Shadow

For those of you hoping for a delightfully eccentric post about a dream I had last night (it was delightfully eccentric), an anecdote about why I hate ponds, or a rambling monologue about nothing in particular, you are about to be sorely disappointed.

All I wanted to say in this post is that I'm going to shadow at my probably-new-school today. In, like, ten minutes. There's no reason to be scared, I know I was this nervous before my first day at HA, and I keep telling myself that.

But Holy Hades of Hell, am I terrified.

I'll update as soon as I get back this afternoon. Cheers!

(Also, this blasted cut on the tip of my finger makes it hard to do anything. Like button buttons or type. See ya!)

Nothing More Terrifying (A Psychological Assessment)

No, not that. Or this. (Oh my God…)

I mean the fear of the unknown. Sometimes I get up late at night to go to the WC, the light switch of which is only a foot or so away from my bedroom door, and find that some idiot (love ya, Mom) has turned off the hallway light.

Sometimes I end up standing in the door for five minutes before deciding it's not worth it. Other times, I'll turn around and grab my phone, a book, and a Sharpie. Yeah, I need all of that in order to sprint the two feet to the loo. Like you've never been scared of the dark.

I'm fairly sure there's a reason behind this. We don't know what could be waiting for us in the void of the stairwell, or on the other side of the darkened window, or just behind the craft room door, so our minds fill it in for us. Have you ever noticed how movie previews seem a lot more exciting than the actual film? It's like that.

What could be waiting for us in the dark? (Warning: Only click that link if you've got a few dozen hours of your life to waste.)

Extraspecial Pt. 2: Awesome, totally not scary thing of the day: Ice Cream Changes!

That's When Everything Changes

A quote from Doctor Who, on a post that may or may not end up with me squeeing over last night's episode.

(If you haven't heard of Doctor Who or I haven't forced you to watch Blink, then you should watch it. The first five seasons are on Netflix and I've been watching the sixth on YouTube. Shh, it's a secret!)

Blink has been my favorite episode since I first watched it, but not any more. The Doctor's Wife was on last night, and I love it beyond belief. It is the quintessential DW episode.

See, the title of the post references the fact that Blink isn't my favorite episode any more. Just in case that wasn't obvious. The quote's from The Big Bang. ("Who are you?" "Oh, you're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes." <--quoted from memory)

I haven't started using ALL CAPS yet, so that's good. Usually when I go off on a fangirl tangent I put SOME words in ALL caps, LIKE THIS.

So that's what this post is about. If you haven't watched Doctor Who, you should go do that. If you haven't seen The Doctor's Wife, go look it up on YouTube.

Post Script: Do you like the layout of my blog? Yes, I'm talking to you. I'm a little worried that it might be kind of hard to read. Just wonderin'

Word of the Day: Psychotic

Because I was trying to remember that bloody (pun intended) word earlier, while writing an email to one of my friends. (Hi, Alexis!) Alternative word of the day: transpontine. I bet you didn't know that word, huh? (Unless, of course, I've repeated it several times in a conversation with you, just because I can.)

Also, this is my favorite thing of today. It's been stuck in my head since last night, and I love it. Lots.

5 Amazing Books

I know you were all wondering how long it would take me to do a really long book-themed post.

Simply put, five books that I absolutely adore and inspired me to become a--ahem--novelist.

1) Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

A really amazing book. Quite possibly the book that made me decide to be an author. I remember that we got it on CD from the library, and after we took it back I demanded a copy for my birthday. (I ended up with two. I had a short list that year.) I think it's the book that really introduced me to the concept of world building ("What do you mean, she doesn't know what rice is?") without being, er, Magic Kingdom For Sale--SOLD!

I was pretty young then, so I don't exactly remember exactly why I loved it. What I do remember was wanting to be exactly like Daine, and you could be sure that the name Alanna would work its way into whatever game I was playing.

2) Lemony Snicket. Period.

And you wonder why I have a vocabulary the size of Jupiter. Another book that imprinted itself on me at a young age, I got the first three as a present along with the first two Spiderwick Chronicles books. (Yeah, we're not even going to go there.) So far, I have 11 out of 13 of the books, and I've gotten Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Biography from the library twice. Anybody who knows me knows that I love the series to pieces. (And if you do know me, but didn't know that… Well, this is awkward.)

At this point, I'm just going to leave it at that. It's a, er, Very Fine Documentation.

<.<

>.>

*crickets*

3) Anything by E. L. Koningsburg

Her books are amazing. (I wonder how many times I'm going to use "amazing" and "book" in a single sentence in the rest of this post.) All of them are about quirky kids doing epic things. In From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, an adolescent girl and her brother successfully hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an extended period of time, which to little me was a lot more awesome than solving the mystery of the weeping angel statue.

Do I even have to go on?

4) The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Along the same vein of Koningsburg, but slightly less realistic. Slightly. 485 pages of quirky characters, vocabulary expansion, secrets, and kid power. How could I resist?

I can't remember how I discovered this book--probably in the same way as A Series of Unfortunate Events and many of the other books I love--but I will never forget how awesome it is.

5) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

A recently rediscovered this book. It's a classic. Everybody knows it, right? It's like Peter Pan: Everybody knows about it and it would be hard to find someone who wouldn't be able to tell you the plot. Still, I have to say I like Through The Looking Glass better. I just like the characters more, and… Look, I just like it, okay?!

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And there you have it. I can't think of much else to say, other than… Okay, I really can't think of anything more to say.