Writing and Writing

I wasn't able to complete the blogging every day for a month thing. I was out of town in a place where there was absolutely no internet or 3G on my phone. I was doing so well! The reason I went out to the middle of nowhere was to move my stuff to where I'm living now and have been living the past 9 months. For some reason or another things kept preventing me to get my things before. I had the opportunity last week and took it. My belongings aren't all here yet, but I've got most of them. I'm happy to have my photos, Harry Potter books, many other books, craft supplies and much more back.

I still want to continue to blog often. When I started this blog, I said that I wanted to update it at least once a week (I believe) if not more. I will be busy throughout this upcoming month, but I think I will have more interesting things to write about. Busy is one thing, but I will most definitely have internet and I think that is what is important.

A month of writing. Again. November 1st NaNoWriMo begins and I will probably start writing at midnight or in the early hours of the day. There are a lot of writing events going on and I am trying to figure out which I can go to. I have my basic story ideas written out, but there's a lot more I need to work on. The outline of the story came to me pretty fast in the middle of the night last week and I've written out the plot skeleton-majiggy. The hardest part for me has been figuring out names for my characters. I have been on name websites the past few days and haven't been able to find many I want to use. I still have six days left to figure that out.

Failed

So, I didn't post a blog yesterday. I have been super busy and it slipped my mind. I'm still going to try continuing as much as I can.

I'm going on a mini roadtrip (3 1/2 hours) today. Up to the land of Breckenridge! That's where my dad lives along with most of my stuff.

I think the most exciting thing (besides hanging out) will be staying in my old room for the week. I'm going to be going through a lot of my things and figuring out what I'm taking with me this trip. All of my photos! My movies! My PS2!

I've barely got any sleep in the past few days so it's going to be nice to hop into my old bed.

Zoe and I had adventures this weekend. We kicked it off with quidditch at UT. It was so much fun! I think I will be going there often. They even had a Harry Potter themed concession stand. I had butterbeer and chocolate wands.

Then yesterday I went to pick up the free pumpkin ice cream I won from Amy's. So tasty! Today I got a giant tempura fish taco from Fuzzy's. Also really tasty!

I'm crazy sleepy right now and it's hard staying awake. I feel like taking a nap here outside. The weather is amazing right now.

October 14th

Oops! 11:58! BloG! I went to quidditch tonight! It was awesome!!!

October 13th

I almost forgot about blogging today! So this is really last minute. I'm going to be pretty busy for the next week and hopefully I'll have time to continue this.

Watched Bridesmaids tonight! It was pretty hilarious. We were laughing so hard pretty much the whole way through. The recent movie choices have been really good.

Tomorrow Zoe comes over. We're going to go watch a quidditch match. Snuff Box DVD also comes in the mail tomorrow so we will have a little viewing party.

Hopefully everything goes well this week with my plans and I can get some things done that I really need to.

October 12th

Working on a few portfolios tonight. Hopefully I will have a basic website uploaded in the next few days. The hard part for me seems to be compiling and categorizing all of these things. I keep organizing and losing certain folders. I don't know how I'm doing this, but somehow it keeps happening. So, before anything else, I must get all of these files in the same general area on my computer.

I wish my printer didn't run out of ink within like 5 minutes. I need to print some things out and make some poster type things. Also, I should have a hard copy of my portfolios. There isn't any black ink! Why? That's what I need the most! Hopefully I will be able to get a better quality printer some time soon.

This is going to be another short blog, because I have about a million things open on my computer that I need to get done. At least I'm still doing this!

October 11th

Conventions! I am going to be doing photography at Austin Comic Con in November and SXSW in March. I may do photography for San Diego Comic Con next year, as I plan on already being in California for VidCon. The only one I'll actually be paying for is VidCon, but I'll probably still take a bunch of photos and videos. Maybe I'll throw a couple more local conventions in there too. It's going to be really convention-y.

I'm excited to actually get a SXSW badge this year. I've been going to the free parties for the last 5 years or so, I'm always without a badge. I just need to figure out where I'm going to crash for about 10-11 days. All I need is a floor to sleep on and a shower. There are a few people downtown that may be able to help me out with that though. It would also be nice to find a place to stay during Austin Comic Con, but I think I'll just have to journey there for the four days. Not too much of a problem though, because it's only about 20 minutes to get downtown anyway.

October 10th

Ideas for my NaNoWriMo novel are brewing in my head. I don't think it's going to be as hard to do as I thought the first time I tried. Last time I tried to write a novel in November, I kept changing the entire story. I would get a little bit done, then I would go back and rewrite pretty much everything. I'm just going to go with it this year. I want to see what can come out of my brain. What is probably going to happen is a lot of coffee and writing at night, then turning in to half zombie mode during the day. Lately I have been really committed to writing and finishing projects.

Earlier this year I tried doing the 365 photo thing and it lasted 35 days. The photos I took would tell something about the day, to me at least, I don't think I did too well at captioning. I really wish that I could try it again, but I really don't think I could do it every day for a year. Taking photos every day isn't a problem for me, it's just uploading them daily. Things happen in life sometimes where you just don't have the time to do it. Also, I usually end up leaving photos on my camera for a few weeks. It was hard for me to finish because I was just starting college and was extremely busy.

I can't wait until I can start college again. It's all really up to the math portion of the placement test that for some reason I have to take again. Ugh, I hate the process of transferring. I wish that all schools had the same tests and stuff so it would be easier. I also wish that my old school would have actually put all of my scores on the official transcript. There is no real reason to feel so stressed about things though, I have to take the test no matter what. Random panic attacks are never good, I keep telling myself it's something I shouldn't worry too much about. So, I will get that done this week if I can find a way there. Here's to hoping that I will have transportation!

Two weeks until Brandi's birthday! Three weeks until Halloween! Four weeks until I can register for college! Mondays are apparently where it's at.

Here's the unfinished 365 project I was talking about http://www.flickr.com/photos/momhe/sets/72157623001126547/

October 9th

Submarine was a really good movie. It makes me feel creative and want to start making short films again. The film was beautiful, it was really nice to see a style that looked different from every other movie out there right now. It was funny in a different way too, subtle funny, but usually that's funnier to me than completely out there funny. It's good to see a movie like that, most of the time I just watch random stuff on Netflix.

This weekend I watched Night Watch, which was kind of trippy, but an interesting movie, wasn't bad. I didn't really read the description beforehand, I guess, but I really didn't think it was going to be a vampire movie. The whole thing didn't really seem like it was one of those vampire-y movies though, if that makes sense at all. Apparently it's the first in a series and I'm kind of interested in the others, so I might check them out, but none of them are on Netflix instant. Then I watched I Saw The Devil, which wasn't bad either, but it was really long and it was pretty gory. It actually had a pretty creepy storyline. I find things that could actually happen scarier than the fantasy type horror films. Still, I didn't think the movie was too scary. Maybe I've just lost the ability to get freaked out by movies. I think the creepiest movie for me is still Cape Fear... the Robert DeNiro version. Stalkers always give me the heebie jeebies!

I also finished Torchwood: Miracle Day. I'm happy I actually felt like finishing that season, because I was so uninterested in the first half. Everything really came together in the end and I thought it was pretty good. Nothing made much sense until the last three or four episodes. I think it could have been a little more interesting at the end. I'm not giving any spoilers, but the whole blessing wasn't as exciting as I was hoping. The very end of the show was actually pretty cool, although it was pretty predictable. Most of the last episode was predictable for me though. The only thing I really don't like is the whole Starz involvement in all of it, I really wish it was just BBC. The new characters turned out to not be as bad as I first thought they all were. Still, I just want them to go back to Wales!

I have some ideas for my next vlog, YouTube video, whatever it turns out to be, but I don't know when I will actually be able to film it. The house is pretty crowded, it's raining outside (so that's not really an option) and I have to keep studying for the math test. This video is going to take a bit more work than my previous videos and I'm actually going to upload it in HD. I'm going to take the extra time, which really just means leaving my computer on for like two hours to upload. So, yeah, the uploading could be going on when I'm doing other things. The actual filming may take a little while though. I think I may just do a short video this week, because I want to do something and then do the other one the week after or something.

Pretty sure the upcoming week is going to bring a spurt of creativity. I have really needed it for a long while and I have been wondering where it has gone. In the past week or so I have been writing in my actual journal about two pages a day, along with writing here. It's a bit different in there, it's the really random ranting that I just like to write out and not really make public. There aren't any super secret things inside, I just like having a place I can write to myself. I really don't read it back too often, maybe every couple of years. I have mountains (okay, small mountains) of used notebooks from journals past. I probably have about 35, I would guess. They're all in boxes now and it's been a pretty long time since I last read any of them. I think it would be interesting to look back at teenage me. That would probably scare me more than any of these horror movies I've been trying to watch.

October 8th

It finally rained! Really rained, not just little sprinkles. It was cold rain too! I'm now sitting here in pajamas and a hoodie trying to warm up, even if I did go walking in it a few hours ago, I'm still cold. The rain has stopped now, but it's supposed to continue on and off for the next few days. Finally I will be able to drink the hot chocolate that's been in my pantry. All I have drank today (besides a glass of water) is coffee. About 6 cups of coffee at least. I'm not even feeling hyper or anything. I'm actually kind of sleepy.

Yesterday I visited a cemetery. It wasn't creepy like I was hoping for it to be though. I am trying to find some really creepy places. Last year for my birthday, my sister took me on a haunted tour of Austin. We started at a tree and the guide told a story about someone dying under it or something. It didn't seem to scary, there was just a kid playing in it while we were there and it was funny because the lady started telling the really gory story and the kid's dad had to take him somewhere else to play. Then we went off to some old building that used to be a funeral home or something and a photography studio later on. We went around to the Driskill, the Omni, Buffalo Billiards and some other places. It was entertaining, but all in all it wasn't scary. As you can tell, I'm not the best at remembering all of the details of the stories the tour guide lady told.

Tonight I'm going to watch Richard Ayoade's film Submarine with my sister and I think it will be good. I think I will probably have more to write about tomorrow when I'm warm.

October 7th

The Weather Channel is telling me it's going to rain for the next week. I don't know if I'm going to believe that. Yesterday I felt only a little bit of a mist. It's been so dry here this summer. We have watering restrictions and the lakes are beginning to dry up. We had (I believe) about 3-4 months of constant 100+ degree weather. I'm ready for it to be cold. I need to find a good coat this year.

I am about to look up haunted places to go to today so the spooky adventures will begin. I still can't find my list of places that I've compiled. No idea where we are going to go today, but hopefully it will be creepy. I haven't been scared by much in the past couple years. Horror movies don't scare me at all anymore like they used to. I guess I've had too many real life creepy experiences to be scared by movies.

One night I was lying in bed, awake, staring at the ceiling in the dark. All of the sudden I heard the front door open and slam. My dog, who would normally bark at things like that, lifted his head and stayed completely still, eyes wide open. My heart started beating fast, I thought someone in my house got in a fight or there was an emergency. All of the sudden I heard the beads at the beginning of the hallway. It sounded like someone or something ran at full force through them. Then there was a running noise. It sounded like a large dog. It stopped at my bedroom door and I could hear something breathing. My dog and I stared silently at each other. The running continued to the back room and then it disappeared at the end of the hallway. I decided to get up, I walked out and saw nothing. My dog was right behind me, not making any noise. The door was locked, nothing was inside. My dad and stepmom were asleep. I asked them in the morning and they said they heard nothing.

That's one of those things I can't explain. A lot of those types of things have happened to me in my life.

October 6th

Today is full of cleaning. I'm going through all of my stuff I have here and organizing. I have about 30 pieces of mail from different colleges, I don't exactly know what I'm going to do with all of that yet. I'm trying to figure out a good way to use the limited amount of space I do have. I need a bookshelf or something, but I don't know where I would even put that. I only have a little bit of my stuff here, which is crazy, because it seems like so much in a little area. My bedroom at my old house wasn't very big, but somehow I was able to fit everything into that small space. I don't know what I'm going to do when I eventually move all of my things here. I think I have a problem with collecting things. I have a lot of random stuff, that's why I'm having to go through so much right now. I need to see what I want to keep and what it's time to part with.

It's slightly sprinkling rain outside right now. I think it's one of those days I just feel like cuddling up underneath a blanket, listening to music and reading. Maybe I will go for a walk later, but right now I just want to be inside.

I haven't had much to write about today or yesterday. I'm hoping that will change, it's just hard thinking about writing right now, because I have so many other things I'm trying to think about and figure out.

October 5th

Today was much better than yesterday. It began with a picnic with Levi and then I went to see The Lion King 3D with Zoe. Now I'm sitting here with Brandi watching a South Park marathon.

I really don't know what to write about right now, so I've gone to the prompts on NaBloPoMo and found, "What vacation spot to you return to again and again?" The answer to that is San Francisco. I always go back to San Francisco, because it seems like so many places in one. It's beautiful there and the weather is perfect. I love just sitting at the parks, watching people and their dogs, enjoying the fresh air. Japantown is one of my favorite districts there, I always have fun going through the malls and dollar stores. I always end up buying too many bento boxes and supplies, snacks, or crafty things, but they're all $1-$1.50! There isn't anywhere around Austin I could find things like that (except for the snacks - MT Market!) especially at the price they are in Japantown. I also love just walking around the entire city. I don't think I would drive at all if I lived there, I would use the bus when I needed to, but most of the time I believe I would be walking. All it really takes is a good pair of shoes. Plus I would be able to wear layers all the time! I always feel homesick when I come back home from San Francisco. One day I will live there.

October 4th

An anxiety attack prevented me from taking my test today, but I am going to get it done next week. I went back home and passed out for a very long time, woke up still wearing my shoes, which really hurt after sleeping in. My dream was pretty interesting though. I was around railroad tracks and caves and I was on a mission to find Draco Malfoy. Apparently he was running some type of chemical plant. I found Crabbe, he was a zombie living in a cave and he was very angry and on a diet. He came out of the cave and walked to an outdoor fridge... the place looked like a dump. He was making a plate of salad and tomatoes for himself and he kept getting angrier and angrier at me because I was asking him some things. I tried not to ask too many questions and I wasn't going to let him know that I was looking for Draco. I left the cave area and found out that it was right behind Draco's plant! I walked to the front and started to plan on how I was going to get inside to stop him from doing whatever he was doing. I saw him walk outside and talk to a few guys wearing black jumpsuits. Then I woke up. I was really sad to wake up at this point, because I had gotten very close to being inside Draco's plant.

Right now, my crazy neighbors across the street are yelling. The lady is on the phone with her husband, she doused all of his stuff in lighter fluid and had a baseball bat. It's pretty scary. Tonight will probably be the 4th time I've called the cops on them. She was going to light all of his things on fire, which is a bad idea anyway, but lately we have had so many fires around here that you're not supposed to even grill. I'm hoping my house won't be on fire tonight because this lady is mad at her husband who is apparently cheating on her with, "A lady that looks like a drunk old man." I admit that I kind of like spying on the neighbors, but it's because they're doing all of this outside and I'm trying to figure out what is going on with multiple neighbors so I can bust them. I'm obviously not going to "bust" them myself, I'm just waiting until I know enough to get the cops out here to investigate more. What we're thinking is that they're selling, and possibly growing drugs. It's all pretty weird.

Oh, and part of my tooth broke tonight. It was pretty painful. Today just doesn't seem like the best of days and I'm hoping for tomorrow to be better.

October 3rd

Today is a busy day. It's the last time for me to study before my math test tomorrow morning. I'm nervous, but I'm ready to get it over with. I'm also hoping that I don't have to take it again and it will be finished for good tomorrow. Trying to stay optimistic about this. Math just really isn't my thing. It's not that I am completely horrible at it altogether, it's just that it's hard for me when it's on a test. My interest in it is pretty low. If I pass, I'll be all ready for college. If I don't pass, I'll have to retake it again until I do well enough. The annoying thing about it is that I've taken the placement test to get into college before and I was able to get into my classes, but now that I have transferred, I have to do the math all over again. Also, three classes I have already taken may not transfer over either, so I'm going to have to try to work that out with the school so I don't have to retake those as well. I shouldn't have to, since I did get 100% in all of them. This is all because the classes I took were 3 credit hours and not 4, my new school needs them to be 4 credit hours, and my old school now changed them over to 4 credit hour classes. I'm just confused on why I took 3 credit hour classes. I'm confused about a lot of this because my old school didn't even send over my complete transcript. Tomorrow I will go over and talk to the Visual Arts department and try to sort everything out. Anyway, I think that's enough ranting about that subject.

Between studying math, in my little breaks, I am going to send out some emails that I have been meaning to for a while. I need to get permission to use some photos in my photography and design portfolios from some people. It's been taking me a bit to get my portfolios together and up on to my website. Hopefully now I can actually do that, because last week my website was hacked and now it should be fixed. I also need to send my revised project plan to a place that I am going to raise some money for. I'll write the details of that project later, but right now it's still in the beginning and probably won't be ready until at least the end of November.

There are a lot of things on my list to get done and I am hoping to cross a bunch off my list in the next couple weeks. This means I need to make a bunch of coffee!

October 2nd

Last night we finished watching Lie To Me (the Korean dramedy, not the Tim Roth show) and it was awesome! I'm usually not into that many love stories, but I really enjoyed this one. It was funny and it would make twists and turns. I was rooting for certain people to be together and I was mad at other people. It was really pretty fun to watch, but I don't know what to watch now that it's over! I guess I should probably catch up on Doctor Who, since I'm only halfway through the first season with Matt Smith. Recently (as in the past year or so) I've gotten way more into TV shows than I ever have before. I haven't ever been too big on watching TV and I still can't ever catch anything when it's actually airing, but I can watch an entire series in a flash if I'm really into it. I have to catch up Torchwood: Miracle Day, as I have only seen about 5 of the episodes so far. I kind of lost interest, but I think I'm finally ready to try watching the rest. I also need to finish season 7 of Weeds. Oh, and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia started again. I guess I do have a lot more to watch!

I made a list of seasons of shows I have finished watching so far this year (if they don't have seasons marked next to them, that means I've watched ALL of them):

Weeds - Seasons 1-6

Futurama - Seasons 1-2

Stella

Pushing Daisies

Game of Thrones

Torchwood - Seasons 1-3

The IT Crowd

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 1

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Lie To Me

That's a lot of shows for me and I'm sure it won't be the final list of the year. I keep lists like this for all the movies I've seen too. At the end of the year I usually look back at all of them and do some short reviews. I have watched a lot less movies this year than I did last year, probably less than 50 not in theaters and about 12 in theaters. I think last year I was somewhere around 150 movies, which I am not even sure how that happened. I think my favorites out of the movies I have seen this year are A Town Called Panic, The Fall, Eagle vs. Shark and Everything Is Illuminated.

Today and tomorrow I have to seriously study for a math test that I have to take Tuesday morning. It has really been stressing me out, but I think I am starting to feel a little bit better about it. I'm just ready to start school again!

October 1st

I am now going to attempt to blog every day in October!

October is my favorite month and Fall is my favorite season. It really doesn't seem like Fall to me until October begins. There's a slight change in weather here in Central Texas, we're not getting over 90 this week and hopefully from now on. The leaves don't change like other places, but you can definitely tell the season by the cooler breeze. I think it's 74 degrees right now and the Weather Channel is saying tonight it will be 54, which has me excited.

This time of year I think a lot about Halloween, because it's my favorite holiday. I have compiled a list of creepy places to go this month and the Netflix queue now has a good amount of horror movies. Somehow I have lost the list of places, but I remember quite a few. First is the witch's grave in Liberty Hill. I have been to the cemetery before, but I haven't found the grave yet. Second is Jacob's Bridge, which is supposed to be this haunted bridge where you will see hand prints on your car and your car will move across it. I don't know if I actually found the real location of that one though, because the internet shows me two. Third is the Joppa Bridge, it's supposed to have TROLLS underneath it. It always makes me laugh thinking about it and I think it will be entertaining. Those were all I remembered, I'll have to do a search for my list or look up some more places again.

I'm going to document the trips with photos, writings and I will be using one of those cheesy ghost finder apps that are probably just giving out random readings. I have had some creepy experiences that I can't explain in the past and I think I will be writing more about them in the upcoming month.

Today begins with a horror movie marathon!