I'm meeting MARGARET ATWOOD

tomorrow in a lounge with probably something like less than twenty people and she's going to be looking at me and expecting questions and ohmygodhowdoIdothis.

I also probably just gave away my school completely blatantly, but oh well.

I know I haven't been keeping up with the wonderful crusaders lately and I am a horrible, horrible person.
But help me out, guys!


What should I ask her?? 


Also how do I tell her that I love her completely and utterly without getting a restraining order 

Yet another award, but very special for me

The wonderful, wonderful Deborah Walker, who has given me the One Lovely Blod award! Thank you so much -- you are pretty close to the first friend I made in blogging, and you are always ready to leave a cheerful comment on my posts. I appreciate it more than you might think! =)

To accept it, I must do the following: post it on my blog along with a link to the person who sent it to me, pass it along to other blogs, and let them know about it!




So here are the lovely blogs that you should all visit! =)

Writes of Passage

Fireside Park 

Finding Meaning with Words

Raising Marshmallows 

Butterfly Mind 

My Writing Journey

Happy Writings, Everyone!

One wonderful person, one stylish award, and seven facts about me

In my post about my rejection - thank you so much for the support, by the way, it's really washed away any negativity that might've been left in me - a lovely person with a lovely blog that I enjoy each time I visit left a comment to cheer me right up. Sully's Scribbles, thank from the bottom of my heart for the Stylish Blogger award!

Now, to accept this award, I must do the following: thank and link back to the awesome person who gave me this award, state 7 things about myself, and pass it along to other awesome blogs.

So here are seven facts about me!


1. I am a very fluent bilingual bordering on trilingual. It's troublesome at times, because a story just won't make up its mind what language it wants to be in. I've had instances where I've used both languages, and gone back and had to translate one into the other.


2. I love to paint digitally. I'm no means good at it, of course, but I still insist on doing it all the time - kind of reminds of that other thing I do, where I type stories out and pretend they make sense to other people. Mostly all self-taught here, however. Observe: it is a beagle's nose I drew from a reference when doing a texture study.

3. I have thing for glasses and guys. I don't fall for guys with glasses - because that would be more than half the world's population - but when I find attractiveness goes up when a guy puts on glasses. I myself always insist on contacts when going outside, however.

4. Being a sensible and busy student (or without a kitchen and half-adequate cooking skills, more like), I live on yogurt.

5. I do bake, however.

6. I'm a bibliophile and a music addict. I can't walk or write (or breathe, it seems) without music, and I play eight instruments. I cannot sing to save my life.

7.

A parody of “The Dangerous Shirt” by Alberto Rios

The toothbrush in my washroom is dangerous.
I shouldn't have put toothpaste on.

Because I have, I will brush my teeth.
If I brush my teeth, I will change into pajamas.

If I am in my pajamas, I will be drawn towards the bed,
The bed and not the desk – the bed,

Because if I am in my pajamas,
I will not want to study.

So if I get near the bed, that's it -
Shake your fist at me, because I will lie down.

And if I lie down, I will close my eyes.
I will close my eyes and fall asleep.

The danger of the toothbrush – of course,
Always, every moment, it is so obvious.

 

Now, enough about me! On to the lovely people who deserve this award!!
Please take the time to visit these fantastic blogs! =)


There's a Place I Dream About 

Every Other Writer Has a Blog... Why Can't I? 

Crime, Thriller, Horror and... One Bad Romance

Living On Earth

Literary Fiction

Alberta's Sefuty Chronicles

The rejection of the week

Well, more of the semester, I suppose. =)

I dropped by my room today in middle of the day when I should have been in one of my lectures, having judiciously determined that a little food and rest were more beneficial to my health than sixty minutes in a lecture about the American Government. (You've all done something like that at least once, right??)

And you see I was punished for this, because when I checked my mailbox, sitting coyly in the middle was the SASE I'd sent along with three poems to a magazine at the end of last year. I tore it open as I waited for the elevator, but I guess I sort of knew what was inside; I hadn't received an email from them or anything, and really it's been so long that I'd almost thought that my submission must have gotten lost in the mail.

But no, it was your standard rejection letter: "However, at this time, we are unable to publish your work."

And while it hurts, of course it does, it's not my first and it will not be my last. It was also my first poetry submission - I'd only started writing it last fall - so I'll be taking this one in stride.


Ironically, when I arrived at work after that (you see I'm not only thoughtful of my physical needs, I'm also diligent when I need to be!), I was told by my editor that I would have to send a similar "Really do love the work, but not for us right now" letter - to someone I'd met, no less.


So today was a two-sided coin, to say the least. I reacted mostly by baking - and wouldn't you know it, I made the best sesame rolls I've ever made so far. If anyone wants to talk to me, I'll be over there humming "That's What Makes the World Go Round" from Disney's Sword in the Stone.

My horse for a Kindle!

First off a huge hello to my new followers and crusaders -- Hello! I've been deader than dead lately on this blog, and I'm sorry - this is what two jobs and maximum credits at a university will do to you.

But look, I has a kindle!

It's the new Kindle, 6" display, with 3G + wireless. Mmm.

I'll admit I was on the fence about this kindle and all - I'm still more of a bibliophile and tend of insist on paper books. Even at this moment I still have books from the library (which I should really get to and finish before returning, actually).

But the Kindle's got its neat little features, and I guess my favourite part would be that I'm allowed to carry more than one book without killing my back.

As for readability, it's not too bad. With text, it's easier to read without the words running off-screan; with pdf, it's easier to read formatted word and without words "breaking" (it happens when you write in a non-Latin alphabet-based language, I suppose, which is what I do).

Doc files are supposedly supported, according to the website, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet. It'd be nice to be able to put my drafts in and read them on the road sometimes.

Being of the Web 2.0 generation, of course, I actually thought their internet browser wasn't half bad.

I was expecting a text-only browser, so when images showed up not half bad - black and white, but pretty good considering how black and white displays from years ago looked! - I was pleasantly surprised. The 3G was definitely worth it in this case, I suppose.

One thing I disliked, however, was being unable to download pdf files from the browser. I don't know if that's Amazon trying to stop me from not buying books through their store or illegally downloading books, but I was trying to get works that are no longer copyrighted (Wordsworth, Pope, y'know, the good stuff) from Google books and failed miserably. I shall have to play around with it a bit more, I suppose, or learn to utilize the usb cable.


Just on a personal side, too, I'd have liked to be able to type in stuff. Wouldn't that be something?? I mean, the key pad on the kindle is far from ideal, but I'm such a sucker for being able to type wherever I want.

That's it for February, everyone. Happy Writings!

Exclamation: Pedro Paramo

Pedro Paramo (1955)
Juan Rulfo  

After I finished Pedro Paramo, all I wanted to do was put my head on the desk and cry.

Not because the ending is tragic – the entire story of Pedro Paramo is tragic – but because the writing filled me with the kind of despair that will probably never go away.

In this book, the reader has no clear idea who the protagonist is. Pedro Paramo is far too larger-than-life to be an approachable character. Father Renteria is far too circumventive to be empathized with. Susana, well, no reader or character can understand even half of what she’s thinking. Juan Preciado is the reader’s guide into this hell Rulfo has created, but his story is trivial compared to the suffering that fills this town. The ghosts are thrown at the readers, and we are expected to accept them without blinking an eye.

In fact, the reader has no clear idea of what is even happening in the book. Was that incest? (Probably.) Is he a ghost? (Most likely.) How did Pedro Paramo really die? (I’m with the death shown on the last two pages.)

Yet it works perfectly. It’s true that the reader gains a bigger revelation and thus a bigger catharsis with nonlinear stories, in which missing pieces come together slowly until the full picture is finally presented. The effort it takes to piece them together, perhaps, or the suspense of wondering about the missing pieces makes the ending all that much sweeter.

Yet such an effect is extremely hard to achieve, and nonlinear stories are always at the risk of being merely confusing, especially in such a murky setting with mixed characters as in Pedro Paramo. This book manages it, however, and it manages it brilliantly. The intrusions of Pedro Paramo’s story are smoothly delivered between Preciado’s stories, until the book becomes a true omnibus and the reader does not even feel the transition until it’s too late.

The book manages to deliver even incest smoothly, less as disgusting and more as darkly disturbing in its mix of the innocence and sin, as in the case of the couple-siblings Preciado encounters.

In short, perhaps, I loved Rulfo; and I hated him for writing what I want to write, long before I even realized that it was what I wanted to write, and for writing it far better than I could have written.

The CRUSADE badge: How to

I've seen a few comments here and there about how to put the badge up, etc., so I decided to put a How-to together. Just a warning upfront, I'm going to assume the reader doesn't know really much of anything about blogs, so some of you more tech-savvy people may find it slow-paced.

(But first a huge thanks to Rachel for promoting the badge on her post, and for organizing the CRUSADE in the first place!! It's brilliance itself, I tell you - and you all are equally crazy people for joining it and showing up in my blog for it!! I knew there was a reason I signed up! *grins*)


So the badges in question are these:




The trick is knowing which one to use. They look about the same, but one of them is actually a .png file with a transparent background. Keep in mind, also, that Internet Explorer has started supporting these transparent png files not that long ago; it might not work for older versions.

Now, if you have a white background for your blog - not the entire background, but the area where your texts show up and where you want the badge to show - you must use the RIGHT one.

If you have a color background, then you must use the LEFT one. It's the one with the transparent background, so that your background will show up around the badge and not in a square. It'll look pretty.

OR, if this all confuses and you don't mind having a white box around the badge, you can use the RIGHT one.



Once you've made your choice, here is how you put it up:


1. Click the badge you want to use above.

2.Right-click on the image, and choose Save Image As. Save it anywhere - desktop is usually a good choice. Click "Save".

3. Open your own blog. You will see "design" on the top left corner; click it, and you should be brought to a page that looks like the above. Your page may look different, depending on the layout you have chosen.

4. Decide where you will put your badge; most commonly, it'll be the sidebar. Click "Add a Gadget".

5. Find the "Picture" gadget, which looks like the above pic. Click it.

6. Fill out the information. You can put whatever you want; it would make sense to link to Rachel's post about the crusade. For the picture, choose "From your computer", click browse, find the badge picture you saved earlier, and click open. The badge pic should show up like above.

7. Click save.

8. It should show up in the list of gadgets as above.

That's all, folks! I have a cold right now and I wrote this in a rush because I have to go work out with my roommie soon, so if there are grave (or even little) things wrong with it, please tell me!! But hope this helped!