I'm back!

Hey guys! I'm back from my unexpected and unplanned blogging break. Life kinda came at me fast and I decided to focus on school and my sanity instead of pushing myself to write blog posts when I didn't really have any new content.

That said, I'm abandoning my "every three days" schedule for right now, likely until mid-May and I'm done with the spring semester. I'm just going to post whenever I can, without stressing about having to get posts up on certain days. Taking a break definitely helped me re-focus on things so I might sit down soon and re-evaluate how I'm approaching running this blog.

I've managed to read a couple books in my month-long break so I'm gonna do my best to get those reviews up. The next few are gonna be pretty short but I'm gonna try to work my way back up to more in-depth reviews. Thanks for sticking around ♥

[blog post skip]

Hey guys!

I'm all caught up with my book reviews and I didn't have time the past few days to write something, sorry. Hopefully I'll be back on track for the next blog post.

I hope you have a good weekend!

TBR Update: Jan 2017

This is my 300th published post! (ﾉᐛ )ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

I know I've talked about my TBR before; the last I can find was last January. I've decided to make it a reoccurring thing just because my TBR on Goodreads just keeps getting longer and longer ...

This post is about my TBR shelf on Goodreads. I've talked about my own TBR lists for the books I've bought, but honestly, I'm not making progress on those at all lol. I have a tendency to roam around on Goodreads and add more books than I can possibly ever read. ┐(° ヘ° )┌

So, last year in January, my TBR was 1567 books. As of January 1st this year it's 1799. (Which is actually an improvement, since I got up to 1803 at one point in December.) I read 75 books in 2016, so if I can keep up that exact pace, it would take 24 years to demolish my TBR. Last time I calculated the statistic it was like 30 years, so at least it's gone down ...

The good news is, I finally got into the habit of reading Kindle ebooks this past year! It's definitely helped me burn my way through books a lot faster than I had been, because it's more portable and more instantaneous than physical library books. My library has a pretty good ebook library so I've been making use of that, but it's a little harder since those have wait lists and due dates. Amazon and Bookbub have been great for finding free ebooks so I've been reading more of those lately.

The problem with that is that I'm still buying physical copies of books from secondhand or bargain stores lol. At some point I do need to sit down and specifically tackle all of these, because I may be able to sell them back to the secondhand bookstores and earn some money back ... (I've become the typical broke college kid OTL)

I've also gotten marginally better at deciding to DNF books. Honestly, I'd rather be able to try out more books than say that I finished them, which is ... probably a little weird. And mainly because my TBR list is obnoxiously long.

I don't know that I can set a quantitative goal to reach, since that would depend on how much I finish / DNF vs add to the list, but I definitely want to work on getting it further under 1800.

We'll see how this goes.

Goals for 2017

I found my goals for 2016 post, and I've gotta say, I did better than I expected!

• I wrote every day of 2016 instead of just 70% of the days! (Though to be fair I did change that goal to "every day" shortly after I made that post ... but I did manage to reach it!) 
• I do kind of have a readable draft of Casanova, though I haven't checked it past putting together the scenes I had in my outline. So like, I do have a chronological draft, I just don't know if it makes sense yet lol
• I posted here every 3 days! I did take a couple cheat days where I posted "I forgot to write something for today OTL" but like ... that's technically still a post ...

So what are my goals this year? 

1. Keep writing every day

My (updated) goal for 2016 was to reach at least 500 words every day, which was definitely a good challenge, but I think I'll be a little more forgiving with myself this year. Pushing myself to get 500 words every night was definitely hard some nights.

(Though I could definitely fix this problem by doing my writing earlier in the day ...) 

2. Work on more writing projects

I think I still have this lingering fear that if I have too many writing projects ongoing at the same time, that I'll never get very far with any of them. (Which, I guess is true in some respect?) I have a bunch of ideas I've amassed over the years that I'd love to do at least something with, though. 

This past month I started writing for a story idea I'd literally come up with that day, which is really unusual for me. And I enjoyed it! It gave me the courage to try out a couple different ideas and even finally start writing out an idea I'd been working on for almost two years.

This year I'm hoping to keep a "misc" column in my word count Excel sheet for little projects I'm not actively trying to draft. I've proven to myself that I can keep myself dedicated to the big projects so there's no reason I can't shake things up a little and try out some new ideas. 

3. Talk to more people

This is definitely the most ambitious goal lol. I'm super introverted but I've gotten better at holding up my end of conversations and going out to do things with friends. I actually decided on this goal because of tumblr; I want to get better at sending people messages and holding up conversations online. (In all honesty, this goal is just so I can maybe make more internet friends.) 

This goal isn't really measurable other than, like, the frequency of sending messages lol. It's just something I wanted to commit to so I'd maybe get somewhere with it. 

I set three goals last year, so I'm gonna keep with that again lol. I guess continuing to post here every three days is a goal, but that's also the blogging schedule I decided on, so I don't think that really counts. 

Here's to hoping that 2017 is a much better year! 

Happy Holidays! [mini update]

I did write a book review in enough time to post it today, but it's a pretty rant-y one-star one, so I figured I wouldn't post that right before Christmas.

This December hasn't really felt all that ~festive~, which has been kind of disappointing. This semester was harder than I expected, both in terms of schoolwork and being an adult in general, and I just haven't felt in the mood to do much of anything recently. I don't know if it's seasonal depression or complete burnout.

I've also finally reached that "broke college kid" phase lol. I do feel a little lucky I made it this far before I started feeling so jaded about being an adult. It's kind of ironic that I started feeling more broke after I got used to working consistently, but maybe it's just because I've been spending a lot recently. Being social with friends almost always means buying something, whether it's dinner or something from a store, and the whole thing is starting to get tiring.

I'm hoping to get some solid rest in during this winter break so I can get some things done that I've been putting off the whole semester, but honestly, I'm not sure I'm gonna catch a break in the action. My last exam was on the 15th and I definitely feel like I haven't had a solid day to myself since then.

I'm definitely ready to move onto 2017 lol.

I hope everyone has a good holiday season this year! ♥

I Forgot Today's Blog Post

I was supposed to have a blog post go up today. I forgot. To be fair I did finish all of my final projects that were due and handed them in this week ...

I'm in the middle of reading a few books but I haven't finished any of them yet :/ Today's post was supposed to be a review. I've been making about the same progress in all three of the books I'm picking at so I might finish them all around the same time.

Sorry I messed up my schedule a little bit! I have two more school obligations next week and then I'll be done for the semester, so hopefully I can get back into reading a bunch of books and writing their reviews before I forget. (Ha.) I'm so ready to have a bunch of free time to myself. I'm exhausted.

Casanova Progress: Jul - Sept 2016

It's time for another update post on Casanova! (A very pitiful one OTL.) I started this post series so I would keep track of my progress on the story over the course of the year. This will be my last post in 2016 -- the final one will be in January.

This is the same picture that I posted in my July Camp NaNo reflection. I did really well during this Camp NaNo, too, and that momentum got me some better ideas of the story (and my license lol).

August wasn't as great in terms of Casanova progress ... I went to Otakon over my birthday weekend and spent a lot more time stressing about school than I probably needed to. (Ironically, that part should've generated a lot of ideas for Casanova, and I think I did channel that anxiety into a couple days' worth of writing.)

..... aaaaand September was even worse ;;; I don't think I ever updated my post about school -- I changed my schedule to drop my TV production class and add three geography classes, all of which meet once a week in the evening. I've been having some trouble getting used to that schedule and I've felt pretty exhausted this whole month. 

Despite this seemingly slow progress I've made, I did finally start working on the first chapter, even if it took me past the first day of school and isn't quite done yet. I've still been doing a lot of thinking about Casanova, even if I'm not writing for it as much. 

I'm still a little torn on my NaNo plans. I would love to re-write Casanova from the bottom-up and see if I can get a more coherent draft this year, but I'm also afraid that I won't have enough motivation or ideas to propel me through the entire month. I've managed to win NaNo the past three years and I don't want to break that streak. 

That said, I'm more partial to doing Casanova again than trying my sci-fi Nutcracker retelling or another idea that's come about entirely from Pinterest. I do really want to get this story touched up and presentable to other people. Based on my track record from this year, NaNo is probably going to be the only way I'll have enough structure and motivation to get my re-write done ... One of my close friends is doing NaNo this year, so hopefully we can get each other through the challenge.

I still have the rest of October to decide. I'm definitely going to let myself rest and stockpile ideas so I can attack November with lots of ideas, Casanova or not. I'll probably have to put in a lot of extra work for my geography classes so I can have most of the difficult work of my final projects out of the way by the time the 1st rolls around.

[sigh] 

Hopefully these next few months will go well!

August Music & First Day of School

I meant to draft this post yesterday and had no downtime to do it, so this is going up a little later than I normally schedule posts. On the bright side, I can make this into an update post, too!

I compiled a playlist of all the music that really stood out to me for this month, mainly from listening to the Pop Before It Breaks station on Google Play. I started listening to it this summer and it really has shown me some awesome songs a few weeks before they start playing on the radio. It's my go-to station now \(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶/

Google Play has also been great for having minimal ads even though I have a free account. Pandora and Spotify seem to have a lot more ads recently and it's really distracting, but I already pay for Amazon Prime and I don't think it's worth it to pay for multiple music streaming programs.

The last two songs on the playlist I actually discovered today! My college has a student radio station, and they were playing it over the PA system in the hallway I was waiting in. The station doesn't have a page where they say what's currently on (which is unfortunate), but I tracked down both songs without much hassle. 

So yeah, in related news, I started my second year of college today! It's a strange concept. I feel like I should still be a junior in high school. I had two classes today and I even managed to make a friend! I'm really not that social so this is amazing for me. I also managed to walk past my car in the parking lot after my second class. I'm totally a competent adult.

This semester I'm taking two Monday / Wednesday classes (one of which is partially online as well) and one Tuesday evening class. It's only a total of 10 credits, but I decided to cut the fourth class I'd initially added because I wasn't excited about it at all and I wasn't sure it was worth it. I'm considering changing my major back to Gen Ed because the courses for the Geography major aren't offered frequently enough to let me get my AA by the end of this year, unless I somehow luck out next semester ... But I have to apply for graduation this semester if I want to be done by the spring, so I feel kind of stuck. I'm gonna try to meet with a counselor soon and see what needs to happen. 

This summer was such a great experience all the way through and I'm so lucky and grateful for all the experiences I had and all the time I got to spend with friends. I'm a little sad to be back in school, but I know I need some routine in my life again, and I'm looking forward to sweatshirt weather and pumpkin season (ʃƪ˘⌣˘) I've already had a pumpkin pie blizzard from DQ and a harvest spice coffee from Sheetz this weekend. (The coffee was a mistake. I got maybe three hours of sleep last night. Sure did taste good, though.) 

Here's to hoping for a good fall semester! 

Camp NaNo Reflection: July 2016

Another Camp NaNo has come and gone! I only mentioned that I was doing it this month in passing, so here's some more detail about how my month went in terms of writing.

I did Casanova again with the goal of 15k, which was my initial goal in April before I bumped it up to 18k. I didn't change my goal this time (mainly because it never crossed my mind). I still reached 21,594 words by July 31st!

My word counts this month was a lot more varied than they were in April. I reached 15k on the 18th and started slacking off after that point lol. I also struggled a lot with finding things to write about, for both Casanova and Aperture, because July was kind of a lull in my summer and I didn't have too much in real life experiences to draw from. (The 3rd is a complete outlier. I'm still not quite sure how I pulled it off.) 

I still managed to write more than 1k for Casanova on four different days this month! The 31st was definitely a surprise. I got an idea and I was able to run with it a lot further than I was expecting. Overall I'm happy with my word counts for July. 

As for the writing itself: I made some more progress on the story and the characters, but I still haven't gotten around to writing the first chapter OTL. I definitely have a better idea of how to write it and how to fit it into the progression of events, but I need to work up enough inspiration to start picking at it. I'm still hoping I can get it done before I go back to school on the 29th. (Holy crap I'm not ready.)

In other writing- and success-related news, I passed my driver's license test yesterday!! I'm a fully licensed adult!!

Long story short, I resisted getting it for very close to a year, but I realized I would be inconveniencing my parents and my friends by continuing to dig my heels in. Also, I wanted to beat some of my friends to the punch. I have a really strange sense of competition. And some really lazy friends. 

One of the (many other) influencing factors that pushed me to finally book the test was actually Toni and Carter, the two main characters of Casanova. I've been writing so many scenes of Toni driving, and almost as many regarding Carter's reliance on others because he refuses to get a license. I finally got tired of doing the same thing as Carter and decided being more like Toni would be better. 

So, I can officially say that my writing has made me suck it up and do some Adulting. 

The next NaNo event is the Big NaNo in November. I haven't decided on what I'll be doing this year; I could continue my trend and try re-drafting Casanova, or I could do something new and try drafting a sci-fi Nutcracker retelling idea I've had for a while. I've still got a couple months to decide. 

If you guys participated in Camp NaNo this past month, I'd love to hear how it went for you! 

Happy Friday!

I've been kind of busy lately and didn't have the time nor motivation to make a real post for today. So you get this non-post! (I've tried so hard not to do this. Hopefully this'll be the only non-post in the immediate future.) 

(Hopefully later today I'll remember to stick an image here, too, but it's like one in the morning and I should've been asleep by now. OTL.)

I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival last weekend, which was fun! I was supposed to have a blog post about it go up this week but I didn't get around to writing it yet. Whoops. 

I also won Camp NaNo yesterday! As of last night I had just under 16k words, and I'm hoping I can make it to 20k by the end of the month. I missed the window for a mid-month update, so I'll just have a review post next month. Possibly after exams. 

It's also been really nice weather lately and I'm really excited for it to be summer. I have two more weeks of classes and then exams in the second week of May, and then I'm free!

Hope you guys have a good weekend :)

Winter Break 2015 - 2016

Being a college student definitely has its benefits. This year I got over a month off between semesters, which was extended by winter storm Jonas! We've already had our first two days of the spring semester cancelled. I'd still like more.

So, what did I do with my month of free time?

Casanova To-Do: Jan 2016

I figured blogging about it would make me more accountable. I don't know. That hasn't worked with my TBRs before, but it won't hurt, right?

"I designed my school's literary magazine," I tell myself as I make images like this.

I'm going to try and keep this list simple because otherwise I would just balk at it.

No, screw it, I'm not gonna lie. I'm balking at this list anyway because I am a lazy teenager and I don't like the thought of work. Even though this is something I'm making myself do for fun.

I don't understand how I function as a human being sometimes.

Anyway!

1. Fill in missing scenes

When I wrote Casanova during NaNo, I let myself write what I wanted to without making it seem "nice". I was struggling enough to hit word count as it was. Forcing myself to write scenes I wasn't excited about wasn't working for me.

This means my draft of Casanova makes sense only to me. Because I skipped a bunch of scenes and wrote out of order. Probably not the best idea, but hey, it was my first draft and nothing said I couldn't.

I should probably make a list of all the scenes I know I need that I didn't write. (Not here. In my sketchbook. But still. It would probably help.)

2. Put everything in chronological order

I have a better sense of the order scenes should go in since NaNo ended, but I still have a lot to work on. And a lot of it is dependent on step #1 and writing the scenes I'm missing. I'm pretty sure I wrote overlapping scenes at least a few days of NaNo and it's going to be an adventure trying to figure out what vignettes to use. A lot of the vignettes also have no context and can go pretty much anywhere, so the question is then where the heck do I put all of them?

I have my work cut out for me.

3. Replace remaining (xx)s

Like I said in my reflection, I used "(xx)" as a catch-all placeholder, which ended up making my life harder. I've only defined one of the values I used (xx) for. I still have a lot of characters to name and situations to explain.

Luckily my cousin has been a godsend and helping me name characters when I tweet at her. I should really enlist her help more. And probably buy her chocolate for all the decision-making she does for me.

4. Determine in-book universe laws

Not only did I skip a bunch of scenes in the first draft, I didn't really bother coming up with how their universe works, either. There are a lot of things regarding how Hell is supposed to work that I was just like ┐(° ヘ° )┌  and left them as plot holes.

This is probably gonna be the hardest part and it's likely not gonna be "done" until at least a few drafts in. I definitely went into NaNo with less planning done than I usually do and I wrote with a very ┐(° ヘ° )┌ attitude the entire month.

So yeah! I'm going to be very surprised if I complete all four. Or knock out more than half of these in general. I'm not setting the bar very high.

Since this post feels really short, I turned to a random page in my print masterdoc and screenshot one of the vignettes:

I have a lot of these kinds of vignettes that I probably won't keep, but they're hands-down my favorite thing to write. I'm almost tempted to see how many of these I can get away with in Casanova.

Ideally, I'll have at least the first two steps done by the time I go back to school on Jan 25th, but I wouldn't bet on it. The more serious deadline is by March. I'll check in again about my progress mid-March (if I don't make in-between posts before that).

Wish me luck!

Casanova Writing Research: Arlington, Texas

So in the off chance you've actually read my other blog posts / my twitter this past month, here's the explanation you've probably been waiting for!

One day I'll pick a standard format for these pictures. Bear with me.

If you have no clue what I'm talking about, I was lucky enough to go on another writing research trip to see where I set Casanova. My mom managed to get us cheap flights out to Dallas and back that fit in the weekend before exam week. I'd been asking to go to Dallas in order to do more in-depth research than Google Maps could give me, so I was amazed when it really did work out in my favor!

Why did I pick Arlington, Texas? Primarily because the songs that really brought Casanova together as a concrete story idea were country songs. Casanova is a collection of a couple different plot bunnies, and the song "American Kids" started to bring them together in my mind. My dad usually listens to country music when he's out in the garage and it was pure chance that I caught the songs I did. (I actually think I heard "American Kids" for the first time when I was heading to my high school for class one morning. That might've actually been with my mom. I don't remember.)

Anyway, "American Kids" gave me a really strong urge to set the story in Texas. The song never really mentions any specific place, but that was what my mind jumped to. My initial research focused around the Dallas area since we'd already been there and I was vaguely familiar with it. (Not as much as I thought, tbh.) I knew that I needed something close to a university because of Carter's backstory, and I think UTA was the first college I really looked at for the story. And settled on it since it worked out really well for what I needed. We also have an Arlington in our area, so the irony of that really cemented the decision for me.

So what did I learn?

First Semester Reflection

My first semester of college is officially over!! I took my last exam on the 17th. I wouldn't say I had the easiest time adjusting to college so far, but it definitely also wasn't as bad as I feared it would be!

Sometimes I think my design skills are getting better, and then I make pictures like this where I wonder if I'm just lying to myself. I can't tell anymore. 

This semester I took 14 credits, but one of them was a 1st year student seminar that only met until mid-October. I also didn't take my classes for my major in the right order ... but that doesn't matter as much. I still survived all my classes!

I haven't gotten back all of my grades at the time I'm writing this. I got As in Physical Geography, Seminar, and Communication, which exempted me from the first two exams! That was a really nice bonus since I was afraid I'd have to cram for the geography final.

I was exempted from my Color Theory final as well because of how the exams were set up. Our professor took the better grade of our midterm and final, and since I got 100% on the midterm, I asked if I could be excused so we could go to Dallas. Luckily my professor said yes!

Communication and Statistics were more of a challenge for me than Geography and Color Theory. I was put into a pilot program for Stat since I came from the local school system, so they put me ahead of where I tested into. I did okay for the most part, but I definitely should have put in more study time ...

Communication was hard for me because we had to do class presentations, which I hate. It was really difficult for me to give speeches to a class I didn't know after having the same classmates all of middle and high school. I actually skipped the first speech we were supposed to do ;; Luckily my professor gave us an "amnesty day" where she let us make up assignments, so I ended up doing it after all.

My favorite class was probably Color Theory. I've never really used painting as an art medium other than for cosplay and the odd art class project. We were given a lot of freedom in terms of what subjects we could paint, as long as it matched the palette we were using, so I was able to paint copies of photos I took. That was a really fun experience and I'm hoping I can continue re-doing my photos and making fake screencaps in the future.

This was my final project for Color Theory. The concept was to make fake pictures that Carter would've taken during the course of Casanova. I initially wanted to do more, but I had two weeks from idea to presentation and not many pictures to reference beforehand. The top left was freehanded and the other three used my pictures from the June vacation as a reference. 

Geography was definitely fun for me, but it was also a challenge because it was a class
focused on the science side of geography. The only other related class I'd taken before was AP Human Geography, which focuses on the cultural aspects. Physical Geography was a class I was supposed to take my third semester, not my first, which I didn't realize until it was too late to do anything about it. But I survived!

To be honest, I had no idea when I decided to go to my college that they even offered an Applied Geography associate's. I already have credit for about a semester's worth of classes thanks to the AP tests, so I got to jump straight into knocking out courses for the major.

I'm really glad I chose to go to a community college. I knew for certain that I wouldn't do well going to college out of state, but I don't think I would've done too well taking classes at UMD, either. I had almost all of my close friends at school with me and I got to hang out with all of them three days a week for lunch. (That was pure serendipity, but we've arranged to all have the same time block for the spring.)

I'm on winter break until Jan 25th. I've signed up for classes for the spring semester, but I haven't paid for them yet ;; We're working on that. Right now I'm signed up for two geography courses (Geog 101 and Political Geography, I think), a meteorology course, and Italian 101. I'm looking forward to it ♥

My First Fortnight in College

I just remembered to update my About page and my sidebar to include this new information. Oops.

This is my planner from this past week. There's a lot going on. 

Anyway, August 31st was my first day of college classes! I'm attending a community college in my city, so it's not as much adjustment as some of my high school classmates are experiencing, but it's definitely a lot different than high school was.

Almost all of the adults I've talked to recently have asked how college is going so far, and my answer about 98% of the time is "it's a lot of work." Like, this is a lot to adjust to after having only two "real" academic classes in my senior year (one of which I chose to take of my own free will).

I feel pretty unprepared for everything, tbh. In high school, it often came up how what we did was "prep for college", which was complete BS. None of what we did prepared me for this. I also tested out of a bunch of classes because of AP tests, so from what I can tell, I'm the only "fresh out of high school" kid in four of my classes. (One of my classes is a first year seminar thing, so all of us are freshman, but either my perception of what 18 year olds should look like is severely skewed or a lot of the kids are older than me.) One of my classmates actually called me "baby Joy" when my age came up, which I actually found amusing.

I'm especially unprepared for the thought of writing college papers. I have one due this week that's supposed to be about five pages, when the most I ever wrote in high school was a page and a half if I really stretched it. It's not really academic per se, as the paper is applying what vocab and concepts we've learned in class so far to ourselves, but this paper is honestly stressing me out.

A good portion of my graduating class is going to the same community college as I am, but I was unfortunate in the fact that I don't share my classes with any of them. It's very lonely. I am lucky in the fact that I get to hang out with my friends some days when our breaks line up, but I just had a class start this week, so that eats up a lot of the time I had to spend with them. It only runs until the end of October, though, so I'll get the time back.

One thing that's actually pretty good is the fact that I'm actually getting some exercise. The campus is a lot bigger than my high school and I've been actively avoiding the elevators so I can take the stairs. This actually started because the building my art class is in is pretty old and the elevator absolutely terrifies me, but I've taken the stairs even in the science building, even though it has a really cool elevator with a glass wall that lets you look out over the lobby. I think it's too early to really notice any changes, but I'm hoping that by the end of the semester I won't feel like I've run half a mile trying to climb four flights of stairs. (I'm weak. I know.) The exercise and workloads so far have really worn me out, so I've actually gotten my sleep schedule back under control in no time. It's kind of amazing.

In terms of my classes themselves, they're not that bad. This semester I'm just taking classes I would need no matter what degree I'm getting. I'm hoping to major in Geography since that's something that's offered at my college. I'm taking Color Theory, Intro to Communication, Physical Geography, Statistics of some sort, and the first year seminar, which adds up to 14 credit hours. x___x

My favorite place on campus so far is on the south side of the art building. It's got some metal picnic tables as well as a ledge you can sit on and it's shaded by these huge trees planted between the building and the parking lot. I get wifi from out there and it's an awesome place to sit and people watch. I've seen some cool people so far! The most prominent one is this guy that looks like Blake Michael with slightly longer hair. (I had actually been referring to him as "Dog With a Blog doppelganger" for the first week and a half until I googled the actor's name.)

My chill spot faces the entrance to the parking lot, so I see a lot of people as they come and go. 

I've also had to do actual homework, which is strange after a year of doing essentially nothing once I got home. It's not bad, especially considering most of it has just been reading the text book and finishing up assignments from class.

I actually spent time studying on a Saturday. That's, like, unheard of. 

Anyway, I think that's all I have to talk about so far! I'll probably make another update around midterms regarding how I'm adjusting and what's changed. All in all, college hasn't been too bad so far, and I'm really grateful for that.

Blog-related Goals

By the time this goes up, I'll either be working on or finishing at least a couple of these goals. I hope. I have no idea what life could throw at me before this is published.

This is also related to point #4.

#1: blog redesign
I already wrote a post about this, but tl;dr I have found an interest in web design and I'd like to make my page reflect that. It's been the same for a while, something I threw together to make it presentable, but now I want to make it more than that.

#2: talking to people
I'm kind of terrible at this, both online and off. I've gotten much better at talking to people in person, though, and I'm hoping to improve on my online people skills. I'd love to talk to more people and right now the only thing that's really holding me back is my confidence level.

I've improved on that, though. The other day (probably a month back by the time this is live) I commented on someone's blog for the first time! It was a little comment, but it felt like a pretty big step to me. Nothing exploded when I did it. In fact, I saw the author's reply to it, and I was just all-over very content.

I'm hoping that I can become brave enough to talk to completely new people and collab with others one day!

#3: copying reviews to goodreads
Honestly, a lot of my reasoning for posting book reviews here is that I was kind of scared of posting on goodreads. I was afraid of the larger potential audience, and thus my only reviews so far are stars.

I'd like to go back and retroactively add all the reviews I've written, though. I've become more confident in my reviews, and I'd love to add my reviews to the site, even though very few people will end up seeing them, anyway. Being on the site for this long has led me to realize that posting my reviews there will be just as "shouting into the void" as posting here is. Unless my review gets a lot of likes. Then it'll be more visible. But I don't really see that happening.

#4: making more graphics
I made graphics for, like, two posts before I stopped using my editing laptop on a regular basis. I honestly don't think I've touched it since March. The laptop I use now doesn't have Photoshop, which was my go-to -- only Paint and an expired trial of InDesign.

Of course, I've finally come to realize I've been making excuses and that there's nothing stopping me from using online resources to make graphics. I've realized that some of my posts are un-pin-able because there's no image to use on Pinterest. Eventually I'd like to go back and make graphics (even just really simple ones) for all of my blog posts.

This would also be really good practice to improve my (still pretty basic) design skills. There's probably going to be a huge lack of consistency as I try to find my groove, so please bear with me!

Anyway, I hope to start working on these asap!!

Upcoming Blog Redesign

I've been thinking this over for a while, and despite pushing the window of time back at least a month, I've decided that I want to try and overhaul my blog design from the ground-up.

This is what it looks like right  now as I'm writing.

What I have now is just an update I did when I decided to post on a regular schedule (something which has helped me immensely in more ways than one). I changed my color scheme to be reminiscent of the ace flag, though the effect of that is pretty minimal. All I did was change the colors around a little bit. I kept the same theme when I updated it.

I follow at least five different blogs via email, a whole bunch more through Blogger itself, and I can't tell you how many blogs I've looked at via Oh, the Books! weekly recap posts. Those posts are my favorite. They've been so helpful in finding bloggers I otherwise wouldn't find, but they've also been good at showing me a whole variety of blog designs and teaching me what I like (and don't like) from first glance.

Now that I'm out of school for the summer, I'm gonna try and dedicate my time to creating my own unique blog layout.

Hopefully it won't be too hard. I've got some background on HTML and CSS, both from in school and outside of it, and not to mention all I've gotta do is open Google for help. A lot of the weekly recap posts have helpful stuff about the technical stuff of blogging, including a lot of suggestions and freebies for blog design / layout, so I think I've got this.

It's gonna be daunting, but I may as well throw myself into it, right?

My initial inspiration for the redesign was working on my school's lit mag. It was a lot of fun to work with the other design manager and improve so much on last year's design. I didn't know what I was doing when I first started, but I kludged my way into a cool-looking journal, so I think that definitely counts for something. I can only hope that I can make it look as hella as our lit mag.

My blog design is probably going to go through a couple different phases by the time that I decide what I want to stick with, so please bear with me! Hopefully when I'm done I'll remember to make a blog post reflecting back on what I did.

What I Really Learned in High School

No, not what I actually learned in school. I don't think that'd be all that interesting.

Like the slam poetry my English teacher recently showed us said, the most important lessons aren't actually the ones we've been taught.

At the time this is posted, I'll be sitting through my high school graduation ceremony. I figured I'd reflect on what I'd picked up non-academically through four years of public high school.

This is actually the closest picture I can find to the beginning of my freshman year;; We apparently have no pictures from the first day, which honestly, is only slightly surprising. 

This was taken on Friday at our senior picnic. This last week or so of classes was hands-down the most fun I've had all of high school, and I'm really glad I was able to document some of it. 

Friends are #1

I've been lucky in the fact that my middle school was the only feeder school for my high school, so I've been with most of my classmates since 6th grade. I was lucky in that my closest friends from elementary school ended up at the same high school, too, despite the different tracking we did in middle school. 

I'm also lucky in the fact that (what seems like) half my graduating class is going to community college, which means I don't really have to say goodbye to them yet. I may not have talked to a lot of my classmates much, but I still have enjoyed seeing them every day in class or even just in passing in the hallway. I've made a lot of good friends over the years and I've learned a lot from all of them. I still can't imagine what it will be like in the future to not see them every day, or to see them move across the world to follow their dreams. 

Find your effort level. 
As I like to repeat over and over again, I've had senioritis since freshman year. I actually did my homework back then, of course, at least on a semi-regular basis. But what's the fun in that?

I got my first "hard" class in sophomore year when I took AP NSL. I actually had to read for that class. And I kept up! I also had a really good teacher who was scary when we all failed, so of course we tried our best collectively not to get on her bad side.

After passing AP NSL, everything else has seemed pretty easy. I've taken five AP courses -- just one short of getting a medal ;; 

Of course, I've gotten more lectures than I can count about "needing to try harder in school" and "developing a better work ethic", but I don't really see either of those developing in college, either. I've been spoiled by public school and all the regulations of No Child Left Behind. In case you haven't been in school since 2001, NCLB basically brings everyone down to the lowest child instead of trying to elevate the lower kids in the class. The HSAs we took for our graduation requirements were so easy you'd probably have to actively try to fail them.

I can't tell you how grateful I am that I took 6 elective classes this year. I had so much more time to devote to what I actually wanted to do. Honestly, if you're an underclassman, please don't stress yourself out by taking too many hard courses. I don't think it's worth it. Enjoy your life!!

Work smart, not hard.
My English teacher told us this last year and it was a complete revelation for me because I'd finally found a way to put my outlook on life into words. A lot of kids at my school -- especially the underclassmen -- put in a lot more effort into their schoolwork than they need to. Like, I know getting good grades is nice, but I really don't see the point in sacrificing health and friendships just to get the best grade on an assignment.

Of course, I'm pretty sure a lot of people could argue that this motto has just made me more lazy, but ┐( •̀ᄇ• ́)┌ Sorry not sorry that I had hours more free time to do what I want than you did because you decided to do work the hard way.

I love writing.
I'd written on and off through elementary and middle school, but it was never coherent and I never shared it with anyone. (And I never will. It was terrible.) Two of my friends were working on a Pokemon fanfiction, and that inspired me to write my own. It was my first real attempt at storytelling coherently, and while I can't write off my fanfics as "worthless" or anything like that, I obviously didn't really know what I was doing. And I still don't really know even now.

But that basis in fanfiction that diverged from canon opened me up to a ton of "what ifs" that have now become Aperture. It's two years old at this point and I can see how much I've improved just by looking at where I started with it.

Aperture has also allowed me to preserve some of my experiences and memories into writing. I have to adapt a lot of things in order to make it fit, but doing so helps me remember it better, and I'm glad that I have so much to look back on later. A lot of my friends have become or have inspired characters -- whether they know it or not -- and I'm really grateful to all of them. My friends have put up with endless talk about Aperture and have helped me brainstorm and improve the story, and I can only hope that I do them justice in my writing.

Anyway, I guess I was lucky in the fact that high school wasn't absolute hell for me. I actually enjoyed it -- this year especially. It's strange to think that today is something I could never really picture happening. Back in elementary school, or even in sophomore year, I could never really picture myself being here. I'm sad to think about how I have to move on from this period of time, but I hope that the coming years are just as bright.

Recently, I've been thinking more and more about that rhetorical question about how your younger self would see you. I specifically remember trying to picture myself here in 5th grade, but I don't really know how I would've reacted to how I am now. I don't think I've changed much. I actually think I would be amazed at how little has changed, to see that I still have such great friends and that I have so many wonderful memories.

I'd also be really embarrassed of the melancholic mood I've put myself in trying to write this, so I'll stop here. I guess I don't have too much to be sad about, because like I said, I'm not losing as much as I could be.

Edit: I've officially graduated!!

I cried during graduation. More than once. I only made it fifteen minutes into the ceremony before I turned into a hot mess. Despite that, though, I had a lot of fun today. I got to spend a lot of time with my family and friends and I'm really grateful for that. 

Prom 2015

This is my 100th post!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

My prom was May 15th on the Spirit of Baltimore boat. I'd been anticipating it for a while, but it was more along the lines of the worries I had going to Katsucon my first time five years ago; in concept, prom is really not my thing, so I was worried about how it would go.

And in all honesty, it went so much better than I expected. I don't think I could've wished for anything better.

One of my classmates asked me to prom back in March. We'd had classes together since back in middle school, but we never talked enough to become close friends or anything, so I was really surprised when it happened!

Just like at homecoming, I didn't dance at prom;; there were two different dance floors but they were both too loud and too crowded, even if I did ever dance in the first place. My friends were gathered in a couple different groups that kept shifting, so for most of the night I just walked around the ship and hung out with different friend groups. We stayed up at the front of the top deck as we returned back into the Inner Harbor. It was soooooo pretty but it was too dark to get a picture (｡•́︿•̀｡)

The food they served was actually really good! I ate like a six year old but oh my gosh the mac and cheese had to have been made with queso (like, nacho queso) and it was awesome. The brownie was also super hella, even after I got the dressing from my mini-salad on it.

I actually don't have many pictures from prom itself because the lighting on the boat was so poor D: I really love how this picture turned out, though!! We got to the community center in enough time in the afternoon that we got to mill around with our classmates before the buses left. 

I dozed off on the bus ride back to the community center where we had our after prom. I didn't expect to stay all that long, but I was surprisingly still energized and I ended up staying 'til the very end! My friends splintered off again, so I spent a lot of time just wandering around and talking to different friends at different times.

The rec room was set up like a Las Vegas casino and it was actually pretty cool! They had tables for blackjack and roulette, and I didn't know how to play anything, but my friends played for a long time.

They had two inflatable things set up in the gym of the center: one was an obstacle course with a big slide and one was a laser tag maze. My friends and I played laser tag sooo many times and I actually managed to win once!

We were really vicious with each other  \(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶/ I ran into my friend by accident at one point and the left side of my face hurt from where he'd gotten me;; I really would love to play with my friends again! It was really really fun trying to kick everyone else's butts (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

Somehow I managed to keep going for 24 hours straight! I didn't get to take a nap between coming home from school Friday afternoon and having to get ready, and the only real down time I had was the half-hour nap on the bus ride back. I ended up staying up until 7:30 the morning after just to be able to say I'd been up for a full day straight. (Which I guess doesn't really count with falling asleep on the ride back, but shhhh nobody needs to know that.)

These were taken at like three in the morning and after a whole bunch of laser tag games so I kind of look like a hot mess. I think I really only have selfies with one other friend, and they're on her phone because her camera was better in the low light of the boat;; 

I'm really grateful that I got to spend so much time with my friends. It was a lot different being able to hang out with so many of them at the same time outside of school, where we didn't have to worry about schoolwork or schedule restrictions. Most of my friends aren't going away to college, so I hope that we can experience something like this again ♥

I got an airbrush tattoo of the kanji for "love" on my left arm (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) There was a long line for the tattoos at the beginning, but by around 3 it had died down completely so I decided to get one. I got 愛 since I knew that it was correct -- I wasn't 100% sure that the other characters were correct, or if they were the Chinese versions of the character / meaning. I was afraid it would wash off really easily, but it's still on my arm, so I'm really happy (ؑᵒᵕؑ̇ᵒ)◞✧

I don't really remember most of the songs they played, especially because there were three different sets of speakers, but here's a little mini playlist!

They played this song at some point during the night, and I listened to it on repeat once I got home the next morning. It's so chill (୨୧ ❛ᴗ❛)✧ It matched the mood of the night for me.

One of the kids riding on my bus played this song on the way up to Baltimore and it made me really happy. I really like the feeling of the song.

They played this as we were coming back into the harbor, and both me and the guy I went with were really surprised. It was a song he'd shown me and I don't think either of us expected that it would get played! 

They played this song immediately after they announced the prom king and queen and omg it made me want to cry (｡•́ ヘ•̀｡) I'm not ready to say goodbye to a lot of my classmates. Even though my friend group is pretty small, our whole class has been together since 6th grade, and it's scary to think that we'll never really be the same group again. 

Camp Nano April 2015 Reflection

I won again this time! Even though I bumped my word count down 5k pretty early on, I still made the 25k mark by the end of the month! ( ᐛ )و

Yeah man, look at all that productivity at the end of the month B)

I reached the 20k mark on the 23rd (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

I didn't get as much written as I wanted to, and all but three days that I wrote were for Aperture, but it's still progress! I got some good ideas going and I decided that the first couple chapters I have of Aperture need re-written in order to be stronger. 

Part of the reason I worked almost exclusively on Aperture was the fact that I'm really stuck in Quinn's narration. Her narration is very close to how I think and speak to make it easier for me to write, but I've been developing her voice over the past year and a half and I find it hard to switch into a different perspective. The stuff I have for Eigengrau is kind of stiff so far, but I just haven't found Hanne's voice yet. 

I also reached the 100k mark for the year on April 30th! It's a little overwhelming to think about how many words I've written that won't make it into the final version of Aperture, but all of them are necessary to develop it in my mind. I often have to write scenes upwards of five times before I find the version that I like and that works seamlessly with the plot. 

Still, I'm super happy with my progress so far ♥