Oh What an Overcast Morning . . .

At last at last at last we are in our flat. The bad news? No internet & no phones. At least not until sometime later this week. Apparently the snow threw off everybody's schedules . . . the damage a few inches of snow can do. (This is coming from someone who's lived in the New York/New England area most of her life).

At least other things have been taken care of - paying for rent, moving in, and finding the proper adapter for my laptop. Woohoo. Now if only my iPod would work. XP

This is now the time for me to start planning for trips, before the chaos of classes, work and interning overloads my brain. Already I know I'll be going to Edinburgh on the school-sponsored tour in April, my family and I will travel during to Scotland during my spring break, and I'll probably arrange a trip over the Easter weekend. I love that Easter will be a 4-day weekend. But I don't know yet if I'll be able to fit in several locations in Scotland into that one trip, or if I have to narrow it down to one or two. In any case, it looks like most of my travels will take place later in the semester. I'll have to run that by my professor to make sure that will be suitable.

A lot of people seem to be stressing out about school work and travel already. And it's the first day! I will very likely be among them soon, but all the same, I want stress to be at a low for this semester. That doesn't mean I won't work hard - we've been told that grading standards will be higher here - but I also want to enjoy London. So I'll plan as much ahead as I can to keep stress at a minimum, however impossible that may prove to be.

Still no feedback on my latest chapter. I can't say I don't know what it's like to be on the other end - the reader who is reluctant to leave feedback either because she is not sure where to start critique-wise or is too lazy to really assess how she feels about the story. I've read a number of stories where I've not bothered to review on way or another, but I'm trying to break that habit. As a writer, I fear that the lack of reviews indicates that I need to push further and do more reworking to get the story where it needs to be. BUT real life obligations often outweigh indepedent pursuits in terms of priority.

I might gain more momentum once I actually start working on the other project that accompanies this one. And by working, I mean writing legitimate chapters that I would not be embarrassed to post on ff.net. Or deviantart. I was originally planning to go with the latter, but now that there's a crossover section in the former, I might opt for FF simply because the story won't be floating around in "writers' limbo" on an art site.



"Now I'm trapped under the cart . . ." - Les Miserables (1998)

Good Morning, Sunshine! Or Snow . . .

A brief word:

Today when I went to my dad's bank to get travelers checks for my upcoming trip, I saw a TV screen flashing some random bits of news on various subjects. One newsflash said that excited scientists believe that they will be able to locate Earth-like planets in the next few years.

Yeah, just like when my parents keep promising that we'll go to Paris 'next' summer. I'm not holding my breath.

It's coming down to crunch time and I feel rather unprepared. Which is bad, but I'm not ready to freak out yet. Right now we're figuring out if I need to buy my books for my independent study now and carry 20+ pounds of books on the plane, or wait to rent them from the library or have them sent from home to London once I'm there. Some of the books I know I can get at any library or bookstore - novels, mostly. The others my mom hopes she can order from Amazon and have sent to me overseas - the main question is the extra cost for shipping.

I've also been reviewing my independent study proposal, which now appears more daunting than a few months ago. Guh. I'm to conduct a study of Scottish history and research family history and somehow fit the two together. It'll mostly be what my advisor calls a "culture shock" experience. But as intimidating as it still seems, I really am excited about exploring the countries (Britain as well as Scotland) of my ancestors. I feel I've had more contact with British culture than Scottish culture, so the latter will be more new and maybe more of a challenge to take in.

But, for now, I'll focus on the immediate present. Right now we're all watching a movie about Florence Nightingale starring Jacelyn Smith, Timothy Dalton, and the ever lovely, ever wonderful Jeremy Brett. I don't really know anything about the historical figure, but the movie portrays her as a young woman who wishes to be more than a lady of high society and eventually pursues her passion to help the poor by practicing medicine. It's kinda of an age-old story by contemporary standards, but I'm becoming more and more aware of how challenging it can be to pursue one's dreams. It's more than just dreaming about them, but about going out there and finding opportunities to fulfill them. That takes an amazing amount of courage. Go, Flo, go! And give Dalton a good mack from me. ;D

Anyway, I'm figuring out if I can do anything on here regarding my stories. I have still more fiddling to do with the blog.


"D. It is written" - Slumdog Millionaire

Now for something completely different . . .

All right, let me get this over and done with. Ready? This is for my sis:

BANANA HAMMOCK!

(I'll give a hundred virtual cookies to anyone who gets the reference.)

Greetings and welcome to "The Drafty Corner", my new and first blog. Why have I created a blog? No real reason, to be honest. I suppose the main one is that as a writer-to-be, I should force myself to write something - even if it's completely inane and meaningless - every day. My other lame excuse is that come next Monday, I will be traveling to and studying in London for a semester. So it'll be good for me to have a means of recording any experiences I want to keep a record of. We'll see how that all pans out, though.

I also hope to use this blog as a way to keep track of my creative projects, which will hopefully gain momentum in the time to come. I'll more than likely just jot down some thoughts here and there, but I may also consider posting some stories or artwork on here, depending on how busy and optimistic I am. ;)

All right, I'll wrap this up for today since my sister keeps distracting me and my grandmother just arrived to spend a week with us. Ciao.