Monday, October 22, 2012

Fun at the Corn Maze

I might be missing Fright Fest in Wild Waves this year, but the corn maze I went to Saturday night with six of my friends was just as much fun, if not more fun! My easily excitable friend came along, and the maze was dark and spooky, so just tapping her on the shoulder got a funny scream out of her. Good times! Everybody else says they had a good time. Thanks for inviting us, Sarah!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Zoo

Yesterday my two friends Cody and Lauren and I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo. I haven't been to a zoo since July, and it was a wonderful change from spending the entire day on campus. The zoo is a little ways down the street from the college, so we walked there. Lauren was excited to see the penguins and Cody wanted to see the small mamals. Me? I was hoping to see wolves, grizzley bears, or bald eagles. Well, we saw the first two. There weren't any bald eagles there. We also saw some elephants up close-ish. The elephants in Woodland Park Zoo have this massive enclosure, so you can never get especially close to them. The two elephants in the Milwaukee Zoo had a smaller pen and there was only about ten feet separating the walkway from the edge of the pen. Elephants really are very wrinkly!

The best part, though, was the cheetah. It was flopped out right up against the window, sleeping. I know those animals are dangerous and can rip things to shreds, but that cheetah was so adorable! It turned to look at me and winked. He looked so soft that I just wanted to hug him. It's a good thing there was some glass between me and him.

Friday, October 12, 2012

A Friend's Birthday

Today is my friend Sarah's nineteenth birthday. Since she's a commuter,  I had the task of keeping her company until our friend's apartment was ready. Emily finally let us in, but she raced ahead of us to warn everyone that Sarah was coming. I grabbed her and we both ran the other way and hid down the hall for a few minutes. Finally someone came looking for us, but it was someone I've never seen before. It turned out he was Ethan, who Emily had once been enamoured of. He brought us back, and this time everyone jumped out and shouted "Happy Birthday!"

Emily was the entertainment. We eventually started a countdown of everything that makes her goofy. That was great entertainment. I had puppy chow for the first time in my life, and it was delicious. But Emily said she had to finish a paper, so Cody told her to finish her paper and he would reward her with hugs. She's currently confined to sign language while we play Apples to Apples. More updates later.

UPDATE: We played Apples to Apples twice, and then a few rounds of Game of Things. Emily did finish her paper in time, and she came out to play Game of Things with us. We considered playing mafia, but then decided that it was time to watch Ocean's Twelve.

Sarah says she enjoyed it. :)

Happy Birthday, Sarah! We all love you!

We had a GREAT time!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Endings, Etc.

So, partially thanks to the wave of Hunger Games frenzy that swept the nation and partially thanks to the honors class I'm in, I've been wondering a bit about story endings. As I said in earlier posts, I believe stories must have good endings. An ending is probably the most important part of the story. (I realize a number of my readers were not happy with my cliffhanger endings, but the endings of a book are not necessarily the ending of a story.) That all being said, there is a difference between a good ending and a happy ending. I don't think Gladiator had what you could call a happy ending, but it was still a good ending.

For the record, all of my stories will have happy or mostly happy endings. I like happy endings.

I've already said, in great detail, what I think a good ending is. Just look at my most outraged posts from this latest spring. But what about happy endings? What makes an ending happy? As I was pondering this, one of my friends said, "There's no such thing as a happy ending."

Well, I thought about that, and after much thought, I agree. There is no such thing as a happy ending. But I'm not questioning the "happy" part. I'm questioning the "ending."

We humans don't like things to end. We like for stuff to always have a tomorrow and a new adventure on new horizons. We want our heroes to live forever. So then, how can a story's ending be happy? Simple - by not being an ending, but instead a new beginning.

So does this mean that all my stories will have cliffhanger endings? No. Just most of them. :)

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Antigone=Mean Girls? Oh, and Pirates Are in the Mix, Too

Has anybody ever irritated a teacher to the point of receiving more work? I'm sure most people have. But has anyone ever done it in eight words or less? That's what my ancient world class managed to do yesterday. We've been reading Antigone, which is the story of Oedipus's daughter (which, by the way, is a creepy story, so why are we reading it?) To summarize Antigone, her uncle the king gives an order not to bury her brother, but she disobeys, and most of the play is her dealing with that punishment. Anyway, before class we young adults were talking about Pirates of the Caribbean (that topic being brought up by something else fabulous, which I will share later) and the professor walks in, hears us, and scorns Pirates as "cheap theatrics." It's a relatively well-known fact that that professor hates computers, social networks, and any reference to pop culture. Yesterday being National Mean Girls Day, one of my classmates decided to further irritate the professor. She raised her hand and asked, "Have you ever seen the movie Mean Girls?"

The whole class burst out laughing, either because the question was so random or because everyone knows he's never seen Mean Girls. He was so irritated - or so amused, I'm not entirely sure which - that he told us to take out a piece of paper and write a 500-word essay about how Antigone is the original Mean Girl. Well - that was a surprise. And of course, half the class hadn't seen Mean Girls, so the question arose, what should they compare Antigone to? Somebody muttered "Twilight," who hadn't even read Twilight. Yeah, that really irritated him. He ended up saying any movie you want, and the majority of people chose Mulan. The upshot of it all is that we handed in almost-500-word essays comparing Antigone to something in pop culture.

Actually, if you really think about it, there are some resemblances between Antigone and Mean Girls. I'll tell you what they are if I get a good grade on that essay. I'm pretty sure the professor is laughing hysterically as he reads some of these essays.

And now, for the truly fabulous thing about yesterday: Professor Finnigan, who teaches Western Civ, handed us information about history classes we could take next semester. One of the options was Ancient Rome, which she is teaching. I think I'll take it because she is my favorite professor. But the option on the top of the sheet was - I kidd you not - a class about the history of pirates. (Get my pun? I kidd you not - Kidd you not?) Anyway, this class does not only talk about real-ish pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, but it spends some time on less-real pirates like Davy Jones, Long John Silver, and (Captain) Jack Sparrow. That's right - part of this class will include Pirates of the Caribbean! I am so taking that class!

Another advantage of this class is that it covers our non-Western history credit for a history minor, which is what I'm going for. It also only meets once a week, and it's an evening class, so it doesn't get in the way of anything.

Anyway, this is what we were talking about in Ancient World that led to the discussion of Pirates of the Caribbean. And I will be awake at midnight waiting to register for that class.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Update on Rinaria

The good news is that I have the third Quest for Rinaria coming along nicely. 🐠 As some of you may remember, there are four ships sailing in search of a legendary city rumored to have mountains of treasure and, more importantly to the pirates, a whole host of adventures on the way. 💀 The next three stories will focus on the adventures aboard the individual ships. The first one will be aboard the Wynraser, Shartalla's ship. Remember how much she loves the sea - this will be an exciting adventure! 🐬