some of us, me included, don't associate colour or race with illegal immigrants, probably because I grew up in an area where there were a fair number of completely legal immigrants from all sorts of places and all sorts of races, and that continues to be the case up here at University. The thing was that a lot of us held the belief that we hold little respect for those who break the law, and therefore illegal immigrants, but also that people are innocent until proven guilty, so the "go back to where you came from" statement simply doesn't make sense to us, when we automatically assume the person has every right to be there.
We also talked about ancestry, the difficulty many of us have with understanding the need to know their ancestry, or even the problems with using ancestry in an argument relevant to current issues and thedifference between that and what makes up a person right now. Now that caused a few fireworks, because some people take their geneaology very seriously, but many of us also place very little importance on individual relations.

One really interesting topic we had was on the subject of rudeness itself. The topic initially started with a question (from one of my fellow UK-ers, I think. Unfortunately the site seems to be really slow today for some reason,so don't take my word for it) on why people often don't smile back at her when she gives someone a friendly smile. This somewhat confused me too, being from a rural area of Scotland, where its fairly common to stop and chat to your naighbours on a walk or such like, and I too had experienced this, especially in places like Glasgow, or worse, London. What we eventually discovered after a fair bit of confusion and rude answers (since, yes, rude questions elicit rude answers. we don't take it to heart) was that there seems to be two types of politeness in the world - positive-aspect and negative-aspect. Myself and the initial poster of the question appear to be from area with positive-aspect politeness. What that means is that certain gestures, like waving, smiling to someone you pass, saying hi to someone you're next to for any length of time, saying "excuse me" as you squeeze past someone in the street, is considered "polite", kind, or the norm. In an area of negative-aspect politeness, the situation is quite different, and indeed the gestures mentioned previously would be seen as positively rude. Negative-aspect isn't a "bad" thing like the term may suggest, but rather it is just the opposite way of thinking to the positive-aspect areas where forward actions are made by a person towards another person in society. In a Negative-aspect society, politeness is keeping out of peoples way, not demanding attention from someone you don't know through speaking to them, or doing many of the gestures perhaps considered polite in a positive-aspect society. When we reached that conclusion, it was quite amazing to us that all this time, we had been misunderstanding cultural norms in the areas we had been visiting, especially since the negative-aspect way of thinking is evident in many large cities, where huge numbers of people live and work, such as London, or Glasgow, where I had previously experienced this sort of thing.

The thing is, these revelations are just a couple of the things that have become evident through people simply asking questions that would not otherwise be asked, and through people understanding that careful consideration and carefully worded replies are needed to solve such sensitive issues, as well as not taking rude come-backs to heart. It has been invaluable to me on the forum, especially for realising cultural differences between that I was brought up in, the various different parts of America, Canada, and a number of other countries as well, as well as confusion over language and differences in political correctness across the world. It kind of makes me sad that many of these revelations could likely never have been made if we were to bring up the subject in regular society. I also realise that in many other, perhaps less friendly forums this thread full of revelation would not still exist, alive and kicking as it is today. In fact, todays topic is again the topic of racism, and whether groups set up to help people from certain countries or races don't actually help to perpetuate further segregation.

Anyway, if anyone has anything to say about any of the above topics, feel free to contribute in the comments (just keep things civil). For now, I'm going to sort out my uni timetable for next week, spend some more time back over at the LHC, figure out when I will have time to do a full henna on my hair (I know my hair is quite red-ish anyway especially with the slight sun-bleaching on my ends, but I want MORE GINGER!! heehee), and then iron my outfit and head to Tai Chi tonight as final prep for our demonstration tomorrow.

Speak soon, folks




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Hello again :)

Hello everyone. :) I know, it's been quiet around here lately. Times have been busy, but thats summer for you.

So, at the start of the summer, I went on a trip to Charlie McKerrons music week at Inshraich House (home of the insider festival). A whole week of playing fiddle after a stressful year where I barely played any was brilliant. A whole host of tunes that ill probably need to note down soon so I remember that I know them if I go looking for ceilidh tunes.

Then I went sailing with my uncle and spent some time with my second cousins. Most of our sailing time, we were in lasers (little one-man dingys for the non-sailers out there).
I was barely back a week before I was out with the OTC sailing club on a 42-footer, called East End Endeavour to earn our Competent Crew qualification.




Once that was over, again I was barely home long when I was off to Moscow with the combined SUOTC pipes and drums. That was great fun, but unfortunately I was I'll for most of the trip. I felt flu-y for the first five days or so, then I got a migraine for three days (great fun when you're surrounded by bright lights and loud music). So I was basically feeling better by the time the last day came along. In any case, the buildings were beautiful. Here's a picture of St. Basil's, just because it was really pretty, especially when it was lit up during the show in Red Square.










So now its fresher's week in Aberdeen again, my old flatmate is gone, and my new flatmate has arrived. It's beautifully sunny, so I'm making the most of it before tomorrows forecast rain.



See you all soon (hopefully). :)

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