Wow, today was the first day back at school. It was pretty crazy. We had some trouble with exits and I forgot some important stuff at home (Blegh) but at least I’m moved in. It’s funny how a room with falling apart ceiling tiles, an unhinged closet door and a light whose casing is coming off can suddenly turn into a human habitation, particularly with a little help from feng shui. I basically just follow one rule: the command position rule. I tried a series of other arrangements on my little pieces of graph paper, but I decided on this one. Right now, I am typing on the one piece of furniture that I hadn’t counted on: another desk. It isn’t as feng shui, the back is facing the door, but then again, for the location of the majority of my non-feng shui items (electronics) it seems strikingly fitting. The other desk is supposed to be clear, but for the time being it is monopolized by my art history books which I decided to take a crack at before beginning the class on Tuesday. I am still worrying about getting into Graphic Design on Monday, so everyone keep it in your prayers. I know it’s silly, but I really want to graduate on time, so it is becoming pretty important. Also on the surface is my desk fan, which is a little black one that I borrowed from the basement. I think I might have to resort to my box fan as the prognosis for my room is going to be hot, hot, hot for the rest of the year. Ironic since every time I walk outside I am going to have to put on three of four layers. Sometimes you wonder if its worth it to take on and off all those layers every time you come into a room. You think, “Blah, I’ll just freeze.” Freezing isn’t as much fun as it’s cut out to be, though. Then I have a copy of Twilight, which I am still finishing, the daylight light lamp for easier reading, some pens, a stapler, address book, pencils and a student planner.

Outside of moving in, I also went to Casino night. I should have done some gambling, but I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to do it. It was a pretty fun time anyway. I got to see Kate, Lindsey and Richard, who I haven’t seen in a while and they were all pretty amusing. I also got to spend some time with Ali and Steph. Jordan came with us, too, but she pretty much drifted off to hang out with her friends from Evenston. I don’t blame her. We were being boring: games are more fun.

I think that I might go to Slackerz tomorrow. It’s a gaming store down the street. I am going to try and see if there are any gaming groups out there. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find one.

I'll see if I can take some pictures of my room tommorow. I am somewhere being tired and awake, which makes me listless I suppose. We'll see what happens.

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Living your life can bring many things

many with the fear and tears that it brings

fear about losing and gaining and feigning

the emotions they bring to our lives.

But mostly they're just excess, excess in progress

and none of them matter in time.

There are two things to worry, there are two things to care

about whether they're gone or whether they there

And those they tell in the gospel:

One is to love God, more than the rest

but after it's love them, 'cause none is the best.

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Last night, I went to the Stephenie Meyer book talk at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. I have always been a fan of book talks, not always book talk of people I've hear of either. Actually, I have an offal habit of showing up to book talks that I really should have known more about. Like Eragon for instance. I had heard that Eragon was a big sucess. I had heard that he was speaking that night and I had heard that he was an interesting person to listen to, so I went to the book talk. He was a good speaker and I'm glad I went (I have a signed copy of Eragon, now), but I felt sort of silly coming up to the signing table and saying, "well, no. I haven't read you book, but I will!" I still haven't finished the book. *slams head against wall.* This time, I did at least read half of the first book before I went.

This one, reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter premiers: where everyone dresses up and answers Harry Potter trivia or just randomly quizzes you on it, just to see if your a real fan. I fail miserably. All kinds of people at the talk were bearing t-shirts saying stuff like "Edward, I love you!" and "Jacob, pick me!" and stuff like that. Some of them were pretty cute, some were pretty funny. I started to wonder what it would be like to be a fan convert. Simultaneously, as I was sitting in that folding chair, midway between the front and the very back taking in the sights and sounds, I had to admit that I didn't quite feel like I belonged here.

I took a seat next to a couple of nice people from Chicago. They told me about their trip across the United States, the girl told me a little about her school and it was very interesting. The time passed easily for me.

As for the crowd, they were only waiting because they were forced to. Coming there early didn't mean the festivities hadn't begun. They talked and joked and pointed and laughed racously. A couple of girls from the Twlight series fan club kept running up and down the isle telling everyone to "shh!! they're going to kick us out!" They bonded. The time stretched on and the tension in the room mounted exponentially. The hands on my watch finally pointed to seven, the doors opened and... she came in.

A wall of screams hit the little bookstore like a nuke hitting hiroshima. You could almost swear that the books covered their ears along with me at that moment, whimpering in terror as the words were blasted from their pages and sent away, burnt and melting, into a sudden darkness. A group in the back of the crowd began to chant, "Ed-ward! Ed-ward! Ed-ward!" The author gazed around timidly, waving as she found her way to her seat. They introduced her, they asked us which 'camp' we were in: Edward or Jacob and the excitement around this 'much debated issue' called for another round of screaming. A stainglass breaking whine sprung from the inexpert choir of girls, all trying vainly to be sopranoes. They loved it. They owned it. They probably would have screamed all day if they thought it was appropriate. I'm glad they had fun. Unfortunately, I've never been much of a screamer. "It's a lot like getting drunk" I thought dispondantly, "It's only fun when you're doing it."

The author, with an expression of someone who is trying to compliment a bad dish, skipped her "talk" and went straight to questions. It was the usual string of questions: what is your advice to young writers?, why did you do X in book X? What will happen in the new book? What is your writing process? The answers were dolled out dutifully and then the signings began.

Numbers ranged 1-50, line up. Numbers ranged 51-100 line up, etc and so forth until they filed us all through the assemlby line and we were permitted to flit out of the doors.

That was it. I came to a book talk, attended a rock concert and came out of a book signing. I walked out and phoned my mom to tell her why I was so late. She asked if I had fun. Yeah, I said, sure, it was fun. I had met some interesting people from Chicago after all. So yeah, I had fun. It was just an interesting experience.

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I was reading Twilight today. After my other Blog entry about the other book in its series, Eclipse I decided to be a good reviewer and actually go out and buy the book. There is a part of it where the main character gets lost and runs into some sketchy folks. They turn out to be really sketchy, and they try and to jump her before she saved by her vampiric beau. It was strange though, when it got there, I just didn’t get it. This is the part I'm talking about:

“I started to realize, as I crossed another road, that I was going the wrong direction. The little foot traffic I had seen was going north, and it looked like the buildings here were mostly warehouses. I decided to turn east at the next corner, and then look around after a few blocks and try my luck on a different street on my way back to the boardwalk.

A group of four men turned around the corner I was heading for, dressed too casually to be heaving home from the office, but they were too grimy to be tourists. As they approached me, I realized they weren’t too many years older that I was. They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other’s arms. I scooted as far to the inside of the sidewalk as I could to give them room, walking swiftly, looking past them to the corner.”

At this point, I thought, “Well that was stupid! She could have asked them for directions!!!!” I read the whole section up through where they tried to jump her and I thought, “Wow… I totally didn’t see that coming.” I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I see that coming?” That, I have decided is a complex question.

First, these four men were “dressed too casually to be heaving home from the office, but they were too grimy to be tourists.” When you work at a warehouse, you don’t wear really nice clothes like you would wear working at an “office” job. That’s because, in the mix of pigment, salt, the dust on the paper rolls or whatever else you run into, the clothes are grungy. Then when those are stained, you aren’t exactly going to go out and buy new clothes, right? Thus, they aren’t tourist or office workers, they are warehouse workers. Would you expect any differently?

Second, “As they approached me, I realized they weren’t too many years older that I was.” Great! You have sometime in common. If are a good looking girl and there are a bunch of boys about your age lying around, ask THEM for directions! They will point out the streets, draw you a map and even walk you there if you let them. I was lost practically every day I was in Germany. This is a well tested fact.

Last, “They were joking loudly among themselves, laughing raucously and punching each other’s arms.” To me, that means, “Wow, would you look at that, they are having a good time!” I don’t GET the punching arms thing, but it means that you are one of the guys. I was walking down the hall with one of my D&D buddies one day in high school and he punches me in the arm. I look at him and I’m like, “Ow!” He blushed, looked very flustered and replied, “Sorry, I forgot…” As far as the laughing raucously, all kinds of folks laugh raucously. My RA and I laughed raucously at this documentary that we were watching. We got a noise complaint.

There was only one time when I ever felt really nervous about someone in that way. I was in Germany (lost again) and I managed to get on the bus going entirely the wrong direction. I ended up at the end of the bus line and the bus driver said that I had to get off. I didn’t want to because there was a sketchy guy sitting on the bench glowering at everything, but there was no arguing with him. I got off with my colorful tourist junk and sat on the other end of the bench from him, staring out at the street, trying not to be too bothersome.

He continued to glare and smoke and smoke and glare. He almost looked like a part of the bench, his long jacket so worn that it looked like it had become partly tar. The stubble on his chin sprouted erratically in his ashen face. He scooted a little further away from me. I think that was what hurt most. There was something distinctly elegant about him, but I could tell that he didn’t like me. I looked at him once and then looked back at the road, chewing at the insides of my lip. I wanted to know how long it would be, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him. Finally I bucked up my courage and asked, I think it was in some abhorrent German, when the bus was going to come back around. He shot me a glare.

“The driver has to have lunch. He’ll be back to go the other way in about thirty minutes,” he told me in English. I smiled, but his face remained closed. So, I sat on the end of the bench and wrought my fingers until the bus finally showed back up to take me back down the line. I got on the right bus and finally got back to the place I was staying very late. As you may have guessed, I didn’t have a scratch on me.

Now tell me honestly, am I naive? Should I have seen this twist in the plot coming? Or is this all a misunderstanding? In the end, it means that there is one of two lessons that we can learn from this. 1. I really need to be a little more careful. 2. When your lost, you should really just ask for directions.

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Well, I had a little bit of a rough day today. Thank goodness it's Friday, right? So, we got me some soulfood! Aka: chinese food. Albeit, americanized chinese food complete with MSGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (well not anymore, but heck, so long as it tastes good.) So having that perfectly lovely diversion, I cloistered myself in the study and pulled up my most recent Borders "shortlist" which tells me all the 'what's what' about books these days. It's like the tabloids except for books! It also is only one page long and doesn't spread gossip (coincidence! I think NOT!). So, I pulled up a recliner and watched the "Borders Book Club" in which author Stephenie Meyer talks about her latest book "Eclipse" which, accroding to the Wall Street Journal is perparing to 'Eclipse' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the bestsellers list! OMW! Well, I couldn't listen to the whole interview because they kept on talking about the previous two books Twilight and New Moon and I actually want to read them now, but what she was saying , which was very interesting was not worry about publishing. Writing is the fun part. If you write then you are a writer. If you want to publish a book, then you are... well not. This strikes a direct contrast to another writer who I saw at the Tatter Cover a month or so ago. She said that she actually doesn't like writing, but already she's written twelve or so books and makes her living as a columnist. I guess it takes all kinds, doesn't it. What this woman and Stephenie Meyer say is very important, though. On the one hand, you shouldn't feel like your literary destiny should come to a halting stop just because you don't really want to write your book today. Books don't get done if you don't write them and writing them is work. On the other hand, there is no sense holing yourself up in your basement composing the great american novel when all you really want to do is go around the country and talk to people. For me what it meant was that I wanted to go back and read my story.

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Cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

(picture deleted to failure to link. Read http://www.seraph-inn.com/index.html on the most recent page to see)

*sniff* *tear*

(Case for the ninja! From the Anthology of Japanese Literature: complied by Donald Keene)

After the death of his wife

"Since in Karu lived m wife,

I wished to be with her to my heart's content;

But I could not visit her constantly

Because of the many watching eyes-

Men would know of our troth,

Had I sought her too often.

So our love remained secret like a rock-pent pool;

I cherished her in my heart,

Looking to aftertime when we should be together,

And lived secure in my trust

As one riding a great ship.

Suddenly there came a messenger

Who told me she was dead-

Was gone like a yellow leaf of autumn.

Dead as the day dies with the setting sun,

Lost as the bright moon is lost behind the cloud,

Alas, she is no more, whose soul

Was bent to mine like bending seaweed!

When the word was brought to me

I knew not what to do nor what to say;

But restless at the mere news,

And hoping to heal my grief

Even a thousandth part,

I journeyed to Karu and searched the market place

Where my wife was wont to go!

There I stood and listened,

But no voice of her I heard,

Though the birds san in the Unebi Mountain;

None passed by who even looked like my wife.

I could only call her name and wave my sleeve."

*sniff* "Journeyed to Karu and serach the market place; where my wife was wont to go!" "None passed who even looked like my wife." Still wondering about the "As one riding a great ship." It reminds me of... mopeds.

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