Last Day of Work and First Day of Vacation

Yesterday was my last day of work at Karmanos. Of course there was some more stupid drama, this time about the microscope. I have no idea how that will end, but it was really stupid. But after decontaminating equipment and packing up the rest of the other lab, my supervisor took me out to lunch at the Motor City Brewery. They make this awesome pizza there and of course brew their own beers. It was cool and I got to go home early. I'll miss working with my supervisor, she is absolutely awesome, but I'm glad to get away from the drama and move on to graduate school.
Today I drove with my family to Munising, MI on Lake Superior. The drive is pretty boring. I used to think it was super long, but after driving to Iowa and back a couple of times on my own this drive seemed short in comparison. It's actually only three hours shorter, but it seemed like a lot more. The weather is awesome up here right now. It's in the mid-sixties, no humidity, and sunny. It's the perfect kind of weather to me.
I know I'm being slow about the writing meme. I promise I'll finish it eventually. The last week of work was really busy and then my brain was just mush by the end of the day. 

Fencing

It's me! In my fencing gear. I fence epee and it's about freaking time that I took a picture of myself with my gear on.

5. By age, who is your youngest char­ac­ter? Old­est? How about “youngest” and “old­est” in terms of when you cre­ated them?

Let's see...my youngest character is Jennifer in Terminal Dreams. She's 14 and is the one that first suspects her older sister is haunting the house. She also gets in touch with the ghost hunting teams. I think my oldest character is Nikolas in The Last Days of the Unreal City. He's in his 60s and works with a group on Earth trying to rebuild the ground cities after the war.
In terms of age of creations, Liera in my as untitled NaNoWriMo 2011 is actually the oldest. I created her way back in middle school, and the story has gone through so many permutations in my head. This year is when I hope to really write down the story the way I want it. Youngest in terms of creation are the cast of The Last Days of the Unreal City. I made them all up last year for NaNoWriMo 2010. 

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!

Oh, I just remembered the first story I ever wrote a few days ago. I was in first grade when I wrote it, so it's hilariously silly. It had something to do with my two best friends at the time, who were both named Mike, and horses were involved. I did illustrations to it as well, and if I recall correctly the horses looked more like camels. But I thought I was sooo fancy and such a good writer. I've gotten better since then, I promise.

3. How do you come up with names, for char­ac­ters (and for places if you’re writ­ing about fic­tional places)?

Well, I don't really have a set process. Usually they just sort of magically come into my head. Occasionally I'll borrow a name from somewhere else, but I never straight up use a character's name unless I'm writing fanfiction. But most of the time names just randomly pop up when I need them. If I really needed a name and nothing was coming, I'd probably google around a bit until I found something that sounded good.

2. How many char­ac­ters do you have? Do you pre­fer males or females?

I don't even think I can count the number of characters I have. There are loads in each story. Most of them are secondary/background characters, but they're there. Almost all of my main protagonists are female, because I'm a girl so it seems easier to write women, although I do have a couple of male main characters. I've never written a story from an all-male perspective though. I feel like I wouldn't know how.

1. Tell us about your favorite writ­ing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

I think that my favorite thus far was my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, entitled Terminal Dreams. It's about a haunting and ghost hunts from the ghost's point of view. I got the idea while simultaneously doing homework and watching Ghost Hunters and wondered what the ghosts thought about the guys doing this stuff, if they were there. The universe was present day, and the nice thing was that I didn't have to do a lot of background research beyond what types of things people use for ghost hunting. The background research on my current project is killing me. Anyway, I think this is my favorite because it came together so well, and it is my first complete novel. This year's, once it's done, may become the favorite because it's been kicking around in my head for so long, but for now Terminal Dreams takes the cake.

30 Day Writing Meme

 I'm going to embark on another 30 day meme; this time it's not general questions but instead deals with writing. Since I have written a couple novels and am gearing up for the third in November, I thought it would be both interesting and useful to get me into novel writing mode. Here are the questions:
1. Tell us about your favorite writ­ing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.
2. How many char­ac­ters do you have? Do you pre­fer males or females?
3. How do you come up with names, for char­ac­ters (and for places if you’re writ­ing about fic­tional places)?
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
5. By age, who is your youngest char­ac­ter? Old­est? How about “youngest” and “old­est” in terms of when you cre­ated them?
6. Where are you most com­fort­able writ­ing? At what time of day? Com­puter or good ol’ pen and paper?
7. Do you lis­ten to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your char­ac­ters?
8. What’s your favorite genre to write? To read?
9. How do you get ideas for your char­ac­ters? Describe the process of cre­at­ing them.
10. What are some really weird sit­u­a­tions your char­ac­ters have been in? Every­thing from seri­ous canon scenes to meme ques­tions counts!
11. Who is your favorite char­ac­ter to write? Least favorite?
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of world­build­ing? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?
13. What’s your favorite cul­ture to write, fic­tional or not?
14. How do you map out loca­tions, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
15. Mid­way ques­tion! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether pro­fes­sional or not!
16. Do you write roman­tic rela­tion­ships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you will­ing to go in your writ­ing? ;)
17. Favorite pro­tag­o­nist and why!
18. Favorite antag­o­nist and why!
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove him­self into the spot­light and why!
20. What are your favorite char­ac­ter inter­ac­tions to write?
21. Do any of your char­ac­ters have chil­dren? How well do you write them?
22. Tell us about one scene between your char­ac­ters that you’ve never writ­ten or told any­one about before! Seri­ous or not.
23. How long does it usu­ally take you to com­plete an entire story—from plan­ning to writ­ing to post­ing (if you post your work)?
24. How will­ing are you to kill your char­ac­ters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most inter­est­ing way you’ve killed some­one?
25. Do any of your char­ac­ters have pets? Tell us about them.
26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your char­ac­ters? Do oth­ers draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite pic­ture of him!
27. Along sim­i­lar lines, do appear­ances play a big role in your sto­ries? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about design­ing your char­ac­ters.
28. Have you ever writ­ten a char­ac­ter with phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­i­ties? Describe them, and if there’s noth­ing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
29. How often do you think about writ­ing? Ever come across some­thing IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
30. Final ques­tion! Tag some­one! And tell us what you like about that per­son as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

T-10 Days

I only have ten more days left at work! Thank goodness too, because there is more stupid shit going down and it is getting really annoying. We're supposed to be moving to another building, so I've spent the past two weeks busting my ass to get everything packed up. Well, earlier this week my boss finds out that the space we're moving into hasn't been vacated yet, and the guy who is supposed to be vacating it is holding the area hostage while he demands fancy crap for his new space. And the dean is currently on vacation, so we have to wait for him to get back and forcibly kick this guy out so we can move in.
None of this would be a huge deal except that now we have time to do some science since we aren't moving, and everything is already packed up. So doing experiments is a double pain in the ass because I don't know where anything is and have to dig through boxes all the time. I'm looking forward to being done and having this be someone else's problem. 

I keep spending money

The past week or so has been expensive. I'm buying a bunch of the stuff I need/want for moving, and of course it costs money. Thankfully I have all this money plus some, but I don't like seeing my money go away. The most expensive thing I bought was a new bed. I've been sleeping in a twin bed for way too long, so I bought a queen size. Yay! The next most expensive thing is a stationary recumbent bicycle. I want to keep up exercising, but I know that especially the first semester, I probably won't be doing much fencing or going to a gym. Plus I can read while I use a recumbent bike, so I can study while exercising. I like to multitask. Then it's just small stupid things like kitchen stuff, a region-free DVD player, floor lamps, stuff like that. I'm glad I've been budgeting for all this stuff for a while.
I've only got fifteen days of work left! I'm really excited to be done. Technically I get paid through July 8th because I'm using all my vacation days, but it's really only fifteen days left to show up at work. I'll miss my supervisor because she's completely awesome, but I am glad to move on.

It's June!

It's June, and that means that I have less than a month left at work. I am really looking forward to being done. There's been stupid politics going on for ages, but it's just getting sillier and sillier. Luckily my supervisor is really awesome, but there's not a lot we can do to change the political climate. It's frustrating. So I'm getting excited that I'll be able to leave soon. Plus I am really looking forward to going back to graduate school, although I am really nervous about getting grades again. I'll feel better after the first semester is over and I've passed everything. Until then I think I'll be at least a bit worried.
In other news, I went shopping last Monday and now I wear a size 10 jeans! I was also able to buy some button down shirts in a size L instead of XL. It is gratifying to finally be able to go down a couple of sizes. I've lost forty pounds since I was at my highest weight in 2009. I'm not done losing weight; I want to lose another 20 pounds or so. But being able to get into smaller clothes makes me really happy. 

Odds and Ends

I went shopping today. I bought a new bed, upgrading to a queen size for my new apartment. I bought an ottoman, a wall clock, and a couple of floor lamps. It was relatively painless, which is how I like my shopping. My mum makes fun of me because I shop like a guy. I don't like to spend hours looking around at everything-I just want to go in, get what I want, and get the hell out. Today I was able to do that so I'm a happy camper. Tomorrow I'm going to the outlet mall with my mum and granny for clothes and kitchen gadgets, and I'm hoping that it will be equally painless. We'll see.
After I was done shopping, I helped my dad plant the garden. We had chives and red onions spontaneously grow, but we had to plant the bell peppers and tomatoes. We'll also put in green beans and cucumbers, but the greenhouse didn't have those plants yet. Just as we finished putting them in, it started to thunder and the tornado sirens went off. We went inside to find out that we were under a tornado warning. Oh, what fun. So we had to corral three cats in their carriers to get them to stay in the basement, and my dad had to carry the collie downstairs because she can't walk down the stairs by herself. Our oldest cat started yowling, which set off my cat, and the fluffiest cat was trying to escape the whole time. Thankfully we only had to stay down there about fifteen minutes and the worst of the storm passed by.
Now I'm starting to plan my latest NaNoWriMo novel. It's actually a reboot of the one I tried to do and failed in 2008, which is the story that's been bouncing around my head for more than a decade now. I'm actually going to start doing a load of research since it has to do with pirates, and I need to get my nautical terms straight. And then throw in a really bad dude, meddling gods, super soldier manufacturing camps, and some cranky dwarves and you get the idea. It's X-Men meets Lord of the Rings meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets Iron Man. So really, really complicated, pretty much. And hopefully it will be really awesome when I write it.

Day 30 - Your highs and lows of this month.

Highs:

• I got approved for my apartment in Ames.
  
• I got to hang with my dad's side of the family yesterday and meet my cousin's fiance.
  
• I bought furniture for my new apartment.

Lows:

• I'm doing the jobs of three people at work but still only getting paid to do one job. I am told that this is just how it is in the real world. Bummer.
  

Well, I don't have many lows so that's good! And I finally finished this meme.

Day 29 - Goals for the next thirty days.

-Pack my entire life back into boxed in preparation for moving.
-Pack and move the entire lab from Hudson-Webber to C.S. Mott.
-Finish my experiments so I can go on vacation without worry.
-Get back to really eating on plan instead of half-assing it.
-Background research for NaNoWriMo this year.

Day 28 - Something that you miss.

I actually miss London a lot. I've only been there once, and it was only ten days, but that was an awesome trip. I think London is really the only city I could live in and be happy. It would be crazy cool to end up in the UK in my future. I loved it.

Day 27 - A problem that you have had.

I have generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety, and have dealt with several bouts of major depression. It is something that I will live with for the rest of my life, and sometimes it is difficult to deal with. I spent almost three years on medication at one point, which was necessary then, but currently I'm not on anything. It works for me now, because I did a lot of therapy and that's helped me find coping skills to live with the anxiety disorder. My depression is always situational so over time it went away on its own. But I always have to be careful and watch myself so I know when it's time to head back to a therapist or try medication again. It's frustrating sometimes because I know my reactions are irrational, especially the anxiety attacks, but all I can do is work through them. There's no way to prevent them.

Day 26 - What kind of person attracts you.

Intelligence is a must. I am not going to waste my time with someone who can't keep up with me. Ambition is essential as well. I don't want to be someone's mother and I'm not interested in someone who just wants to float through life. Honestly I'd prefer someone with some kind of college education, although it's not necessarily a deal-breaker. Similar values are important, or if we differ on something, at least respect for those differences. And I mean real respect, not passive-aggressively trying to undermine me since I've had that happen before as well. I only do serious relationships, so if someone wasn't as committed as I was, I would have to end it.
That's it. I don't like to make these lists of what attracts me, because then I think I would probably miss someone who is right for me but maybe doesn't fit what I thought I would want.

Day 25 - Someone who fascinates you and why.

This question is kind of weird to me, because there's not a specific person I'm fascinated by. That sounds a little obsessive and weird. But I guess there's a category of behavior that I'm interested in, or at least that I watch a few television shows about that I find interesting, and that would be criminal behavior. Mostly I'm interested in the psychology behind it, and what motivates people to commit crime, and stuff like prison structure and the prison code and stuff like that. I'm not sure why that's so interesting to me, but it is, even from a historical standpoint. Heck, the first class I took with Dr. Griffiths at Iowa State was the crime and mentalities in early modern England class. So yeah, I guess that's fascinating to me in a weird way.

Day 24 - Your favourite movie and what it's about.

I don't really have a favorite movie. Most of the films I like are good adaptations of books anyway. Yeah, can't really answer this question. Who only has one favorite anything, anyway? Like I could pick even if I wanted.

Day 23 - Give five pictures of guys/girls who are famous and you find attractive.

Yes, I find Geoffrey Rush as Hector Barbossa attractive. Shutup.

Hugh Jackman

Robert Downey Jr. Especially with his Tony Stark goatee.

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Yes please.

Evgeni Plushenko