Computer Fun

My computer decided last night that it doesn't love me anymore and quit working. Just up and quit; I put it in standby for a few hours, and when I picked it up again it wouldn't turn on. So today I took it up to the local Best Buy and talked to the Geek Squad people (they were very nice and helpful). The first one we talked to tried plugging it in and said, "Yep, it's broke." He said it could either be the power source (God willing) or the motherboard (please, God, no). The first may cost a few hundred dollars; the second, almost as much as a new computer. So we had them send it out for repair (two weeks or so, they said), and if it's the motherboard, we plan to have them recover as much data as possible from the hard drive, then buy a new computer entirely.

So I'm stuck using W.E.'s computer, and he's not good with sharing it, so I don't get much time online. He has also decided that I'm not allowed to do work (like Master's Thesis work) on it, so it's a good thing I wasn't taking notes on my computer. Though I was practicing my German on it, so hopefully I can find another way to do that.

Sigh.

More later.

Christmas

Hope everyone out there in Internet land had a good holiday. Mine wasn't bad; at least we didn't have the annual screaming fight with W.E.'s mother. W.E.'s dad is doing much better--he's up and walking, for short stretches at a time--but still can't keep down hard food. His IV line pulled out today, and OF COURSE there's nobody at the hospital to FIX it until tomorrow. So they're going to keep him hydrated and try to get some soggy food down.

So for Christmas, I got a few gift cards and some cashy money, as well as this:

And one of these:As well as lots of clothes and food. W.E.'s family--especially his grandparents--are big on handing out stuff they have too much of, and this time it was TONS of frozen food--steak, chicken, hamburger--and home-canned food--salsa, apples, apple butter, grape jelly, etc.

My sister-in-law introduced us to this website. Here are my favorites:

And:Or else it gets the hose again?!

More later.

Infinite Motivation

W.E. found this on one of the forums he visits. It's funny. Enjoy.
(You have to click on the picture to make it animate, unfortunately; it won't do it here for some reason.)

More later.

More Grad School Stuff

My GRE scores are in; I got a 580 on the subject test. They have also been delivered to the various programs I'm applying to. So now two of my applications are complete (the third is weird; the school put some of my letters into the wrong folder, apparently, so now my PhD application has 5 recommendation letters and my MFA application has 1. I'm going to have to bother the admittance office AGAIN to get that straightened out). Here's hoping that I get in to at least ONE of these programs.

I'm very tired today. Lethargic. Which is bad because I haven't done my workout today. I'm doing strength training to build muscle, which will burn fat and raise my testosterone level, which will keep me from storing fat. I'm hoping to lose a pants size before school starts again.

More later.

Grades

End-of-semester grades are up: I got As again. I was worried about my Romanticism class; I seemed to be hovering on the edge of a B before I turned in my final paper. I guess the teacher liked it. So, yay, my Grad School GPA is still a 4.0.

More later.

Still Up

Yes, it is 1:15 in the morning and I'm still up and posting a blog for a couple of reasons.

1. I've already thrown off my internal clock (we're THREE DAYS into break!) and slept until almost 1 PM today, so I'm not really tired yet.

2. I think I had my last caffeinated beverage at about 4-ish, which was 8 hours ago but we all know how insidious that stuff is.

3. I'm annoyed at some idiot on the Buffy Boards who's having hissy fits because some of the rest of us have negative feelings about a character s/he likes, and has spent the last few days calling us stupid and screaming at us to shut up and take our character hating somewhere else. Despite numerous attempts on my part to explain a) why we don't like this particular character; and b) why we feel the need to complain about her to others (it's a psychology thing), this young'un (I think s/he's about twelve. Really) continues to rant and rave. So I've got lots of annoyance keeping me awake, too.

4. I'm being plagued by what my good friend who's crazy about Anime calls "plot bunnies," but unfortunately not enough of them to actually write the story. I have ideas, but no real direction. So annoying.

5. I'm hungry but it's way too late to eat anything even if I had any snack food in the house, which I don't cause I'm trying to lose weight. Okay, I have baby carrots and celery and cucumbers and fat free ranch veggie dip, but I don't want any of that right now; I want something salty and fattening and bad for me. Like Spicy Nacho Doritos. Though I'd settle for some dry roasted peanuts or macadamia nuts.

6. W.E. is awake and keeps breaking into silly noise-making spasms, which he wouldn't be doing if I was actually trying to sleep.

I think that's about it.

Tomorrow we get to run lots of errands, including renewing my car's registration, getting the safety inspection done, paying our utility bill (and overdue property taxes--which I could really go off about but won't), and going to the grocery store.

Now I'm starting to get sleepy so I will sign off.

More later.

WOOT!!!

I slept extra late this morning cause I was up extra late last night. Figuring I'd either spend the rest of the day playing Diablo II or watching C.S.I. and cross-stitching, I picked up my computer to check my e-mail first. And guess what was waiting for me?

Thank you for submitting your story to "Trail of Indiscretion." We enjoyed it and would like to use it in an upcoming issue. However, we'd like you to tweak one thing. [Here they tell me what they'd like me to tweak, which is a tiny little thing and I'm working on it right now.]

Anyway, if you're interested in letting us use your story, I believe the issue we'll use it in will be out (hopefully) in May. Let me know if that's acceptable for you.

Thanks,

WOOT!!!

I'm going to be PUBLISHED!!! In a real life, paper magazine!!!! Oh, and since the letter doesn't tell you which story it is, it's "Demon's Night Off." I wrote this story three years ago and have done one huge overhaul and several minor revisions since then. I've had many people help me with it, not the least Dr. S, my favorite creative writing teacher, the people at Critters, and various people at school. This will be my first ACTUAL publication, since Poetry.com things and the college's arts magazine don't really count. They pay in contributor's copies (2) and discounts on further copies if needed. So one will get bagged and boarded and the other waved around campus while I squeal and carry on.

One more for good measure: WOOT!!!!

More later.

More Submissions

I sent out another submission today, but this one is a little different. It's an actual scholarly, non-fiction article, a study of the patriarchal tendencies in Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country. I sent it to The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts; we'll see how that goes. Fingers crossed. If it gets accepted, it will look AWESOME on my resume.

More later.

Prezzies!

It's like Christmas in . . . well, December.

Today I gave some friends their presents:

It was my first time using a sewing machine. My camera sucks so the picture didn't come out well, but you get the idea. The front part of the pillow is a light blue that matches the clouds in the pattern, and the back is a gorgeous purple/red that matches the girl's dress.

In return, I got a picture of Johnny Depp. Unfortunately, the camera didn't take a great picture of that, either, so I found this one, which kind of looks like it:


Only mine is hand-drawn. Very nice. Drove W.E. nuts, of course, because he doesn't approve of my obsession with admiration of Mr. Depp.

I have a few other presents to hand out. This one is for my very favorite British Lit teacher, Dr. G, who, if you'll remember, taught me Old English over the summer:

It's a Miskatonic University Graduate Cthulhu plushie.

This one (when I finish it) will be for my favorite Creative Writing Teacher, Dr. S:

Because he has Huskies and this is the closest I could find.

For a friend of mine who loves dragons, a pair of dragon hatchling pewter models, the pictures of which (again) didn't come out, and for another friend of mine . . . well, she reads this blog so I can't say until she sees it on Tuesday. Let's just say she'll love it. Or she'd better (fierce glare).

This friend gave me this for Christmas:
Which I, admittedly, already own, but my first copy is buried in a box somewhere and I need this book for my Master's thesis, so YAY! Now I don't have to dig through boxes.

Phew! So all I have left on my Christmas wishlist is a PS3 and the 7th season of C.S.I. on DVD.
And any books anyone wants to buy me. (grin)

More later.

Here Goes Nothing

I just sent another query for Stars Without Name to the Donald Maas Literary Agency. Sending it to Mr. Maas effectively sends it to the entire agency. Jennifer Jackson, who works for DMLA, already rejected Stars but that doesn't mean that someone else at the agency won't be interested.

Fingers crossed.

More later.

Whine, Moan

Two of the three major projects are now turned in. Unfortunately, the third, which I thought was just going to need some minor revisions, is going to require a major rewrite.

We had peer reviews on the paper last night, and the teacher has decided that my "frame" or "lens" for my thesis isn't good enough. So she wants me to come at it from another angle. Which means I get to write a new thesis, a new outline, and eventually a new paper.

Have I mentioned that I hate this class? It's so difficult to write a paper that doesn't read like a report (one of her complaints) when I don't give a bloody damn about the subject I'm writing about. Honestly. This class is 19th Century British Literature. I'm a MEDIEVAL British Lit major. So really, I don't know much about the 19th century, nor do I care.

Grr.

More later.

It's Snowing!

Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera are dead. And now the snow's all melted. But it's still cold.

Sigh.

More later.

One Down

One major project finished, two to go.

And still no word from any more of the people I've submitted stories to, unfortunately.

Five more (school) days until Christmas Break.

In the meantime, enjoy this:


More later.

Almost Done

It's the last week of school. Here's the lineup of things I've got to get done:

Due Monday 12/3: 20-page journal-article type paper, plus all of the work toward this paper that I've done all semester, complied into a portfolio.
Also, to help my Linguistics class, I'm working on notes/worksheets that should help them and me study for the final exam.

Due Thursday 12/6: 6-page bibliographic survey plus notes on at least 15 sources dealing with the language shift from Old to Middle English.

Tuesday 12/11: Linguistics Final Exam

By Thursday 12/13: 10-15 page conference-style paper, annotated bibliography

For the first paper, I pretty much just have to compile the portfolio. The paper itself is done. For the conference paper, I've got to do some minor revisions on the paper itself; the big part of it is done. The part that's freaking me out is the Linguistics paper. I've got lots of sources, but I can't seem to make my brain focus on them enough to take notes. And I don't even really HAVE to understand all of it; the teacher says we're not expert enough in Linguistics for him to expect us to understand it (which is amazing for a grad school teacher). I keep trying to read, but I'm having trouble concentrating on even the easy articles.

On the plus side, I've started work on a new short story (which will probably be VERY controversial; it's pro-gun, pro-concealed carry), and Anotherealm should be posting their 2008 lineup soon, so I'll know if "Into the Black" was accepted for publication.

Here's hoping.

More later.