Hiding in Homework

I realize I'm two posts behind, but there's only really so much to blog about when your life is wake up, go to class, come home, do homework, and then maybe sleep again. So, since I still have 40 pages of Gravity's Rainbow to read, kanji to study, and other articles to read, I'm just going to leave you with a WTA and then I'll run away again.

WTA: Large bowls of orange sherbet. Lord of the Rings. Folk Tales. New Music. Pilates.

Going Crazy

Book List

The list of books I currently have sitting next to me I need to read today(Books with a * are picture books):

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

*Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky

*Snow by Uri Shulevitz

*The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster Illustrated by Chris Raschka

*Flotsam by David Wiesner

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (only part of it needs to be read today or tomorrow)

Books I've finished reading but need to write about:

Keeping Score by Linda Sue Park

Books need to get a hold of as soon as possible so I can get started on reading them too:

*The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís

*My Japan by Etsuko Watanabe

Shipwrecked! : the true adventures of a Japanese boy by Rhoda Blumberg

An American plague : the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

Various poem books

Various children's biography and non-fiction books

Books for research projects

aaaaaand probably more than that.

Why did I decide to be an English major?

WTWA: Currently it's only about noon, but it is pretty awesome to get to read children's books and call it homework regardless of how much reading it is.

You're feeling strange...

I do realize that it's morning of the 22nd which means I didn't actually post anything on the 21st, but I have decided that this post will do for yesterday's post and then I'll post something again tonight. In theory. Most likely.

Anyway, yesterday was nice because it was the kind of productivity that was definitely useful but it wasn't really productive in a school way. I did go to school early yesterday so I could do some studying in the library before my one class yesterday, but when I came home I worked out, vacuumed, did tons of dishes, cleaned other areas, etc. Which, honestly, all needed to be done so it was productive in that way, but it didn't really make any dent in the mountain of homework that needs to be completed this weekend/the coming week. I still need to finish reading Inkheart, locate and read about five other books (although most of those five are picture books), read a good chunk of Gravity's Rainbow and write a blog on it, study for Japanese because we have a quiz/test thing on Monday, in addition to the studying and researching I've been attempting to do all quarter for all of my classes. And that's just for this weekend. Needless to say I will not be attempting to get through an entire season of Buffy like I did last weekend no matter how much I'd rather watch Buffy and crochet a new hat.

And I haven't even touched Dragon Age in over two weeks. Which is annoying because I wanted to finish this play through so I can have the exact ending I want in order to import it into Dragon Age 2. All very important stuff you know.

But last night wasn't for homework. Last night I went to a friend's apartment (same friends as last Saturday) to meet up with this D&D group that we're starting. Which, by the way, is SUPER exciting for me because it was my nerd-related goal for last quarter to learn how to play. We didn't actually play yesterday. Mostly we made characters and then we played this zombie apocalypse game where I totally OWNED the first game while playing the high school quarterback because I killed tons of zombies as I was becoming a zombie myself. The game is supposed to be hard for humans (one person plays the zombie while everyone else plays as humans) but somehow the humans managed to win both games we played. It got pretty close though.

And now I need to go do other homework and figure out how I'm getting to a book store. Which, in theory, should be all that hard except that the bus schedule sucks on the weekends and it's kind of hard to get anywhere.

I Dreamed a Dream

I've gotten a few steps closer to my study abroad application today. My advisor finished the recommendation form (that I dropped off yesterday, crazy productive man) and I ordered my official transcript. With each step it becomes a little bit more real, and a little bit scarier. I'm somewhat adventurous, but admittedly taking off for a foreign country where I somewhat know the language for two months and I'll be more or less on my own is stretching my sense of adventure. Okay, I realize I'm not actually in the program yet, it's only for two months, and I'll have ages to prepare, but still! Really! It's not exactly something I've ever done before. It's exciting and sounds amazing, but still somewhat frighting.

Speaking of things that are somewhat frightening, my dream last night was one of those incredibly vivid ones that are intense to the point of being tiring. But it was also nice because there were a few aspects that I wish would happen (and are physically possible of happening) in real life so I was a little sad to wake up. Then again I was also Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (but I was still me and living my life) which was the stressful and intense part. Really, I'd never want to actually be her. Have her crazy awesome slayer powers? Maybe. Deal with the demons and the undead and the apocalypse every single year? I'll pass. This might be an indicator that I've been watching too much Buffy, but I haven't watched a single episode since last Monday, I swear! Despite the fact that both the people I told this dream to today had the same almost instant reaction that I've been watching the show too much, I'm sticking with my assertion that I don't have a problem...

Back on the topic of dreams, I think dreams like this are interesting because, despite the fantastic dream-like qualities to them, they feel more like real life than other dreams. Dreams like this blur the lines between reality and dream. What is the dream and what isn't? Did that conversation you distinctly remember having with you mom last week happen in real life? Or in the dream? There are some parts in Gravity's Rainbow that slip into and back out of a dream again, and if you're not careful you can completely miss the shift. If you've seen Inception there's that part where Leonardo DiCaprio's character is explaining to Ellen Page's character that dreams feel real when we're in them, and it isn't until we wake up that we realize something wasn't quite right.

Anyway, I just hope tonight's dreams are a little less intense so I don't feel so tired when I wake up. Being the Slayer is tough- even when it was only a dream.

Oh Snap!

I feel like there's some law in the universe that prevents me from reading Gravity's Rainbow before 9:00 at night. I got home around 5 PM, which honestly should have given me plenty of time to start the reading I have to have done by tomorrow. Yet, like the past two times, I found excellent ways to waste four hours of my life before finally starting on it. I realize that doing something three times in a row doesn't necessarily mean it's a law, but I definitely think it's at least a pattern.

But I was tired! I slept horribly last night AND I went to a pilates class today. So I ended up watching youtube videos for an hour, then I took an hour long nap, then I attempted to get Pokemon Snap to work on an emulator for another hour, then the fourth hour was taken up by people getting home and me trying very hard to (not) start my homework.

And you know the worst part? I didn't get Pokemon Snap to work. Fail.

Seriously though, I have so many good childhood memories about that game. I just thought it was the most BRILLIANT IDEA EVER for you to get points for taking pictures of pokemon. Then it had that awesome level at the end where (spoilers! haha, no not really) you take ten million pictures of Mew for the boss level. Except you can't get to the boss level at all on emulators, and you have to do a lot of special modifications to get other parts of the game to work. So, my current plan is to see if my old N64 works next time I go home. That or, you know, play games that came out in the recent decade.

WTWA: While Pokemon Snap didn't work, I did play a Japanese version of Green on an emulator for a while. Due to the fact there's like no kanji (since the reading level is aimed at kids) it was pretty easy to understand. Especially since I've started about a million Pokemon games and the intro is more or less the same in all of them. Still, Japanese comprehension for the win!

Social Media

So I'm posting a youtube video on a blogger blog talking about Facebook/social media. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but it sure seems interesting.

Click here for the Amazon page where you can get The Young and the Digital. I mean, you don't have to, but I said in the video I'd link to it.

EDIT: WTWA: So I forgot to say why today (although yesterday now) was awesome. I think it was awesome because it felt like a Monday but it was actually a Tuesday due to the fact there was no school Monday.