Quotation.

"He who takes offense when offense was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary." -Brigham Young

Listening to: "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" by Stevie Wonder
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Onigiri.

I never really got into that whole oh-my-goodness-it's-Japanese-so-it-must-be-awesome fad, but there is a single manga series that I liked: Fruits Basket. It's about a family cursed with alternative forms corresponding to the Chinese Zodiac. Basically. I've been watching the anime version on hulu. It sticks to the books very well, so I'm happy.

Tonight, I went with my roommate and some friends to an event called Around the World. They had six booths representing Japan, Australia, Egypt, Mexico, Canada, and China, with ethnic foods at most. There was a live mariachi band, sumo wrestling, hockey fighting, mummy races, alligator wrangling, and karaoke. I liked the karaoke best, even though I did terrible at it. Memo for next time: don't pick a song you don't know the tune to, even if it is Heart. I did much better at "Kryptonite."

Listening to: "Almost Paradise"
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Goblin-kitty.

Drew this back during the break as the result of a conversation a month or more prior. Running with the species "goblin-kitty," I did some half-hearted studies of bat noses then modeled the rest of its appearance after my caitshidhe shoulder-puppet. http://www.fantasypuppet.com/cat.htm Mine has a sort of skunk coloring with a black throat and legs and a creamy body. Khargein also has the prettiest sky blue eyes. Yes, I need a life.

Also, I've had the song "Eyes on Me" stuck in my head for the past few days for inexplicable reasons. Meaning, buggets if I know why. But it's pretty, so I don't mind. Here:

Now it can be stuck in your head. Oh, and that's no patched together fan-video made as a tribute. The song is actually from FF VIII. This is unedited footage from the end of the game. I notice the side gets a little cut off in my layout, so if you're really interested in watching the video you may want to fullscreen it.

Listening to: "Eyes on Me"
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Facepalm.

I just spent the past halfhour reading the wrong chapter in my linguistics book. Boy, do I feel silly. But it was so interesting! I guess it just sort of slipped my mind that it was totally not on the topic my teacher had said we would be talking about.

Listening to: "Eyes on Me"
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Monotone.

Today in my language studies class (the one with the teacher who looks kinda like Robert De Niro) we kicked our day off by watching a lecture by Noam Chomsky. The man may be one of the leading leaders in the field of linguistics, but he could put plants to sleep. They would just curl up their leaves and die. About three minutes into the video, which promised to last for an hour and 27, my eyes were beginning to droop. I tried to remain conscious with a crossword and a few sudokus I had squirreled away in my bag. I barely even know what he was lecturing about. I know it was something to do with biolinguistics and language and the brain, but as far as I could tell he just kept repeating himself and dryly recounting ten-minute long theories that all seemed to be controversial and unsubstantiated (to hear him tell it). Every so often our teacher would shake the computer mouse to see how far in we were. After one of the longest half hours of my life, the teacher said, "Enough of this," and had us start discussing some of the things we didn't get to last time. He had warned us beforehand that Chomsky was very skilled at inducing narcolepsy, but Noam went above and beyond anything I could have imagined from that description. As my teacher so aptly put it, if sleeping pills don't work, try listening to one of Chomsky's lectures. You'll be out in no time.

Listening to: "Ticket to Heaven" by 3 Doors Down
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Split.

So I was thinking to myself today. I know. Weird, right? Anyway, I realized something that I've sort of realized before but never acknowledged, if that makes sense. When I go off on my long-winded, self-deprecating rants, I'm never actually talking about what's bothering me. I end up talking about other things that have started bothering me because my self-esteem stepped out due to the bigger issue bothering me that I'm not addressing. Savvy? Because me being me, I can't talk about what I'm dying to talk about because that would be counter-intuitive. Okay, maybe not counter-intuitive, as my intuition seems to be split rather evenly on the subject of which way to go. But definitely counter-confidence. Now here I am torn about how to end this post. Part of me wants to leave a cryptic message for someone here at the end, but the other part of me is trying to tackle and hog-tie the aforementioned part so it can't. I guess that's as good as it's going to get.

Listening to: Fruits Basket
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Overhaul.

I wasn't really digging the old title of this blog, so I changed it. Because I could.

For those wondering, elferingewort is Middle English for a fairy ring. It's the name for a naturally occuring ring of mushrooms. Legend holds that the rings are formed by fairies dancing. To learn more, clickety-click! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring#Cultural_references

Ever since I first heard of the legends, I've loved the idea. So why not? Whether one believes in fairies or not, letting your imagination run off in a flight of fancy every now and then does one good.

Listening to: Glee
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Blustery.

The weather yesterday was incredible.

First, there were the torrents of rain. I wouldn't have minded so much, but I need a belt and the water soaking into my jeans wasn't helping the matter. Also, I left my tennis shoes at my dad's house, so the only shoes I have here at the dorm are a pair of heels and my ballet slippers. Some people can pull it off, but I refuse to wear heels with jeans, so the thin leather flats it was. They're still wet from yesterday.

Second, the wind! My roommate and I ventured out in search of books and food. The wind was blowing so hard it was pushing us sideways at times, and when it was to our backs we were pushed into running so we wouldn't fall over. It was quite the adventure trying to stay upright and at the same time not step in the small lakes forming in the low points in the malls (the fancy name here for the pedestrian-only streets on campus). Naturally, the places we went were all the way across campus. Then, when we finally got back to our building, we had to fight to get the door open because the mighty wind was pushing it closed. The wind was so bad, there was actually a sign on the door telling people to hold it as it closed so it wasn't slammed shut, thereby shattering the glass.

The trees were writhing so wildly it looked like Fangorn was waking up and heading for war. The behemoth palm trees whipping back and forth were the scariest.

I was half-expecting Tigger to show up, or Owl's tree to fall over.

Today was somewhat better. It was still overcast all day and the skies were pouring in the afternoon and evening, but I was done with my classes before one then had a lovely nap. From my 11th floor window, it looks like it's still coming down.

On the bright side, my new phone is awesome. It makes me feel like a secret agent.

Listening to: "When I'm Gone" by 3 Doors Down
Reading: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Jiggedy-jig.

I checked back into the dorms today. It's kind of novel having a clean room. It feels bigger than last semester. I love being back with my roommate. It feels like I've come back to a home. Of course, most places I go feel like that. My favorite part is being back with all of my books.

Sketch of one of my boots I did last semester right after I got my sketchbook and pencils.

Doodle inspired by Ludo from the Labyrinth. This is the result of hanging out in a dog grooming salon all day.

Listening to: "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy
Reading: Poor Little Witch Girl by Marie Desplechin

Ashes.

The land was empty and flat, hard-baked and ending in a sheer drop that disappeared out of sight. A dead, grey skeleton of a tree clung to the edge of the precipice, choked by a twisting vine of morning glory. Some of the roots were bared where time had worn away at the cliff side. Sunlight shined on the rainbow hued blossoms, highlighting an iridescent sheen. A heady perfume from the flowers, thick enough to taste, masked the scent of the tree’s decay. A slightly warm and pleasant wind gently ruffled the delicate petals. All was silent save for the gentle whisper of the breeze.

From the canyon a roar of fire blared, splashing the undersides of the blossoms and the bare branches a ruddy orange for a brief moment before subsiding. Then all was as before, except for the ashes floating on the wind and the scent of something burning that overpowered even the flowers’ musk, relegating it to a faint aftertaste.

Bare feet trembled forward. A single bright red-orange blossom broke loose and danced on the wind, alighting on a white fold in the fabric of the maiden’s train. A soft, pale hand retrieved the memento, tucking it securely in plaited ebony hair. The flower’s heart was blue, like a flame.

Listening to: Xmen
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Victory.

I succeeded in staying up all day yesterday. I went with my dad's girlfriend to her dog grooming salon. I mostly sat and watched her work. Strange as it sounds, it was kind of entertaining, although she had a disproportionate number of Schnauzers to groom yesterday. That's not to say I have anything against Schnauzers, I'm just commenting.

Listening to: That '70s Show
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Wimp.

I tried. And failed. My attempt at staying awake until this evening fell apart around 6 AM, which is when I've been falling asleep any way. I set an alarm for a half hour later, telling myself I was just going to take a nap to tide me over. Since I woke up at 1:30 (the same time I woke up yesterday), I'm going to call that unsuccessful. Darn.

Listening to: Wife Swap
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Gecko.

Haha! I downloaded Gex onto my PS3. I love that game! It's the silliest thing I've ever heard of and yet it's infinitely entertaining. A gecko gets sucked into a television and has to fight evil, bouncing tomatoes on his epic journey back to the real world? Okay, sure. This is going to be awesome.

I have also decided to try to stay up all night tonight so I'll be exhausted tomorrow night. Maybe I'll be able to fix my sleep schedule.

Listening to: Star Trek: the Next Generation
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Chibi.

This is a little cartoon version of myself that I drew the summer before my junior year. I feel like I haven't changed much. My drawings might have, though.

Listening to: Mythbusters
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Persuasion.

I realize now that instead of ranting last night/early this morning, I should have followed my first instinct and read Persuasion. I guess I forgot for a bit that it's my comfort book. I can open it to any page and start reading and enjoy it. I'll know exactly what's going on and what's going to happen and still want to find out anyway.

I know some people don't like Jane Austen. They find her work dry and hard to get into. That's probably why I like it. My mama raised me right. Meaning, on British humor. It's much more subtle than most American work. The key to understanding it is an appreciation for sarcasm.

The more I learn about the Regency Period in which Austen lived, the more I realize just how sarcastic her narrations are. It's quite awe-inspiring, actually. It definitely serves to make her books much more entertaining.

I also love how dimensional her characters are. They have substance and individuality. I think that is truly her greatest achievement. Much like Elizabeth Bennet, she was a studier of character. But beyond anything her character did, Jane had a gift for channeling the best and the worst of humanity into vibrant portraits, all at once ridiculing and elevating the most poignant characteristics of humanity.

She's my hero.

Listening to: the Cardinals game
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Pity party.

I can't fall asleep because my brain has decided that right now is a wonderful time to go into overdrive and spew out a bunch of complex thoughts. In an attempt to appease it, I've decided to type out some of the stuff it's yammering on about. That, and I know there's something up when I'm considering starting a twitter account.

My brain seems to have landed on the conclusion that I'm basically useless. Before you try to reassure me otherwise, just let me rant for a while. If you have objections, stop reading now. Mkay?

1. My art is crap. If not so bad as all that, then it's definitely mediocre. It's not like I expect myself to be on par with Da Vinci or Mucha, but I'm not even on par with my past self. I used to be able to draw stuff. Sure, my anatomy was wonky, my poses were unvaried, and my backgrounds were nonexistant, but I had a style. I could create things. Now, I can't even scribble out a dragon that satisfies me. I can't even get past the head, and since I have no technique whatsoever, the drawing is basically done before it begins if I can't get past that. Okay, yes, my realism sketches are coming along nicely, but I can't manage to give them the patience to make them really good or multi-dimensional or anything. Thus, they too remain mediocre. They're just better at pretending they're not.

2. I keep saying that my big dream in life (okay, second big dream) is to write a book. And yet, I never write. Some days I'll just have the motivation and drive and nothing better to do and jot down a paragraph or two, but nothing I work on ever gets very far past that. And if it does, it's terrible and poorly developed with flat characters and a hazy plot. And even the pieces that make it that far don't exceed a truncated page or two.

3. I claim to be a bibliophile, but lately waste all of my time staring at this freakin' computer. For the first time in my life, I'm going days without opening a book.

4. I gave up on reading Le Morte D'Arthur.

5. I somehow manage to spend the entirety of my days on the internet by rechecking both facebook and MLIA every few minutes.

6. I have become glued to my phone, even though I rarely hear from people. When I do, I'm usually the one who starts the conversation, and there are only three people who consistently respond. I barely recognize my ringtone because I receive calls about once in a blue moon, and I only get non-reply texts about once a month, usually from my friend Angel, who is usually only sending me random pictures and then not carrying on a conversation with me when I reply.

7. I feel petty and selfish because the people commenting on my facebook statuses are usually not the people I want to hear from.

8. That previous comment makes me feel like a jerk.

9. Number 8 makes me feel like even more of a jerk.

10. I can't ever just be. I have to have something to obsess about.

11. I'm writing this post in the first place.

12. I have no job and my personal fortune consists of a coin jar full of mostly small change with very few quarters because I spent most of the quarters at the campus bookstore. When I need or want something, I have to bum money off of my parents.

13. I'm a procrastinator.

14. At this very moment, I feel like my only real talent is delivering movie quotes. Ironically, I'm a horrible actress.

15. I have accomplished absolutely nothing in the past three weeks. To make it worse, I've spend the past few days doing nothing but watching TV and playing online. At the same time.

As if to underscore my point, I'm giving up on this post. I bet Mom's already up and about, and I haven't even managed to go to sleep yet.

Listening to: "Shadows of the Night"
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Prisma.

I just broke in my new set of Prismacolor colored pencils while rewatching the season finale of Glee. So far, they just feel like regular colored pencils to me. I think it may be my too gentle technique. We'll see what happens when I start shading and such. Since I'm having issues finishing pieces other than sketches (which aren't really suitable for coloring, as I've found out the hard way), I'm coloring a bit of lineart I printed off. I'll try to post it when I'm done coloring, or maybe even do stages. Either way, I can't take credit for the amazing lines. I only wish I was that good. The piece I chose is by Michelle Hoefener, one of my very favorite artists. Looking at her stuff always makes my fingers itch for a pencil. Sadly, her stuff gets a bit risque. If you want to see her work: http://michelle84.deviantart.com/. Viewers: ye be warned. If you're sensitive, don't click on anything censored by a grey box. Those are content filters. Some of the non-censored stuff is a little borderline anyway. Am I bad for liking some of it?

Anywho, that was not at all where I intended to go with that paragraph.

Listening to: Community
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Nocturnal.

I have continued my pattern of doing nothing while slowly reversing my days and nights. I woke up around 3:20 PM today. This has to stop, or I'm going to feel it when school and my 7 AM classes start up. I'm going to try to fix it next week, but we'll see how much success I have.

My dad got a bone graft above his front teeth yesterday, so we've just sat around watching TV for the past few days. He keeps saying his face feels like he got smacked with a bag of ball bearings. Since he has a bunch of stitches in his gums, he can't eat anything except yogurt and macaroni and cheese, so our fridge is packed full of pudding cups. I didn't know they made Jelly Belly flavors, but apparently they do. It will be interesting to see what those taste like. I'm excited and skeptical at the same time.

Listening to: Monster Jam
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Excess.

I flew back yesterday and my dad picked me up from the airport. The flight was actually kind of exciting. I sat next to a Spanish lady (as in, from Spain) who had her four- or five-year old son with her. I'm pretty sure he doesn't speak English. I was so excited! I could understand almost everything the little boy said. His mom spoke way too fast for me, but I still enjoyed listening to them talk.

Mexican for dinner last night. Tamales...mmm....

I did my Christmas at Anne's last night, too. I gave everyone their drawings, which were well received, and sat down to open my gifts. It was kind of awkward just sitting there opening things with everyone staring at me, and Anne goes overboard for Christmas. I got a bunch of movies, a couple CDs, a set of oil colors, Prismacolor colored pencils (!), way too much lotion, some nice dressier shirts, and a PS3. Too much, but very exciting.

I just sort of wasted today.

Listening to: "Heartless" by Heart
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Sketch.

I've spent today and yesterday at my friend Gabby's house because my mom and brother both went home yesterday. It's been really nice and quiet. I like doing nothing.

I also finally got around to drawing the Christmas presents I needed to. Geez. I make procrastination into an art form. I have two drawings down and one to go, which needs to be finished by tomorrow. I'm kind of taking a break right now because darn it! but apples are hard. I need to recoup before I start the next one.

Listening to: The Two Towers (extended edition)
Reading: Persuasion by Jane Austen

2010.

Last night I went with my brother to meet his most serious ex-girlfriend, who is now married. Alan's ability to remain close friends with his exes always astounds me. But it's kind of awesome. It was about a 45-minute drive, and we didn't leave until almost 11, so we were wandering around lost in the parking lot when the year change hit our timezone. I was pretty amused. We had already driven around the apartment complex twice, and we had finally parked and embarked on foot to see if we would have better luck that way. I was watching the clock, so I called out to him when it was midnight. We hugged, and because Alan is Alan, he kissed my cheek because he had to kiss somebody. Silly boy.

We eventually found the place. We spent a good three or so hours talking to Sarah and Doug. I can see why he thought she was so awesome. Her taste in movies and TV shows is stellar, if I do say so myself. They have a bunch of fish, and the betas are named Mal, Wash, Jayne, and Shepherd Book. Epic win. Plus, they had a ginormous puzzle that they let me work on a little. I love me some jigsaw puzzles. Have I mentioned that before?

Actually, now that I think about it, we were probably there closer to four hours. We got home around five. We had to stop at a Walmart and pick up some toilet paper on the way, but that didn't take that long. Nor was that important to the story. Sorry.

The three of us went to Salt Lake today. We wanted to eat at The Spagetti Factory in Trolley Square, but it wouldn't be open until four, and since I woke up around noon, I hadn't eaten and didn't want to wait two hours. I start feeling sick if I don't eat. We drove up to Temple Square to see if the Garden Restaurant was open, but apparently the Joseph Smith Memorial Building was closed today and noone remembered to change the sign pointing to the parking area that said it was open. We ate at the Cracker Barrel in Layton instead.

Afterward, we went to see an old family friend. She cut our hair when we lived in Utah. I hadn't seen her since I was five or six. It was really cool to reconnect. I'll never forget her yard, but now I'm taller than the boulders in the front. Trippy. They had a colossal gingerbread house that was pretty awesome. The little girls got Alan to play with them, though the four-year-old didn't quite agree with him on what the rules in chess are. That was pretty amusing. She was really ticked off when he held her to the actual rules and she lost. As an added bonus, I got my hair trimmed.

My cousins here are all really sad to see us go. We spent the evening jibing them and goading them to do their chores. Alan was especially zealous in the role of overseer. I was entertained.

Listening to: chatter
Reading: Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners by Josephine Ross