Catching Up

Well, I had a bit of a holiday from blogging, lazy me. But it just didn't seem like fun. Inspiration is a strange thing - sometimes I have it in buckets, other times not so much. And I'm terrified of the 'not so much' times - one of the reasons I'm not in a creative industry is that I can't abide the thought of building my life around inspiration only to one day, wake up with no ideas.

I enrolled for next semester's uni courses this morning, in an incredibly painful forty-five minute session in their online enrolment doover. I groaned, I wailed, I said "bugger." Not fun, kids.

My friends had a baby yesterday. Squee much? I went and bought him a book, and I'll probably mail it to them tomorrow, even though there is no way he'll be wanting to read it in the next two weeks before I get home and see them in person. It's a very cute book about puppy dogs. Also bought my littlest sister's Christmas pressie, but must be all shh on that front because it is a secret.

I'm hurriedly finishing this up now, because in about five minutes people will arrive to take me to Halloween at Movie World. Despite the fact that Halloween was actually yesterday. I'm sure it will be fun nonetheless. As far as I know, and despite my aunt's crazy schemes, we're not going costumed. Thank goodness.

Ooh, before I go, here be the cutest website in the world - the eLouai Doll Maker. I maded some dolls. It's addictive.

She's Baaaack...

Well, I'm back in the city ready to start another semester of uni on Monday. Flew outta Tullamarine yesterday, got here mid-afternoon and was fairly amazed by the bright shining thing up in the sky. Northern winters are ridiculously un-wintery :)
Reading Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, which I got at Koorong yesterday (11 dollars! Yay cheapness!) It's rather challenging and occasionally hilarious, which are both good things. Read Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith yesterday. I was on the holds queue at the library for ten months, and knocked the book over in five hours, but it was good nevertheless.
Tomorrow I'm reading... can you guess?
a) The Ultimate Guide to V8 Supercars
b) Watching Paint Dry and Other Amusing Hobbies (Possibly to do with Gardening)
c) Girly Girly Bad Chick-Lit
d) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Hmm...
Judging by the fact that last night I went out to The Big Shops to buy the most expensive piece of dark blue paper with stars on that I've ever owned, but that's okay because tomorrow they're going to let me swop it for Harry, I'd probably go with d).
Not that there's anything wrong with V8 supercars, paint, or gardening.
(Bad chick-lit is bad chick-lit, I'm afraid.)

Magic

So. Have worked on assignments, got writers' block, gone off and spent too much time at the Sims 2-related Place Which Must Not Be Named (pretty sure I can name it if I want to, I'm not in a paysite forum; I just like to call it that.) Yahr.
Then got guilty and went back and tried to work on my assignments some more and got writers block some more and played solitaire, badly, on the computer.
And this is just week 8.
My hair is acting like a bought one! Hooray! It so rarely plays by any kind of decent rules, this is worth posting about.
Went to the library with Grandma this morning and put four Fables tpbs and The Pinhoe Egg on hold. Fables because Dad bought one and I hate to be left out of these things (I've not quite forgiven Samurai Champloo yet) and because the whole concept sounds unbelievably cool. And it's been around for years. I have my head in the sand. And Egg because it's Diana Wynne Jones, and do I need any more reasons? I looooove Chrestomanci - I discovered DWJ after the Ghibli Howl's Moving Castle and never looked back but that shouldn't surprise anyone because I'm hugely obsessed with fantasy, especially fantasy for kids. I mean, I've re-read Narnia sooo many times (all of them. And Earthsea. And Tamora Pierce. And Harry Potter, and many more.)
And off on a different tangent again; I'm an avid reader of Harry Potter, but compare them to C.S. Lewis and poor Joanne Rowling doesn't have a leg to stand on. I mean, Dobby or Reepicheep? No contest. It'd be Reep every time, wouldn't it.
To think this post started with assignments.

Inconceivable

So. Firstly, prac was excellent today. Much, much better than last week. Partly because I'm not suffering PMT and partial catatonia, and partly because last week my prac teacher bailed me up and told me what I was doing wrong, so I could make an effort to right it today. I have a good prac teacher.

Secondly, after prac I had to run up to uni to hand in a hard copy, in hopes of rectifying the Stupid Assignment Mistake. Which is done. And I'm just glad it's done. And I'm hoping I don't fail. Because that would suck.

Lastly, Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.

I'm reading The Princess Bride.

Blindsight link

By the way, Blindsight is available here. I forgot to put the link in my last post and no matter how hard I try, I can't get blogger to include a new link while editing a post.

Gnurrh...

So on Tuesday I may have been mostly dead, but today I am genuinely corpsified. Prac today was exhausting. Plus I didn't sleep because I was stressing over arguing with my sister because I was stressed. Plus I've sort of been leaking tears since seven this morning, mainly feeling unloved and sorry for myself, after trying to argue with my sister again but not succeding because she was too sensible to let me. Sometimes I'm a wet hen. It's not fun.
At the moment I'm reading, after reasonable amounts of assignment work (the definition of 'reasonable' varying depending on whether I'm at a good bit or not):
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, which I picked up at the library for the title. Searching for a link online, I came across this, which Is Very Cool, because Dave McKean is amazing and shows that however I think I'm flying off on tangents my brain tends to end up in the same place. The book itself is less amazing - it's very meandering and dense. The first pages of the book were hard to get through because of his writing style (he's definitely not writing for ease of reading) but now I find myself wondering of subsequent chapters are more clearly written, of if I'm adjusting. But the three main proponents are, so far, wonderful.
Blindsight by Peter Watts, because it's for free of the internet and I don't read much sci-fi, so it's a nice change.

The Ladies have arrived

Hooray! My book has come from America (via home.) It's lovely, and I've read most of it. I especially love the story about Mr. Simonelli, and Charles Vess' beautiful illustrations. Big hooray.
Am still waiting for prac placements. This is not fun. On the other hand, am not waiting for Science assignment results - got them this afternoon. 13/15, which is not bad.

Huzzah!!!

Alleliua's Current Obsession is two whole weeks old. Let us celebrate with interpretive dance.

(Pause for interpretive dance.)

It's been a reasonable two weeks, on the whole. I knocked over an assignment, got a cool new book and sunnies, saw some family, did some sleeping (but not enough), and I made curry. I'm sure more happened than that. And it has been good, even if I've been eating out of vending machines too much (just because it's a time-honoured uni tradition doesn't mean it's good; actually, how many time-honoured uni traditions are good? Whining, complaining, getting drunk and leaving everything to the last minute are the uni traditions that spring to mind, and they are even worse than excessive ex-vending machine eats.) Hmm. And I really don't have a life, but I knew that already.

Plus, I read a bunch of Psalms, which is also good.

Sleepy Day

I spent most of today asleep, recovering from a busy weekend/beginning of week, and handing in my assignment. I think I did okay with that, by the way. Our display was killer, anyway.
Did fit in a trip to the library - I'm about a chapter from the end of Surprised by Joy and Les Miserables won't really go anywhere until I can give it my undivided attention, which pretty much means June, except then I'm supposed to write a VBS. But anyway, needed some books to read. So I picked up a couple of Tamora Pierce's books to re-read (am obsessed with young adult fiction, its so much better than most adult fiction) and one random novel, and put thirteen Terry Pratchetts on hold. I want to have read all the Discworlds.

'Pyromania is so often the handmaiden of innovation.'
So Yesterday, Scott Westerfield

Which is from the random novel, which was a perfectly good way to waste an afternoon.

let them eat cake

I made this cake and thought it looked so nice I should record it for posterity. It's chocolate, with chocolate icing and M&Ms mix-ups on top.




In other news, my science experiments are growing... These ones are cress.

I am consistently fascinated by this graffiti, at a train station in Brisbane. 'Water'... there's not much around at all, really. Then it gets me thinking about the train from Spirited Away, where the tracks are underwater... (I love that movie. It's my second favourite Ghibli film.)Not all graffiti is evil.

I'm reading C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy. It's not quite what I expected, but very good. And, my head nearly exploded with happiness yesterday when I realised what that Jars of Clay song I'm in the Way means. That one that goes

I'm in the way of fallin' down

I won't let you go that far now

Is talking about the fact that God literally stands between us and failure; that we can't be a Christian under our own power, but with Him, we can. At least, that's what I think it means. You never quite know with Jars.

Meaningful, Trivial, and Hyperventilating

In the spirit of this blog which is fast becoming apparent, today I bring you lots of pictures again. And the obsessions are:

Meaningful: Nehemiah. Isn't it shiny? I suspect it's because it's written in the first person, and because it's not a book of the Bible I've concentrated on a lot before. I found it much more dynamic than Esther, which I've read a few times. Very cool. Take a look. (And Ezra too.)

Trivial: My luvverly new Sim I made, Katina. She's a teen, and the only sim I've made in weeks that I'm happy with. I love her nose; it has character : )

here she is without makeup, and with makeup.

here she is, looking glam.

here she is, two different casual looks.

And, hyperventilating: my new book! (Mmm, hardback-a-licious...)

Basically, even I'm not touching it until I can get it covered: The slipcover is almost immaculate, which is a minor miracle in a book with a white cover. And now, the story of why I'm hyperventilating:

In Australia, sometimes we get bad editions of good books. Sometimes we don't, like the Ladies of Grace Adeiu, and sometimes we do, like Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, which only came out in a (rather expensive) paperback, without the cool transparent slipcover and the broken butterfly wings. With Good Omens, so far as I can tell, until recently everyone had to put up with a paperback. And then the new edition came out, with sexy variant covers that have the same ISBN. Which basically means that, if you order the book over the net or through a bookshop, it's lucky dip as to which cover you get. Borders Books here had the black cover; I wanted the white one. Plus, their copies were a bit dilapidated and yuk.

Luckily, I got a helpful staff member who pointed me to Pulp Fiction in Brisbane, who happened to have a copy with the white slipcover sitting on the shelf. So I bought it. It cost a bit more, but it's worth it to have the book with the cover I want, in decent condition. *squee* : )

Turns out I'm a lucky duck. Of the roughly 12 copies Pulp Fiction ordered in, only 2 were the white cover.

(Edited to add: So now I can give my held-together-with-contact-and-love paperback copy to my cousins, who I lent it to and then had to steal it back from.)