My Week in GIFs

I ran out of words this month. There has to be some kind of limit before you open your mouth and suddenly nothing comes out except unintelligible babble.

I'm there.

However, my brain's working well enough to use a different method to show you all what this past week has been like.



1) What I do to my brain to bounce back from a rigorous teaching day: 

2) When I try to explain to the rents why my revision work has made me grumpy / distracted / forgetful of my chores:

3) After three consecutive days of being asked to check APA formatting:

4) Discovering that ABC's The Taste is actually great - and that I now have the honor of watching two wonderful food shows (aka Sweet Genius) every week:

5) What I hope I'm doing to my novel draft:

6) Slinking towards February with tiny chunks of sanity:

Peace out.

Mooching Through Florida: Epic Vacation

Happy 2013!

You'd think that this year - what with the whole unlucky 13 thing - would start off with meteor showers and dinosaur attacks, but it's actually going quite well so far. Why "mooching?" My winter break was horribly devoid of Buster Keaton, so I'm starting the first post of the year off right with a reference to one of Keaton's talkie shorts, "Mooching Through Georgia." Because, after two weeks of driving across Florida, I feel like I've been on a long journey.

I traveled to Miami, St. Augustine, and Disney World (always Disney). The best way to talk about my vacation is to, well, show you.

The Lightner Museum - St. Augustine

This museum is, hands down, the best museum I've ever been to. Why? Because it's stuffed with strange and mechanical wonders from the Gilded Age. I think I could spin a hundred stories from here. The bonus is that the museum used to be the Hotel Alcazar, built in back in 1887 - so, not only did I see a lot of need glass work and automatons from the Gilded Age, but I also got to learn about the hotel and see where the baths were, among other interesting rooms.

Ghost chair. (LOL. I guess all plastic has that kind of effect).

After seeing the museum the first day, we came back again to eat lunch in the center of the museum. I ordered the spinach egg drop soup and curry chicken sandwich. It. Was. Delicious.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

When I was in middle school, still acclimating to Florida life, I went on a school trip to St. Augustine and climbed the lighthouse. Despite visiting St. Augustine many times since, I hadn't been back to the lighthouse for years. It's been a huge inspiration for my thesis and it felt thrilling to climb all the way to the top, knowing that my main character does that every single day of her life (how strong she is, haha!) - and also knowing that my thesis journey is almost complete. I tried not to shed tears of joy at the top, for fear that my falling tears might have seriously injured someone below, bwahaha.

I'm a ham.

Disney World - Orlando

Disney. Yep, you guys know I always go here. With the family all together, we really celebrate by staying over a few days and doing what we love best - hotel hopping. Basically, we like to hop on the monorail and see how each hotel is decorated for Christmas, as well as eating sugar-coated almonds in the parks and standing in line, haha. The finest achievement (besides finding a hidden Wreck-It Ralph room in MGM) was getting to eat lunch at the Beast's Castle. 

We also spent the evening strolling on the Boardwalk - it was the first time I'd ever been there at night. Nothing relaxed me quite as much as that stroll down the lit up boardwalk, seeing strings of popping lights, the epic pirate ship water slide, kids running around on the lawns (the Boardwalk hotel sure know how to keep the party going, haha), and a giant goblet full of caramel apple sundae that we always get at The Fountain.

I wish it actually worked - it was for show only *shakes fist*

At the Beast's Castle, I ordered the spinach quiche and, for dessert, a raspberry-filled cream puff.

Things You Do When You're Sick

No doubt, being sick stinks.

I've managed to avoid the waves of stomach flu's and strep throats that strike like lightning through campus. With only three weeks left of the semester, I had thought that I made it out just fine. Until Sunday. I woke up with a sore throat and a clogged nose.

Whenever I'm sick, I usually pretend that I'm not - mostly because I can't afford to let my deadlines pass or save my work until the last minute. There's never a good time to get sick, especially when you're in graduate school. If you blink, you'll find a new stack of papers to grade, another short story due, and more revisions waiting for your red pen.

Highly Appropriate

The longer I stare at the computer, the more powerful my headache becomes. It's not like this always happens - I guess runny noses and glowing computer screens don't mesh well. So if I've been behind on Figment, now you know why. Hopefully I'll feel better by next week. Yeah, I'm sure I will.

The meantime, I do my work in tiny increments, take naps, and try not to look at my computer very often. My Wreck-It Ralph art book finally arrived so I've been sneezing all over the drool-worthy pages of conceptual art and candy models. I'll have to Lysol the book before letting anyone else look at it, haha.

I'm going to leave you with some photos from the art book - just the cute little cheering squad extras from Sugar Rush. You don't get a good look at these little guys during the movie, but they are completely adorable.

Have a great Thanksgiving and be thankful that you have working taste buds and noses to enjoy the meal with (I can smell, thank goodness).

101 Fan Clubers

The theme of this post is most definitely celebration. The spinning vortex that is November has been sending me into a tailspin, but I wanted very much to grab onto something solid for a moment and post about this amazing thing:

*rubs eyes* Am I dreaming? No? Hurrah! It's official: my figment fan club has reached 101 members!

This is totally a big deal. Yes, I do have a lot of followers, but for someone to enjoy my writing enough to join the group does matter a lot to me. We all know what the figment groups are like; it's hard to check updates, new comments, etc., when there's no notification system. No matter what group you join, you're left in the dark (unless you have a shameless habit of checking the groups every four minutes... in which case, not many people are like that. Trust me).

So 101 fans... thank you. Thank you so much. And while I'm at it, a hearty thank you to fellow figgie Ben Chapman who created the group way back in '11 and the admins and mods that continue to look cool, haha.

You guys give me the honey glows something awful.

To celebrate, I rearranged my schedule in order to try (and it's working so far) to write, write, write and post. As much as I love the feedback on Tread Softly, I know what you all really want is more Boys & Bees - hence, the new chapter.

We're getting to a tipping point in the story. There's the looming circus, the dead-end clues, the mysterious helper and Hedda's secret... gah! Well, cool your heels. I'm writing when I can, but until then.. here's a formspring question to tide you over.

What are the school's uniforms on B&B? and if they don't wear uniforms, what do Hedda and Lorabeth usually wear?

Clothing. Yes. This is the perfect opportunity to create some visuals. In terms of the apiology school's uniforms, the descriptions have shown up within the early chapters of Boys & Bees. The colors are mostly black and yellow, though I think the combination isn't so jarring with majority of the uniform being black. The boys and girls have different uniforms. The girls wear yellow cardigans with black blouses underneath, a plaid skirt, and knee-high stockings. The shoes shoe be black, but Lorabeth wears her beat-up boots with her uniform while other girls have nice new shoes. The boys wear black cardigans with yellow collared shirts underneath, black pants, and yellow socks. Very charming, haha.

Lorabeth Frisch

I would say that Lorabeth is a uniform-wearing girl. She barely remembers to change out of her uniform, save for the weekends (when her dirt-encrusted skirts and cardigans have piled up for the wash). Lorabeth doesn't have much clothing, fashion being a thing that doesn't matter to her. 

Her clothes are boyish, like the pants and suspenders combo she wore the day after the fire. In the latest chapter, Lorabeth unearths an old dress in the back of her closet - her mother probably picked it out for her. When I saw the collar, I thought it was perfect for bees to hide under, haha. 

Hedda Sparling

Unlike Lorabeth, Hedda is very feminine with (likely expensive clothing in soft shades of pink, cream, and other pastels. Any trinkets she has are far from tacky; her jewelry is subtle, usually with thin chains and small charms. Hedda basically wears dresses and skirts - it makes me wonder if she would ever borrow Lorabeth's pants if she had to.

I included that poster in the collage, saying "A true love story never ends" because we're still guessing what kind of feelings Hedda has in terms of love and boys. Maybe she does have hope for love - but why would she need hope when every guy has a crush on her? Heh, we'll find out.