Inspired by the Cow

Yes, I am inspired by the cow.

Well two weeks into school and I'm already a little burnt out. I think I may have to blame this one on work and a manager's incompetence. Apparently "can't work more than 15-20 hours a week" means "available to work 34 hours with 3 weekend closing shifts". I need to have a little chat with this woman. It just surprises me that I would be booked almost full-time at work when my GM KNOWS I am a full time student. I also seem to have to write my requests for days off three times before they are "valid". I still haven't gotten approval for the third request. Regardless, I AM leaving for the duration of November 11-14. If work has a problem with that, they can expect me to quit right in the middle of Christmas maddness =D I think I really am the evil twin.

I am happy to be writing a lot again. I just finished writing one of my first assignments which was a "Writing Manifesto". I may have to re-write it since I didn't check the specifications before starting (and finishing), but hopefully it'll be all right. I might end up posting it here either way. I had fun writing it. Due at the same time is my first short story, which I haven't started yet. I'm getting close to getting all the details worked out, so all is good. I will try and finish more of WMRR in between random readings and other homework.

In other news, my dog is dying. I'm not really sure how I'm going to take this, and my guess is not good. I haven't dealt with much loss. I am lucky to have all four of my grandparents alive and to have known them all for as long as I did. Most of them aren't doing so well either, so I'm scared. Anyhow, Dinah has a tumor in her liver, which has been there over a year now and is being managed. However, over the last 6 months (since her anxiety attack), she has been gradually eating less and getting scary skinny. Over the last week she has nearly stopped eating altogether. She has also started to walk hunched-over and off to one side. We took her to the vet on Monday, and it's one of three things: a random phase that dogs sometimes go through, a stroke, or a brain tumor. I'm thinking it was a minor stroke, mainly because of the way she is walking. We got results yesterday from blood tests saying she has kidney disease, which means her body is being poisoned. We got medicine today, but I don't know if it will work. I'm hoping she'll last to Christmas at least. She's been with us fifteen years, and is a huge part of my family.

I guess all I really have to say otherwise is that I'm still recording Dungeon Keeper (though very slowly), I'm turning the random forum I made into an information cache (because I fail =p) and I will hopefully retain a lot of my sanity after the 34 hour work week of hell. Yay! OH and I have a book recommendation. "Poets and Pahlevans" by Marcello di Cintio is a Calgarian non-fiction writer whose book is about wrestling and poetry in Iran. Two reasons I recommend this book: he's local for me, so that's cool, and he's an amazing writer. I have been interested since I picked it up. That hasn't happened much lately.

Also...WTF DID THIS VENGABOYS SONG COME FROM, HOW DID IT GET ON MY PLAYLIST AND WHY IS IT PLAYING? AAAAAAAAAA Seriously random.

Reading in Rain

I look at my next week and look at nothing but constant work. Won't have much time for WMRR writing, but at least I'll be busy.

Going to be writing for Fiction II all this week. I still don't know what my first story will be, but I also have to write a "writer's manifesto" for next Tuesday. I don't know what that really means yet. Maybe I'll be able to add it to EGAWT when I'm done (I'll cross my fingers).

This may seem a little random, but I love taking transit. I of course don't like the random schedules, creepy passengers, waiting in cold winters and the filth and smells, but I do love the time it gives me to relax, read, listen to music and think. I was waiting for a bus in the rain for 40 minutes today because it was a Sunday and buses only come once and hour, and I enjoyed three chapters of the book "Poets and Pahlevans" by Marcello di Cintio. It's a book about wrestling and poetry in Iran and it's one of the best reads I've had in awhile. I would highly recommend it. It wasn't just a good book, however. I found a certain peace hiding from the rain under the metal and glass of the bus shelter. I stood, book in hand, music playing and watching the sky slowly turn to darker shades of blue, and eventually black. Blanketed by clouds the rain fell into small grooves made by heavy buses. The little puddles looked like ink or oil, reflecting the blue-black sky. I even if I turned off my music, the world seemed silent. Only one other person was at the stop, and the constant drone of a bus engine was like white noise in the back-ground (which is "like silence, but not empty" as Mark Haddon puts it in his book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (another book I recommend). I don't know if it's a direct quote since I can't find the book at the moment in the mess that is my room. I don't take enough time to enjoy the beauty of the world (especially when it has been constantly raining ALL SUMMER...seriously, it was shitty). I don't know what it was exactly, but despite my exhaustion, anger, dissociation and confusion that's plaguing me right now, I cherished this moment.

PLAGUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Also, I have no idea what sort of state I'll be in this week. As I said before, I won't have much time for WMRR, which saddens me. I don't do well with loss, and a lot of loss is coming my way. That and...I'm not sure...anger and stress makes it hard. I'm getting more reclusive. I don't know. Regardless I need to try at least.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZwwHIxHINI

STUPID GOD DAMNED AUTOFILL IN THE STUPID GOD DAMNED LABELS BOX AAAAAAAAAA

Revelations

I just realized something rather strange. For the last few years (the last year especially), people keep asking me what I want to be when I "grow up". When I'm done school, ready to slave away in the work world and lay down my life for that carbon-copy, picket fence everyone more or less dreams of (we'll call the picket fence the "ideal future" since that idea is a little outdated by a few decades). In other words, people ask me what I will become, but they never ask what I am. Then I noticed that this is the same for everyone. For young people, hardly anyone cares who you are, what you do and what you love. Instead they treat you like a unimportant blank slate and ask what you'll be when you are older and more "interesting" (or carbon-copied). I think this is why I can't answer anyone when they ask me what I want to be after university (or high school since everyone seems to think I'm still a teenager). It's not because I'm in History and English and the uses of those degrees happen to be ambiguous, it's because I already am (more or less) what I will be in the future. Of course people change, but it seems like a stupid question to ask what a person will be, mainly because no one has any idea. I certainly don't. It's more useful to ask what a person currently is. For example, I can say I am a warrior writer who is battling as a retail slave in order to win the freedom of finance to travel to the mysterious land of Las Vegas in November and to defend a new-found love of skiing. That's a lot more exciting and realistic than saying "uh er I dunno maybe I'll try to uh teach or something...I reckon I'll go through the mill and knock the galley west".

I have no idea how the Old West slang got in there. I might just have to respond to people with that exact line now.

Maybe this is because I have been spending a long time with people 10-50 years older than I am. They have no idea how to talk to people younger than them, so they ask the same, safe questions. Just our way of being social I guess. Silence is more unnerving than petty chatter. At any rate, living in the now is a lot easier and practical (maybe I should be like my friend and attempt to disregard time altogether...though that would make scheduling difficult). The only dream I have at the moment is to get this damned book finished.

Speaking of which...I fixed some of the parts, cleaned up some lines and had a few giggles. I also wrote most of the missing part of chapter 8. SO CLOSE AAAAAA. In thinking about my characters and events, three of my main characters are a little blandish. I mean...some of the side characters are more exciting than them. Dan is one of the ones I need to liven up a bit. Dedrad too. Grypt is a little blandish, but that's part of his character, so I'll let it slip. I'm just glad I'm slogging away at this again. Writing does wonders for me. Life isn't so bad if you can live half of it in another scenarios, frame of mind, or world altogether.

I should post some excerpts.