Pulling Things Together

Hey everyone!

Time for a few updates:
I won JulNoWriMo with about an hour to spare. I didn't reach my goal of finishing my novel, but for once, I haven't actually stopped writing because JulNo is over. I'm proudly still working on writing.

I've got some extra big super awesome news as well! What have I always wanted? Besides money... I got a car! A 1996 Mazda Miata. See the lovely picture? Beautiful isn't she? Her name is Lenore as of a few days ago. I got her on August 2nd for 3 grand. There aren't any major problems with it. And I have a lot of stuff I want to modify on it. I'm crazy way too excited.

Learning stick is still kind of scary. I've yet to go on the freeway and everything. The only thing I'm really scared of is going from standing still to first gear. I know it's the problem that everyone has but I'll get better and get over it and everything.

So, I finally got my pictures from the cruise on my computer. They're on Facebook if you can check them out on here. I'll start posting the best of the bestest pictures on here going through all the days. It will most likely take me a while, but I'm getting closer!

JulNoWriMo Update

All right, well after a long month of almost no updates. I've almost reached 50k.
I'm at 41k as of now. And I've had a lovely bunch of novel plots come in my way this entire month.

Well, not a whole bunch, but a few.

Once I finish Rising Sun, a prequel will be on the way called Three Stars.
3S is honestly probably a whole lot better than RS. I may even turn 3S into a trilogy, I'm not sure though. RS might become a trilogy as well. I'm not sure how many times I'll have to write that novel before I'm happy with it. A long time though. I'm considering re-outlining the entire thing and making it longer and more in depth.

The other novel and sequel are stories that were originally separate ideas and turned out to be related. The first one, I started a couple years ago, but didn't do anything with it because I didn't outline really. That one's called Not Guilty. The second I wanted to write four or five years ago, but never started it, called Chasing Reality.

I don't have a good summary for any of this, but I'd love to tell you about them some time.

After JulNo, I think I'm going to have a goal to write 500 words a day for the year. That might just start at the start of the New Year, I'm not sure. I'll definitely want to do that, though. Get a bunch written in the next year. Instead of only in July.

Anyways, that's all for now. I'll come back later at some point! :D

This Isn't Goodbye...

I want to thank you for all the good times we've had; staying up all hours of the night together, giving me friends and teaching me life lessons no one else would teach me. Thank you for showing me that friends can make you stronger, having courage is sometimes all you need, loving someone can save a life, and standing up for what you believe in is the most important thing of all.

Thank you for helping to be myself. Thank you for being a friend when no one else would be. Thank you for making me a better writer and thank you for inspiring me to keep going. Thank you for showing me that life isn't always as bad as you think. There's other people that have it worse.

There are so many memories I have. From getting the first four books for Christmas and reading them straight through, to staying up every Christmas then on just to read all of the books. All of the movie marathons with friends; all of the midnight premieres; being excited for something new; slaving over four fan fiction challenges at once. Crying every time that one character dies and I still can't believe it. And the final memory, that final midnight premiere where everything came to a close. We could all raise our wands and say, "Mischief managed." It's over.

But it's not. Harry Potter will not die now that the movies are finished. Sure, there's no more excitement of dressing up and going to a midnight premiere. The books will always be there to read and the fans to share memories with. That world exists in so many hearts and minds it cannot die. Children are hearing the story for the first time every day. People are reading the books and discovering a new world. Speculating whether Snape is good or bad and crying over all the lost loved ones along side the characters.

Thank you Harry Potter. For being one of my closest and oldest friends. You will always be in our hearts.

This isn't goodbye. It's merely the beginning of something new.

The End of an Adventure

Well, I'm back from Europe and I'm not quite sure if I want to be back. Right now, most of my focus is on my writing for JulNoWriMo - which I have decided to hand write. However, that might change if it keeps taking me so long.

For the next few days I will be talking about my European adventure. Basically taking each day at a time. However, my camera is currently at Byron's house, so as I procrastinate, I can't post pictures or anything. So I shall leave you now.

I do have my first JulNo vlog up on the JulNo youtube page. And I've started a progress report on the website as well. So go check those out if you like, and I'll be back tomorrow!

Cruisin Sherwood 2011

So I had the first super intense crazy adventure of the summer on Saturday! It was very fun and, of course, a car show. I guess I really don't talk much about cars and that world on this blog, but now I'm going to! With pictures! (Pictures will become a more common thing now because I got a new camera. It's a FinePix S2950.)


This awesome adventure started out at 3am. Byron (who slept over in the guest bed) and I left the house by 3:30 and were at the location of the car show entrance, waiting in line with other cars, by 4am. It was insane. And dark. And we were tired. So we took about a 1/4 mile stroll down the long line of cars that were waiting and back to stay awake and take up time.


Then, at 6am we were let in to park and it was finally completely light out. The show wasn't even open to the public until 9am, so we definitely had some time to kill. We got an AMAZING spot in the middle of Downtown Sherwood. We got to registration and started cleaning Byron's car right away - which woke me up more than anything for some reason. Right across from a Sesame Donut shop thankfully. So I promptly went across and got a cup of coffee with 4 shots that woke me up sort of.



So after getting some breakfast we finally went and looked at the cars that were still coming in. There were some absolutely beautiful cars at this show too. It might be the favorite of my summer too. The cloud cover didn't go away until maybe 10 or 11. I would like to point out that 10 o'clock was 7 hours into my day. So it finally being sunny (besides the fact that it's Oregon and we're still waiting for summer) was kind of a big deal.


We both fell asleep in lawn chairs for about an hour around noon or so I'm guessing. I got a mild sunburn, but nothing too bad. We met up with his parents and ate some food and watched some contests. (loudest car, best burnout, stuff like that) And at 3pm (12 hours now!) they started announcing the awards. The trophies looked totally awesome. I wish I got some pictures of them, but I was way to tired at that point to even think about that. Byron didn't win an award this time, but that's okay. Maybe next year. I don't have any pictures about anything in this paragraph, so here is a picture of my favorite car at the show - a 1971 Corvette Stingray.


There were so many amazing cars. I'm uploading the best pictures to my personal deviantArt account. Here are a couple of my favorites. But most of them will be on my site if you are interested. :)

Almost Happy Birthday to tPDGB!!!

Well, it has come to my attention that my blog will be celebrating it's one year anniversary as of July 5th. Luckily, that will be right after I return from my "hiatus" that will be an amazing vacation.

I'll attempt to post on the actual birthday of the blog, but no promises. It'll be around then though!

It's kind of amazing how much has happened to this blog in the past year. I'll write more about that later.

Uh... I leave really really soon guys. So, I'll make a post the day before I leave announcing for sure the no posts thing.
Yeah, then pictures and everything will be for a long time. Plus JulNoWriMo.

SO MANY EXCITING THINGS HAPPENING! :D :D :D

Grammar Nazi Rant

UPDATE 5/29: Please pray for this girl and I am not saying anything against this girl and I am worried about her and I want her to get better! I'm just upset at the declining grammar in this world. Not just this one person who wrote this. Thanks. :)

I'm currently working on a different post that's a lot more in depth and stuff, but I just read something and it made me angry.

So, the background story is apparently a girl got hit on the highway while walking her dog. (Why she was walking her dog on the highway, I'm not sure...) And she got hit by a truck that a teenage boy was driving. I got invited to a Facebook "event" asking me to pray for this girl.
This is the summary of the event on the page:

Please please pray for Stevie Urwin Sandy high school grad in our home town, This poor 19 yr old girl got hit walking the high way here in sandy by 211 by a half ton truck a 15 yr old boy was driving. She was walking her dog she was taken to the hospital. plz "like" this and lets hope for the best for her and her family. plz let me know if u have any ideas on how to help with her and her family thru this tuff situation we are sandy...some went to school with her and some know her via family or friends but lets plz do something about this... she didnt deserve this. Plz contact me with ideas.

Excuse me, but WHAT THE F**K!?!
I have so many problems with this it's not even funny.
What does this even mean?! I mean, I got that this girl was hit by a truck that a 15 year old boy was driving apparently... but WHAT?!
Dear person who wrote this,
YOU ARE ASKING PEOPLE TO PRAY FOR A GIRL WHO GOT HIT BY A TRUCK AND YOU CAN'T EVEN SPELL "PLEASE" OUT CORRECTLY! This is a dishonor to her and her family. "Tuff" is not how you spell t-o-u-g-h. "Plz" is not a word. It's spelled "please". If you want people to care about what happened to Stevie the least you can do is take an extra 5 seconds to spell out your words, an extra minute or two to write complete sentences, and use your brain to make sure it makes sense!
I don't know this girl, and I am very sorry for her and I hope that she is okay.
But you are disgracing her by this.
Sincerely,
Heidi

Introducing...

Quote of the Day!!!
It may or may not actually be "of the day" exactly, but it sounds better that day. And maybe it will get more people interested so they can see more quotes. Yeah.

Updates on Life:
JulNo outlining is going peachy and wonderful surprisingly. :) I'll continue to update the "10,000 Word Novel Outline" page as I add more to my own outline.

And I've been re-addicted to Sims 3 and I'm attempting to do the Legacy Challenge. It's insane. I LOVE IT! :P

And Stefaniya went home today. :( She will be missed so much here!

Why Don't We Care?

Note: I wrote this rant a few months ago. I am just now getting 'round to finishing it. Sorry it's been a while since I've posted.

Today, I am going to talk to you about a serious topic.
I know I generally don't do that, but it's something that's been on my mind lately. This is a bit of a rant that I've been dying to write and I finally have time to write about it.
America. It's totally messed up. We all know it except for those who aren't involved with it's problems or those too ignorant to care.

Mostly, my problem with America is the education system. The main reason this is currently on my mind right now is that I am reading this book that is considered really nerdy.

Oh, and reason #2 is one of John Green's most recent vlogbrother videos. Found here.

So, why does reading a nerdy book make me angry about the American education system? Well, the book is The Calculus Diaries by Jennifer Ouellette. And my first problem is, is that when I consider taking it with me to read anywhere I have a little voice in the back of my head saying, "People are going to think you are such a nerd if they see you reading that." Generally, I don't let people see the book.

The fact is, I don't care to a point if people think I'm a nerd, because it really isn't an insult. However, occasionally, I find myself thinking "Okay, this really is very nerdy. Do you really want to deal with people's comments on this?" Therefore I hide whatever nerdy thing it is.

So, the reason this book made me start thinking about this is a couple quotes that Ouellette wrote in her book. The first one is:
"Knowledge is power, and we forfeit that power when we choose to remain willfully ignorant."
It's pretty self explanatory. And makes me wonder why knowledgeable people are looked down upon when they obviously have the higher ground and power.
The second is a little more relevant to the book and goes a little something like this:
"[S]cientists have a valid point when they bemoan the fact that it's socially acceptable in our culture to be utterly ignorant of math, whereas it is a shameful thing to be illiterate."
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT THAT ALMOST NO ONE REALIZES!!!!!

The world can exist without reading and words. As much as I and a few other people would like to think it can't exist without books and words and writing and literature. It can. There are entire cultures that were created and built upon that had no writing system whatsoever. BUT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO EXIST WITHOUT MATH!
/endrant

All right, so that's where I stopped in the rant. I'm not particularly angry about this topic at the moment, so I won't continue it. However, I think I made my point. I didn't support it extremely well. But it's a rant, so... no support technically needed.

Today. Is My Birthday.

And I'm going to do what I want.

Yeah. That's right.

So, my day is going to go like this (as decided by someone else):
Get up at 6am so I can go to school like a good kid. Even though class doesn't start until 11. It's the only way I'll get there.
Leave school at 5. Two hours after my class gets out, because once again - it's the only way I'll be getting home.
That's 10 hours. At school. On my birthday. That's twice the hours of when I'm actually supposed to be in class!

So, I'm all "I am not going to allow myself to play Civilization until I get to 4k on my outline."

Now I have decided that that is total BS.

It's my motherf**king birthday and I am gong to play Civilization.
That's right.
Imma rebel. (<--See that? You know what that is? BAD GRAMMAR! YEAH!)

Note: This mood may or may not have to do with the extra shot of coffee I had this morning. I'm not sure.

IHAVESOMUCHTODO!!!

askhansdiogalksf;sdgh

That. Up there. It's my brain right now. Freaking out. Because of all the things I have to do.
I don't know how I let this happen. Maybe it's not my fault that I always end up having to do everything at short periods of time. Chances are though, it is.

Maybe what happens is I get all motivated subconsciously and figure out all these things I have to do, then consciously I freak out because of all these things.

Who knows. The real issue is I have a whole lot of things to do in a very short time span.

Right now, here are the things I have to do within the next week:

1. Upload 3 pinstriping things
2. Make avatars for people
3. Get a 6 page paper rewritten for tomorrow
4. Clean my room because it's too messy for me to think
5. Do laundry
6. Do math homework
7. Get a whole lot outlined on my story for JulNo (at least another 2k within 2 or 3 days)
8. Have a birthday
9. Start packing for the cruise
10. Have a goodbye party for the exchange student
11. Write thank you notes for the birthday
12. Not ignore boyfriend because I'm busy doing other things (which definitely won't happen because I tend to ignore everything for spending time with him :P)
13. Go through bookshelf
14. Put lots of stuff on Amazon.com
15. Ship stuff that's been ordered on Amazon.com
16. Sleep.
17. Eat.
18. Not die.

That's a lot of things to do! quertyasdghaskdf;ja

Oh, and not die in all my other classes. And that's not including job research and studying and talking to other people and working. At my job. Where I get paid to do stuff. That I'll get fired from if I don't do. Yeah.

YAY! STUFF TO DO!

Note: I am actually not avoiding doing other things right now. I'm in math class. So I do not have the ability to do the things I need to do on my list. So it's okay.

I Sometimes Have Really Weird Dreams

Like, really super freaking weird dreams. And this is my dream I had last night that I want to share with all of you.
This one dream ranks pretty high on the list of weird dreams I've had. Maybe even weirder than the "dinosaur children selling me soap in black velvet bags door-to-door" dream.
So here's how it goes:

I was at Southridge and Byron worked down the street. We were eating lunch together and there were these really mean popular girls. (Which is weird, because I generally don't care about the really mean popular girl type. They will be hence named "Cordillia" in honor of BtVS.) They were like, "We're all going to be super pretty at prom. And you won't. So that sucks." And I was like, "Well, no one cares." So Cordillia scoffed and went away. Then all the girls decided to wear the same dress to prom. Because that would show them.

Then, school ended and my friend Luke (I really hope you're reading this) and I had to go save the car shop from the Canadian Mafia. (I feel like they don't exist in real life, nevertheless, they were mean and scary.) So we went to the car garage and there was a Mafia chick there and then 2 Mafia dudes. The chick was just standing there. Luke and her started having a conversation and stopped paying attention.

Dude 1 was working on a seat in the car, Dude 2 was sitting on the ground facing the other way and for some reason, I was laying on the ground between them. I don't know how I got there, but I knew that I had to get out of there. I looked over at Dude 1 and he had a gun in his belt. I had to get that gun. So I tried to pickpocket him basically. And I got the gun, but then, being clumsy me, I let the barrel hit the cement ground as I was grabbing it. It made a very large sound. Which made both dudes realize I was doing something bad.

So Dude 1 shot me. In the neck.
Then Dude 2 shot me in the side.
I wasn't bothered too much by this fact.

They were like, "Idiot. You don't steal guns. You always get shot when you steal guns." Then they left. Chick went with them.

I was laying on the ground all bleeding and stuff and Luke was over me saying, "Are you okay?" At which point I'm thinking, Well, this isn't great, but I'll survive. I should probably get some help though.

So, I told Luke to take me to the hospital. They could help me. So Luke took me to the ambulance that was conveniently waiting outside. And we went to the hospital. Then this very large burly man that looked a lot like Vin Diesel was like "Oh, you'll be fine. We can fix this."

Then I woke up from being knocked out (from anesthesia I assume). I had stitches on each side of my neck. (Where Frankenstein's monster's bolts are.) And a set of stitches on my right side. Three large stitches for each place a bullet went. I don't know where the 3rd bullet hole came from. Maybe an exit hole.

I was all better and so I decided that I had to go to prom. Byron was waiting in the waiting room and told me that I couldn't go anywhere yet until I ate some ice cream. (For those who are unaware, I don't like ice cream.) I told him I was fine and that we needed to go to prom. Now. It was super important.

So we got ready and went to prom and everyone was asking why I had stitches. I didn't want to tell them I got shot. So I told them I tripped and fell on a knife. Because that made sense.

Then I woke up.

Coming soon is a story I wrote in 2nd grade! :D

The Road to "The 10,000 Word Novel Outline"

Well, as this whole novel planning thing unfolds, I'm coming up with an outline for my outline almost. What to outline. A process for it all. And my goal is to have a 10,000 word outline.
That number may change as I finish the outline and all the things I want to do. See how much I want to go in depth of the novel before I actually write it.

So far, these are the things I have written or will have written when I finish. I'm sure that this will change dramatically as I continually plan for this novel. I actually have no idea if this outline will even reach 10,000 words. It might. It depends on how many characters and places that the novel will include. I should probably come up with a different name for it, but for now:

The 10,000 Word Novel Outline: "Draft 1"

Character:

• 1 sentence description (must be 20 words or less) and motivation for every character ever mentioned
• physical description for every character mentioned
• names for every character
• paragraph descriptions for characters that affect the plot
  

Setting:

• list (and organize by city in my case) every place that shows up in plot (I wrote scene list first...)
• 1 sentence description of setting (20 words or less)
  
• 5 senses list for each setting
  

Plot:
List every scene that will happen in the novel:

• side notes of what is happening in other parts of the world if important to know
• characters involved in each scene
• place the scene takes place
• 1 sentence description of the scene (still 20 words or less)
• notes of quotes, descriptions, etc. that should be included in the scene
• divide into chapters if you want

So, what do you think? Anything you would add? Any huge part of a story I'm missing in the outline?

Keep It Simple

I recently, as of last night, had a lovely little break down and was freaking out about my life in general. And then I had a wonderful discussion with a very special someone (after a nice little conversation with a stuffed blue dinosaur) who made my life a whole lot easier and we came up with this little phrase to keep me going for this week at least.
Keep it simple.
Don't stress about everything. Don't question how what you're doing will affect your life later on. Don't look for a deeper meaning in everything.
Keep it simple.

In case you haven't noticed; I get stressed fairly easily, but I ignore it until the stress is so great that I can't function.
Also, I absolutely fail at communication. And I just didn't learn some of the things I should have as a child.
I have big dreams and sometimes they seem so far out of reach. (I feel like those are song lyrics from some where.)
That's okay, though - because I'm going to fix it. I'm going to become all amazing and such. It's going to happen. With some help that I have dubbed my "training wheels."
So, here it goes.
A toast...
keep it simple.

Wish me luck.

What is This Planning You Speak Of??

Well, in efforts to actually accomplish this novel writing and finishing process, I am actually planning an entire novel before writing it. I've never took it to actually plan an entire novel I'm seriously in to writing before writing it. It's weird.

But, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit. The fact that I know what's going to happen is almost building my anticipation to write the novel.

As far as outlining and everything goes, I'm combining lots of different techniques I've been taught over the years as well as adding my own ideas. It's really fun to see how it all fits together. And actually taking time to get to know my characters before starting to write about them.

I took a few days to free write and figure out what's going to happen and got it all down on paper. And figure out who the characters are piece by piece.

I know this is a bit of a short post, but I'll discuss how I plan more later on. I'm just heading back to writing now. It calls to me.

JulNoWriMo Manifesto

Today, I write a manifesto.Today, I write a manifesto about how I will accomplish JulNoWriMo 2011.
All the skill and time it will take to win. I will win. And along with that I will also finish the novel. My first. Novel. Ever.
The first novel I will ever have completed. By outlining. By planning. By following in Tina's footsteps. I will both win JulNoWriMo 2011 and finish my first novel ever in my entire life. Accomplishment.

Manifesto taken from the guidline: A Sentence by Sentence Guide to Writing a Manifesto

This is my proclamation that I will finish a novel. I have someone (whoever you 6-readers-a-day are) to hold me accountable. Hopefully as it gets closer to July, there will be a few more people to hold me accountable. But until then, I'm off to plan.

Script Frenzy: 12 pages, 11 pages behind.

I Should Really Pick Something

Well, I forgot about NaBloPoMo in my haste to take over the world in Civilization IV and try and write lots of pages for Script Frenzy. So that's out.

Um, I'm writing lots of character monologues right now. I have this really intense idea in my mind about this one monologue I want to do. I don't even know if I'm writing a story based on this character in July, but I really want to write this monologue. And it'll give me another 5 or 6 pages at least.

I'm actually going through all the leaders in Civilization IV because I can. Also, instead of making an entire new blog on Civilization IV. I'll just start a new page where I'll write about the crazy adventures of taking over the world. And how each game played out. Hopefully, I'll get through them all.

Pinstriping is going well. I found I'm pretty good if I'm just drawing them with pencil. Paint just makes it a whole bunch more difficult. I'll get it down eventually. Practice makes perfect!!!

So, I have way to many things to keep you updated on. But maybe I'll narrow it down one day.

Oh, and college is going really well. I'm about to head off to history class. It's pretty interesting. I haven't gotten a whole lot of homework thank goodness. I'm a bit surprised that I haven't had much homework though.

I'll write again soon, I'm sure.

PS What do you think of the new design for the blog?

The Brilliant Script Idea

So, while writing my script for script frenzy, that honestly I'm not all that into because I don't know what's going on, I came up with this idea.

Okay, I rediscovered this idea, because I didn't come up with it. And I was given this idea last summer. Oh well, here's what's going on:

I'm doing Script Frenzy and need something to write about.
I'm planning for JulNoWriMo so I can actually finish a novel.
I'm combining the two together!

A while back, while taking a class on character and plot development, a wonderful writer-slash-publisher named Jeff Gerke taught me many things.
One of those many things he taught me about was in-depth character development.
If you work it right, it involves writing scripts. Which is what I need to do.

You take your character that you would like to develop. Then take a topic if you wish (This is optional, really.) Then, have them on a stage. They have their setting of choice. Whatever actions are going on. They're basically directing. And then have them talk about this topic or show this topic. If there's no topic. Have them tell a story. A story about themselves.

I personally like the having them tell a story about themselves. It lets me discover these events that happened in their lives that I never really knew about, but makes my characters who they are.

And it gets things written.

So, that's the brilliant script idea.

Also, I seem to be keeping up with NaBloPoMo this month. So I guess I am doing it. Maybe I'll get further than in March.

A Community Reunited: Thank You TimeTurner and Jay

All right. So, the HPFF craziness has finally been brought to a close.

What happened?

It seems that taking HPFF and making it the new SHFF site was an April Fools joke.

However, selling the site was not. Jay made an explanation and an apology on the HPFF forums. I would like to thank him for owning up to what he did and being mature enough to do that.

I would like to thank the wonderful timeturner (You HPFF fans all know who she is.) for saving HPFF and talking a bit of sense into Jay. Who does do a lot for the site - I don't think anyone in their right minds can deny that. However, the quick and rash decision to sell the site was uncalled for at the least.

Jay, even though I was quite angered at you and your decision making, I am extremely grateful that you created HPFF and have kept it running for 10 years. And thank you for deciding not to sell the site. I hope that if you do decide to sell the site eventually that you will find someone extremely dedicated to keep the site running for even more years.

TimeTurner, there are no words great enough that I can thank you with. You saved an entire community and family. We would be nothing without people like you.

That is all.

A Community has Been Violated

All right. I stayed up until midnight so I could post this because I feel bad posting more than once a day.
Fact is. I need to rant. And the site I would like to complain to has rules and I can't. I made my mature plea with them politely as possible - obviously they don't really care.

Here's the truth:
harrypotterfanfiction.com is DEAD. Not just dead, it has been mutilated and tortured and then finally put out of its misery.

What's wrong with that do you say? It's only a website. It can't actually be tortured and mutilated. Except for it can.
Not only has harrypotterfanfiction.com been destroyed. Before its death, it was changed to a Sherlock Holmes Fan Fiction website. Then put up for sale later that day.
Before it was completely taken down. All mentions of the name "Harry" were changed to little Sherlock Holmes emoticons. I feel like my writing has been violated and it's not worth it.

Now, I can take a joke like making HPFF into a SHFF site for a day. However, I am now under the impression that this is not a joke. After reading Jay's (Jay is the site owner and creator) wonderful twitter page (with quite immature and colorful language I might add) I'm almost certain this isn't a joke.

The site is for sale and the person known as timeturner is desperately trying to save it. Only, Jay's making that a bit difficult.

In my opinion, he is being totally immature about this. He is destroying a community that's been around for 10 years. On top of it, he's letting everyone just explode in the forums. The moderators are working their asses off to control the masses of angry people. I feel sorry for them and this turmoil he has created.

On top of it all, I'm honestly offended and disappointed. If it's a joke, it was funny for a little. However, now, it's just pathetic and stupid. And I feel like after running this site for 10 years, Jay would be a bit more mature than this.

Jay, if you ever read this. I thought you were better than this and I can't believe that you are so immature. I understand if you no longer want to have the site or don't want to run it. I won't say "think of all the people you're hurting" because I don't believe that's how you should live your life. But to go and just get rid of it with no warning. You're pathetic and you're a coward. You could have done more and you know it.

And another note to all of you saying that "It's about time for a change" and "Harry's done with" and "He's a whimp, Sherlock is better" would you please explain to me what you're doing on a HPFF site in the first place?

Script Frenzy '11

Well, I'm not doing NaBloPoMo. Why do you ask?
Because I forgot that April is Script Frenzy. (Link in the doo-blee-do -->)
So, an hour before April began. I began frantically planning a basic plot for a story that I could write as a script in the month of April.

Thankfully, I have a reserve of story ideas I keep handy. I just had to pull up one that I could write as a script. And I found one. Yay!

I am now 3 pages into this story and I figured, being 3% done with the entire thing. I should start procrastinating.

I'll let you know more about what the story is about soon! As soon as I figure out what it's about.

Here's my little catch line:
Becoming a superhero, is like falling in love. It happens by accident.

It's an action, superhero-y, romantic (comedy?) story.

College is Fun! (?)

Well, it's definitely been a little bit since I've posted last. I'd apologize, but I don't think there's anyone actually reading this anyways.

I was planning on writing a movie review on Limitless a while back. I still might. However, it's been out for a while. Really quick general thoughts, it's good. Makes you question how you feel about using performance enhancing drugs (aka steroids). I'll try and get that review up sometime soon.

So, I have a lot to talk about today. College, goals, writing, and other stuff I'm sure. So, let's just start with college.

College. Is awesome. It's a no BS deal. No special treatment to the jocks. (Not that there are any, it's a community college.) But it's so much more freedom and responsibility- which I personally love. I hate the high school teachers because they baby everyone. If you don't get an assignment done on time, you can go to the teacher, put on a puppy dog face, say the dog ate my homework, and you get an extra day to turn it in. Here, you turn it in. No exceptions. If you're absent on a day something is due. You can't turn it in. Call me crazy, but I love it.
Also, I don't even have class until 11 every day (except for Tuesdays, which start at 8am) and I don't even have school on Fridays.
You know how they say that even though you're only in class for a few hours a day, but you study the rest of it? Well, they're right. That's okay though. Because I like being able to control my own learning. You learn the stuff in class during a lecture. Take notes and all that jazz. Then you go and do the assignments and study and it's up to you to learn it.
People I tend to not like- (The whimpy-I-need-help-doing-everything-plus-a-reminder-everyday-that-I-have-assignments-due-I-want-special-treatment kind of people) Don't survive college. Generally, they just don't go. It's nice. All the people here care about being here. At least most of them.

Okay, on to the next topic. Goals. Life goals. School goals. Lots of goals. I love them. You know it. Secretly, you love them too. If you don't, you should. Currently, I've got a few goals in mind.
1) Get a car. I need a car kind of bad, now that I'm in college and all. It's really annoying to get a ride from my parents and take the bus and all that. Not that I want to park on campus, I'm not insane. However, having a car would be nice.
2) Get straight As this term. Call me crazy, but I think I can do it. Most of my classes seem a whole lot easier than my IB classes in high school. (Oh, I got a 3.8 last trimester! The only B was in my one non-IB class.)
3) Figure out what to do in life. If I like my engineering class, I might start looking at that. However, right now I'm looking at getting two associate's degrees- one in management, and the other in accounting. Then transfer to O(regon)SU to get a bachelor's in accounting. Do you know how much financial managers make a year? A lot. Like 100 grand a lot. And being a financial manager can basically guarantee me a job anywhere. Or at least some sort of management job. Fact: The general population cannot keep themselves organized without an appointed manager. I really like management, and after looking at the classes required for accounting, that looks pretty interesting too.
Then I'll start a custom car shop with Mr.Wonderful and I'll do all the management stuff for that as well as work on interiors and pinstriping. All the intricate detail-y stuff. At least that's the plan for now.

My next topic seems to be a reoccuring one. For obvious reasons. Writing. Do you know how excited I'm getting for JulNoWriMo this year? It's kind of insane. Besides the fact that I want summer to get here so I can go on the cruise. I really want to start writing my novel for JulNo. So, this year. I'm planning.
That's right. Actually planning. The entire novel. (Hopefully.) That way - because I'm missing 5 days at the start of the month - I won't fall behind and die.

And the final topic is NaBloPoMo. I think I'm going to try it again in April. Which means I have to start posting tomorrow for it. Am I crazy? Is it even possible for someone to do this? I feel like I'd have to get up and post before school every day. And weekends it will be particularly hard to post every day considering I get home at midnight every night. :/ Should I do it????

RambleRambleRamble

WARNING: The following post may ramble.

Well, in case you failed to notice my absence for the past four days, I've been busy. And as such, lost NaBloPoMo for March. *sentimental tear* Well, I suppose I should just keep blogging? I'm sure I'll try this again some other month. For now I'll just keep posting when I can. I want to get to 5,000 views by the end of July. So, hopefully, I can reach that goal. (The fact that I only have about 1,300 views as of right now will not stop me.)

And just so you know, this may be a very very long post that hardly anyone will actually read - especially considering the fact that I actually had to write everything I wanted to talk about down on a Post-it note so I wouldn't forget it all.

Movies:
I saw The Social Network finally. It was a great movie and I think the characters were portrayed well. Not like a lot of movies, where the main character is very lovable and you have no problems except for the fact that s/he's just too amazing and the antagonists are just horrible. In this case, Mark Zuckerberg was very much a real person and played very well. However, I'm not too sure about having Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker. That seemed a little strange to me.

I also saw District 9 last night. That was one of the more depressing movies I've seen in a really long time. It was good though. It made me think about a lot of things. Like how would we react if we ran into aliens. It's a really interesting idea and the movie was made incredibly well. The graphics for the "prawns" were amazing.

Life Stuff:
College starts in a week and a half. I still need to buy my textbooks and figure out how to get a ride there and back. I'm mostly worried about Mondays and Wednesdays, because I think I'll be taking the bus there and back. That would suck just a little. Tuesdays and Thursdays I can just get a ride from my mom if I need to. I should also get a bus pass for the month or something like that. I should just look up how to do that. Also, I should get a parking permit.

I've felt rather demotivated lately. This is bad. So, I've started making a list of things I can do to be interested in and all that jazz. The list is as follows:

• Programming (I used to know html, I forgot. I should learn again.)
• Read more; specifically more informational stuff. Maybe a little fiction here and there.
• Write more; generally I save my writing for July because that way I don't get burned out, but I've had a lot of ideas lately. I'll make a separate post about all of those ideas running through my mind.
  
• Exercise; once again, I really need to start doing this. I would run, but it's rainy and we have a Nordic Track (Google it), if it was a treadmill, I'd run more. They're just more fun.
• Blog! Find a more thematic blog maybe? More on that down below

New blog? I think I'll keep this as a more personal, generalized blog. However, as few of you know, I am super crazy into Civilization IV, and my computer finally decided it wanted to read CDs again. And now I can play it again! So, I'm thinking maybe I can do a blog all about Civilization IV. There's a thousand different things I can do for it. It would take me a few years, maybe even a couple decades to go through every option I could do. It would be insane. Maybe that's just interesting to me. Maybe there's people out there who would get into it. Who knows. What do you think??

Video Games

Well, the title of this blog post was originally going to be about the fact that I am going to go play Sims 3 in a moment instead of making an in depth blog post about something interesting. Though I do have a growing list of things to talk about. However, I never seem to find the time to write a long in depth researched post about something nerdy and interesting.

Then, I decided I'd throw something in here about Pokémon, because today while I was at Game Stop randomly, I thought I'd check out the old Gameboy Advance games - because these are the only games I have a system for and that I have enough money to buy. And I was never allowed to play Pokémon as a kid, or watch it, or have anything to do with it really.

Well, as you can imagine, Gameboy Advance games are pretty inexpensive. Six or seven dollars usually. Then I thought, "Hey, I should get a Pokémon game!" How wrong I was. There was only one Pokémon game. It was $40!!! That's almost as much as any brand new Wii game or Xbox game!

So, for all you people out there who got into Pokémon when you were a kid and held on to the stuff because you thought it might be worth something someday. You were right. It's someday now. You can get some serious profit on those things nowadays. Especially the original games.

And I am off to play Sims 3 now!

mmmmMassages

Today, I had my first ever massage.
It was amazing. Absolutely wonderful. Full body massage. For an hour. Love.
And it was only 55$ with tip!

If I can scrounge up enough money, I'm going to start getting more massages for sure. It's also really good for your health. And makes your skin all soft. It was a good celebration for my last day of high school and a good way to relax.

I highly suggest going and getting a massage if you're stressed or you're tense or something. Personally it helps a lot with the whole random muscle spasm thing I have. I really have no idea why it happens to me, but it only happens when I'm really tense.

And, just random thought, I'm super cold and shaking from it. Like shaking, shaking, shaking, shaking, twitch. It's really annoying. If anyone has any tips on how to solve this, it'd be greatly appreciated.

College Bound

Well, today, I registered for college classes. And let me tell you. I love college classes.
First of all, I have no class on Friday.
Second of all, I only have to get to class by 8am 2 days out of 7 in a week.

So, Mondays and Wednesdays, I have Math 251 (Calculus 1) at 11 and Western Civ: Ancient to Medieval at 3.
Then, Tuesdays and Thursdays I have some required College Preparedness class at 8am and then Writing 121 at 1.
Also, on Thursdays I have a beginning Engineering class in between those 2 classes.
And I have no class on Friday! However, this will most likely be taken up by study time.

I have orientation on Friday and I'll probably get my textbooks and stuff then.

Bah. So excited.

It's going to be crazy awesome!

Happy Fat Tuesday!

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!

I finally have a topic to talk about. And it's Fat Tuesday! Albeit a little late to be talking about it, but it'll be interesting. Promise.

So Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras, pretty much everyone knows exists. May know a little about it. May even party for it. But how many know the history behind it. (Me? Doing history? Blasphemy...) Well, I wanted to do a little research on it and find out some stuff.

So, Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday. The first day of Lent. Lent was originally a forty day long religious event to prepare the believer for the annual commemoration during the "Holy Week" that ends with Easter - the resurrection of Christ.

Nowadays, however, Lent is the 40 day period where people give up their bad habit for the 40 days. Coffee, alcohol, unnecessary shopping, and desserts are all very common things to give up. People also make goals for the 40 days - such as working out half an hour a day or praying 10 minutes every day.

Mardi Gras is french for Fat Tuesday and it is "officially" the same thing. However, Mardi Gras is no longer a day in many towns. Mardi Gras events begin in November in Mobile, Alabama! Long party... Mardi Gras is celebrated all around the world in different ways. In the Netherlands it is called "Carne Vale" which means "Goodbye to the Meat" in Latin.

The United States, however, is the biggest party of them all when it comes to Fat Tuesday. We are the most obese nation in the world after all. ;) And we love to party. It's what we're good at. The best place to go for a Mardi Gras party after all is in the heart of the southern US. New Orleans, Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans throws such huge and brilliant parties, that part of their culture is based around this celebration and they are well known for their Mardi Gras parties. However, unlike most parties, Mardi Gras parties end abruptly at the stroke of midnight. Like Cinderella, but for the whole party.

This day is also known as Pancake Tuesday (Canada and other English countries), Fastnacht Day (among German American populations), Malasada Day (Hawaii), Fettisdagen (Sweden), Sprengidagur (Iceland), and Užgavėnės (Lithuania).

So, crazy stuff, right? Whether you're having a huge party in New Orleans or you're sipping your last cup of coffee for the next 40 days. Have a happy Mardi Gras!

Free Time

It happened. I have free time. And now that I have this free time I'm not actually sure what to do with it.

Obviously I'm going to do a blog post about this dilemma.

It's been so long since I've had free time, it's like a foreign concept to me. I have free time and I'm just sitting here going "What is there to do?" I mean, it took me a good solid five or ten minutes to realize I could do something I enjoy doing. I feel like it's sad that that's true.

I think I'm going to write. I haven't written in a while. Maybe change that into planning for JulNoWriMo. With work, and the cruise taking away the first four days, and it just being summer, I want to be really planned out ahead of time. Hopefully I don't get too tired of the story(ies?) by July. No burning out. Burning out is bad.

I cleaned my office up today. Mostly because I wanted a nap on the floor and it was just a little disgusting. But I cleaned my office! I vacuumed it and everything! I'm very proud of myself.

I think when the weather starts to be consistently nice, I'll start biking or running or something. I feel like I should be in better shape. I feel like it's beneficial and stuff. And I'd feel better and I would be way more legit when it comes to life. I've always wished I could be more epic and in shape and awesome and stuff like that.

Well, I guess that's it for today.
Please comment!

Story Idea

Geez! I have twenty minutes left to write this and post it because I almost forgot about posting!
Thankfully, I got this wonderful story idea while doing my psych outlines and wanted to share it and after a long string of thoughts in a short period of time, I remembered I needed to post.

It is important to note that I have had some (a lot of) caffeine and therefore run-on sentences are likely.

So, I really don't know much about this whole story idea I just had, but it goes kind of like this.

An older middle aged woman (I'm thinking like Megan from the early NUMB3RS episodes) is doing psychological research which involves following foster kids or juvie kids or something and ends up getting emotionally attached to one of the kids and has to decide between the job she loves and the kid she ends up loving. It could end either way, but because of the way I write, I don't think I could ever do the "happy ending" where the character ends up figuring out how to fit both things in.

Anyways, that's my idea. What do you think?

Um... I have ideas for posting, I swear! I just have to find time to sit down and write them without running out of time.

I'm proud of my actually getting the posting all done, even if it's mostly rambling so I can get a post in. I am trying to get some actual non-nonsense into the posts. I'll try harder after this! I promise!

Until tomorrow!

Life is Good

Well, again, I don't exactly have a topic today. But I figured I'd just update you about what's going on in my life. And it's all pretty good.

First awesome piece of news:
I only have 4 days left of high school! And 3 of them are half days!
That's right, I am going to PCC starting next term. And I am excited.
I register for classes on Wednesday, so I'm assuming that'll be the topic for that day. Scheduling and the like. So that's just awesome.

Second awesome piece of news:
I've got almost straight As! I only have one B as of now. Hopefully that won't change too much but that's pretty good.

Third awesome piece of news:
My one year anniversary with Byron is in 2 weeks and I am so excited! We're going on a drive down to Newport and going to this awesome restaurant called Flashbacks. And the car show is that weekend. It's going to be awesome.

Fourth awesome piece of news:
Life is good. I feel quite good about life. It's all going quite well.

And... that's pretty much it.
Tomorrow, I'll post probably some other lame post, because I have homework I should probably do and I'm too tired to do it tonight.

Last Minute Post!!!

I'm having an online date with my boyfriend as of right now. So I guess this is about as rude as texting when you're on a date. I don't know. Maybe.

Today really has no focus minus the fact that I need to post for NaBloPoMo.

Online gaming with friends is really fun actually if you can get into it. I'm playing chess right now. That's pretty simple. Well, playing it online is simple. Actually playing the game isn't as simple.

I need to call the ECHS people because I haven't been notified of acceptance and stuff, so I don't actually know if I need to go to school after next week or not. I feel like this is a problem that should be solved. However, because it is the weekend, I can't find out until Monday.

I have work tomorrow... so I should go to bed soon.

I promise tomorrow's post will be better!

Trying to Cram in a Post For the Day

My day went like this.

Internet went out at 2:30am last night while finishing my homework. Get up at 6am to finish my homework. Go to school for 7 hours. Come home. Get ready for work. Go to work from 4pm to 10pm. Go back home. Do homework.

Admittedly, I am procrastinating right now. Because I need to get a post in for NaBloPoMo. And I need a bit of a break.

Basically, I have a lot of caffeine and a lot of stuff to do. My goal is to be asleep by 3am.

I am currently doing a project for lit that is basically an epilogue to Fahrenheit 451 in diary format. It's going to be very awesome. Due tomorrow. I just started. We'll see how this goes.

Wish me luck!!!

Hd's Psgy Nts

Tdy, m gng 2 tk abt psgy nts nd hw shthnd stl cm 2 b. Gnrly, I dnt tp my psgy nts lk ths, I wrt thm out by hnd nd thn trnslt thm n2 eng ltr.

Did you understand that? I'm proud of you if you could. Here's the translation:

Today, I'm going to talk about my psychology notes and how my shorthand style came to be. Generally, I don't type my psychology notes like this, I just write them out by hand and then translate them into English later.

Now try reading lots of psychology terms in the same language. Rchdta, qltv rsch, rflxvty. My favorite: isss (issues).

So, short hand became obsolete when college students could afford a laptop to take to class and back. So they didn't have to worry about not being able to write fast enough. Now, however, shorthand is moving into the high school world. It's easier to write the notes out for outlines of chapters when you have free time in class and then type them up later, than to do them later at home. Makes sense, people tend to be more motivated to do homework at school than at home.

I really don't have any where I'm going with this topic, I just figured I'd let you know that shorthand isn't gone. And it's kind of crazy. People who can write in legit short hand with little lines and circles and dots are very awesome.

It's NaBloPoMo day 2!!!! Yay! Hopefully this will continue.... also I hope I don't run out of ideas. If you want to give me something to talk about, let me know in a comment. (Awkward plug to try and get people to comment.)

NaBloPoMo March!

The competition. National Blog Posting Month.
The goal. A blog post every day for one month.
The month. March.
The question. Should I do it?

Well, I seem to be relatively not busy for the entire month. Minus my one year anniversary, which means I'd have to wake up early or something to get all the blog posts in. As well as beginning my life as a college student at PCC. Other than that, I seem to have nothing too big to take up my time.

Do you think I should do it?
This would officially be the first post of the month, because I'm posting this after midnight so it is March 1st.

I think I'll try it out. See how it works.
The theme is for this month is "In a Word". The theme isn't required, so I don't know if I'll use that. I may have to use some prompts though at some point. Hopefully, I can do it. And potentially, my audience will increase a little. Though, I'm not quite sure why people would be interested in this blog particularly. There's really no theme. Unless you want to say I like discussing nerdy things. Maybe there are more nerdfighters in the world than I thought.

Heidi's 5 Steps to Eradicate Stress from Your Life

(If you haven't read part 1: Stress and Other Unfortunate Realities of this, I highly suggest it)

So, keeping all of this in mind, what is to be done with all of this stress?

Well, I've decided to make:

5 Steps to Eradicate Stress from Your Life
Step 1: Decide you are willing to fix what's wrong. Even if it's hard to do. This can be one of the hardest steps for some people. Who would either rather go the easy route, that in the long term, can quite literally kill you or are just in denial of there being a problem at all.
Step 2: Identify the stress. You won't be able to fix what's wrong, if you don't know what's wrong.
Step 3: Identify your "support system": the people who will not only support you and tell you you're doing a good job, but also keep you going and give you tough love.
Step 4: Create goals to manage time, relax, etc. and share them with one or two other people you feel comfortable sharing them with.
Step 5: Continue with these goals for at least the next month ( the minimum time needed to make the things you are doing a habit). Make sure you have people that are helping you complete these goals. Revise your system only if it isn't working.

Congratulations! Hopefully, your stress, if it isn't gone, is at least lowered.

Note: This is not a studied or scientifically created system. This just worked very well for me and other people I know.

Stess and Other Unfortunate Realities

There comes a time in every high school-er's career when they realize that stress and other unfortunate realities are inevitable.

You'd be surprised at all of the things that could be stressing out a high school-er. So, if you're a parent of a high school-er, listen up. There might be other reasons your kid "hates you" or hides in their room all day and night or goes out with friends every single weekend. Whatever they're doing, it's probably to deal with the amount of stress they have. (All though, it may be due to the denial of life also, but I don't really have much experience with this.)

Here's a short list of things that there are to stress out your every day high school student (that cares about life):

• Friends
• Enemies
• (potential) Boyfriend/Girlfriend
• Peer Pressure: Drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. (Don't assume your child is doing these things, but it can be a huge stress factor)
• Social Acceptance
  
• Grades
• Scholarships
• Colleges
• Teacher Relationships
• Part-time Job
  
• Money for now
  
• Money for college and future life
• Choosing a career
• Parent Relationships
• Sibling Relationships
• getting enough sleep
  
• And a multitude of other things

Now, there are so many things just right there. I could probably come up with more if I thought about it. So, what do you do about your super stressed out kid/friend/self?

Make sure the relationships are strong and stable. All though, colleges and scholarships and grades may all seem super important, and they are, the most important thing is the relationships. No one that has crumbling relationships will be able to keep going forever in everything else. Having a strong support system is one of the most important things. Without this, it's hard for anyone to feel the need to do anything.

For a high school student, the overbearing idea that "you need to be socially accepted by people is the most important thing" is the most destructive idea that can be implanted in a student's mind. This idea enables someone to believe that someone else's idea about what they should do in life is more important than theirs. It encourages conformity in not only fashion, but life choices. Conformity is not necessarily a bad thing. Like people conforming and not murdering people. That's good. Conforming everyone's ideas is bad.

PART 2 coming later... because I need to sleep and I don't have time to finish this now :)

Ambitious Am I

Well, this is just a little post updating all my ambitions and everything and talking about some recent discoveries about things I can do to be even more ambitious in my life.

Update on Grades:
I didn't get a 4.4 weighted GPA, sadly. I only got a 4.2. So I threw a party anyways. For myself. I think I got some pizzas too.

Update on Job:
I don't remember if this was an original goal I talked about, but it is now. I HAVE ONE! It's at Albertson's and I really really like it. I actually have work today and I'm just whiling away the time until I have to get ready and go.

Update/Discovery 1:
It's becoming a bigger and bigger thing for me to continue to regain flexibility. Also, besides the fact that I just find it awesome to be super flexible, there are many health benifits I didn't consider before. Like less strain on things and healthier joints. Which is a big thing for me because I already have bad knees and hips that sound like popcorn. So that's good. I think I want to have my splits by the end of the school year. And I think it's possible if I continue to stretch as often as I have been.

Discovery 2:
I can go to college now! Not graduate high school early, but go to college now. PCC (Portland Community College) has a program for finishing high school there and getting your diploma as well as taking other classes you can get credits for and work towards an Associate's Degree in whatever. I can basically start college while still in high school. I'm really really excited.

Discover 3:
NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). It's really fun to say, firstly. But secondly, it goes on every month of the year and it's a challenge to post on your blog every day of a month. So you can do just some months of the year. Like if I'm on vacation, I just don't do it that month. There's themes of the posts sometimes. But it looks really cool and I might do that.

Well, I guess I'm going to go get ready for work and head out.
Until next time!

New Years Resolutions 2011

Well, this is... sad. I haven't posted for, what? Two whole months? Longer?
I'm ashamed of myself. Not that anyone actually reads this thing, so whatever.

I got a job. By the way. It's awesome. I have income now. And for the record: Taxes. Suck.

Well, Christmas and the New Year have come and gone and it's time I've gotten my New Years Resolutions written. (Actually they're already written.... now I'm just putting them in uber cyberspace print so I can't leave them laying there and do nothing about them... I expect whoever it is out there to annoy me and poke and prod me if I stop doing any of these)

As always I have ten resolutions, so here they are:

1) Buy a car.
2) Learn to drive stick.
3) Win JulNoWriMo '11 (Fourth year running? Maybe fifth? Geez...)
4) Get a weighted 4.0 Junior Year
5) Hold a job.
6) Stretch at least twice a week. Gain more flexibility and strength.
7) Stay more organized.
8) Help Mom with house makeover.
9) Finish 1 journal.
10) Finish Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Yeah. That's about it.

I have no idea what I'm going to be doing with JulNoWriMo, but it's going to be something. 50,000 words of something! It's going to happen.

Hopefully I'll start posting more again. Because that was kind of unacceptable.