two birds and a hobbit - In the Library
Hey guys! It's been a little while since I did a "in the library", so I figured I might do one now. I'm not entirely sure when this will get posted, as I have about eighteen different ideas sifting through my brain, but perhaps it will see the light of day some day in the far future.
I've been pretty busy, but it's been wonderful. The weekdays are filled with chaos and- I'll admit it- often stress due to some nasty friend drama I could really do without, but also fun. I love my history and language arts teacher, who is very much sarcastic and also nerdy. For once, instead of language arts feeling like a painfully loveless review of things I already know, I find it reigniting even more love for my craft. History, which has always been my second favorite subject, is even more amazing.
My other classes are not as amazing as my core classes, but still have their merits. We're learning self defense in P.E, which sounds (and, for the most part, is) wonderful, but also can be pretty stressful as we have to do rolls, which I really suck at. It took me about a week to learn the side roll and I need to know the front and back roll, which leave me mortally terrified I will break my neck. (Or somehow, because this is how badly I fail at rolls, find myself hanging from the ceiling by my hair.)
Science is always a bit of a neutral class. I can enjoy it, I can be annoyed with it. My teacher is bubbly and clearly loves science, and is good at making things make sense. (Not that I need much help in science, as that tends to be one of the less icky subjects.)
Spanish class is also pretty cool. I like the teacher, and even though I feel like there's a bit more busywork than necessary, the language itself is so much fun to learn! It's so much fun seeing the resemblance to English and French. And, being as my History/LA teacher puts it, a "word nerd", it's so awesome learning more words!
The one exception is math class. I hate that class. It's impossibly horrible. How someone can mess up a subject so badly I am not sure. The teacher somehow makes you feel like you're learning nothing and too smart for this sort of stuff and also really stupid at the same time. The work is frustrating, he makes things unnecessarily complicated, and the entire subject becomes almost impossible to understand. English is clearly not his first language, and while I get that, his phrasing things oddly and not making things clear makes it hard to learn. I'm sure he's a genius in his own right, but he is NOT a teacher, and that's what I need.
When I get home, I take some time to do my homework while listening to music. I usually don't have a ton of time (because I get distracted and am not efficient and do stuff on my computer I probably shouldn't be if I'm trying to be doing my homework, and because my math teachers assigns so much homework) and then relax talking to my friends online, reading, and writing.
Because I don't have as much time for reading and writing, over the weekend I enjoy it much more. Last weekend, on Saturday I had a free day without any plans, which could end up with me spending the entire day on the computer and feeling unproductive. To prevent that from happening, I decided to try and use my computer as little as possible and take an early bath so as to wake up properly.
While taking a bath and going through the repetitive motions of washing my hair, I was blessed with a ton of new ideas for my Nano story. The entire story seemed much more interesting. I had the same satisfaction of collecting a bunch of puzzle pieces of the same type. I only had to put them together.
The first "bird" in the title refers to the bird in this Nano's novel (it can finally really be called a novel this November, as I'm hoping to make 70k), Sparrow. Sparrow and her half sister, Arlene, and their cousin, Wolf, live in a world that's a chaotic mixture of steampunk and magical. Magic obeys few laws, and can be both good and bad- but mostly, like some mischievous and impossible-to-wrangle youth, does as it wishes. Almost sentient, a magical type shapes and changes a person. Magic mixes oddly, creating new types of magic and weaving together a series of finicky rules and laws full of loopholes resulting in odd things, such as people who are slightly taller or shorter during different times of the moon cycle, or wishes that will, in fact, come true. Sometimes delightful, sometimes deadly, magic is a game all hope to win.
The second bird refers to the Bluejay, also known as Silvertongue and Mo.
Have you ever thought about what it would like if what you read came true? This intricate plot, characterized by realistic characters (get it?) are only rivaled by the stunningly detailed world.
The entire trilogy is amazing, and has the Indigo Mark of Approval, and is up there with Keeper of the Lost Cities and Fly by Night for books that SO deserve more recognition. Apparently there's a movie for the first book, but from what I've seen of it's awful.
Speaking of book recognition...
The Lord of the Rings series is pretty much the EXACT opposite. I can't think of any book series less respected off of the top of my head, except perhaps Harry Potter (don't kill me, guys, but I think I may like Lord of the Rings better).
I've known about Lord of the Rings for a while. I read, and loved, the Hobbit some years ago, but the other books were way too dense for me to read. I couldn't get through the heavy vocabulary and I couldn't appreciate the rich detailing. I recently got all of the books from the library, and watched the first hobbit movie... and, well. IT WAS AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZANG.
Say what you will about the timeline and accuracy and whatnot... but it was so lush! The sets were gorgeous, the world so detailed and beautiful! The out of the frying pan into the fire into the even hotter fire into the center of the Earth feeling was pretty cheesy but still. (I just realized how incoherent that last sentence is. LOTR is awesome, it does that too you.)
I've been pretty busy, but it's been wonderful. The weekdays are filled with chaos and- I'll admit it- often stress due to some nasty friend drama I could really do without, but also fun. I love my history and language arts teacher, who is very much sarcastic and also nerdy. For once, instead of language arts feeling like a painfully loveless review of things I already know, I find it reigniting even more love for my craft. History, which has always been my second favorite subject, is even more amazing.
My other classes are not as amazing as my core classes, but still have their merits. We're learning self defense in P.E, which sounds (and, for the most part, is) wonderful, but also can be pretty stressful as we have to do rolls, which I really suck at. It took me about a week to learn the side roll and I need to know the front and back roll, which leave me mortally terrified I will break my neck. (Or somehow, because this is how badly I fail at rolls, find myself hanging from the ceiling by my hair.)
Science is always a bit of a neutral class. I can enjoy it, I can be annoyed with it. My teacher is bubbly and clearly loves science, and is good at making things make sense. (Not that I need much help in science, as that tends to be one of the less icky subjects.)
Spanish class is also pretty cool. I like the teacher, and even though I feel like there's a bit more busywork than necessary, the language itself is so much fun to learn! It's so much fun seeing the resemblance to English and French. And, being as my History/LA teacher puts it, a "word nerd", it's so awesome learning more words!
The one exception is math class. I hate that class. It's impossibly horrible. How someone can mess up a subject so badly I am not sure. The teacher somehow makes you feel like you're learning nothing and too smart for this sort of stuff and also really stupid at the same time. The work is frustrating, he makes things unnecessarily complicated, and the entire subject becomes almost impossible to understand. English is clearly not his first language, and while I get that, his phrasing things oddly and not making things clear makes it hard to learn. I'm sure he's a genius in his own right, but he is NOT a teacher, and that's what I need.
When I get home, I take some time to do my homework while listening to music. I usually don't have a ton of time (because I get distracted and am not efficient and do stuff on my computer I probably shouldn't be if I'm trying to be doing my homework, and because my math teachers assigns so much homework) and then relax talking to my friends online, reading, and writing.
Because I don't have as much time for reading and writing, over the weekend I enjoy it much more. Last weekend, on Saturday I had a free day without any plans, which could end up with me spending the entire day on the computer and feeling unproductive. To prevent that from happening, I decided to try and use my computer as little as possible and take an early bath so as to wake up properly.
While taking a bath and going through the repetitive motions of washing my hair, I was blessed with a ton of new ideas for my Nano story. The entire story seemed much more interesting. I had the same satisfaction of collecting a bunch of puzzle pieces of the same type. I only had to put them together.
The first "bird" in the title refers to the bird in this Nano's novel (it can finally really be called a novel this November, as I'm hoping to make 70k), Sparrow. Sparrow and her half sister, Arlene, and their cousin, Wolf, live in a world that's a chaotic mixture of steampunk and magical. Magic obeys few laws, and can be both good and bad- but mostly, like some mischievous and impossible-to-wrangle youth, does as it wishes. Almost sentient, a magical type shapes and changes a person. Magic mixes oddly, creating new types of magic and weaving together a series of finicky rules and laws full of loopholes resulting in odd things, such as people who are slightly taller or shorter during different times of the moon cycle, or wishes that will, in fact, come true. Sometimes delightful, sometimes deadly, magic is a game all hope to win.
The second bird refers to the Bluejay, also known as Silvertongue and Mo.
Have you ever thought about what it would like if what you read came true? This intricate plot, characterized by realistic characters (get it?) are only rivaled by the stunningly detailed world.
The entire trilogy is amazing, and has the Indigo Mark of Approval, and is up there with Keeper of the Lost Cities and Fly by Night for books that SO deserve more recognition. Apparently there's a movie for the first book, but from what I've seen of it's awful.
Speaking of book recognition...
The Lord of the Rings series is pretty much the EXACT opposite. I can't think of any book series less respected off of the top of my head, except perhaps Harry Potter (don't kill me, guys, but I think I may like Lord of the Rings better).
I've known about Lord of the Rings for a while. I read, and loved, the Hobbit some years ago, but the other books were way too dense for me to read. I couldn't get through the heavy vocabulary and I couldn't appreciate the rich detailing. I recently got all of the books from the library, and watched the first hobbit movie... and, well. IT WAS AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZANG.
Say what you will about the timeline and accuracy and whatnot... but it was so lush! The sets were gorgeous, the world so detailed and beautiful! The out of the frying pan into the fire into the even hotter fire into the center of the Earth feeling was pretty cheesy but still. (I just realized how incoherent that last sentence is. LOTR is awesome, it does that too you.)
How do you manage to make even magic sound more beautiful and magical and make people ache for it to be realrealreal.
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