Gah, English

So I'm currently taking summer classes at a college I don't go to during the rest of the school year (and is on the opposite side of the country as where I normally live), and we're not supposed to speak English...

And even though it's only been a week and a half, I am going crazy from the lack of communication. Maybe doing an immersion-course like this for LEVEL 1 FREAKING MANDARIN was a bad idea. Hehe. Whoops. (Sometimes I think my life is just one bad idea after another.)

Although, I HAVE wanted to take Mandarin, since, like, forever.

Actually - wait. Scratch that. I rarely ever want to take a language class. I want to speak languages. The taking the classes is just the unfortunate method in which one learns secondary language. I actually really don't like class...homework...ugh and the early start times. I honestly thought I'd never have to go back to 7:50 am class once I graduated from high school, since most colleges don't have classes before 9 - 8, if they really must.

But 7:50? Really? Why do they even care about the extra ten minutes - from my own personal psychological point of view, having a time that begins with an "8" feels way, way, way later (and more humane) than one that begins with a "7"...even if the difference is only 10 minutes.

Sigh. I wish I could have a summer vacation like everyone else! But like I said before, my life = a string of bad decisions. Though I suppose if I can speak Mandarin at some level at the end of this, it'll seem a lot better in hindsight. I just have, like, 7 1/2 more weeks to go.

I should really be studying - I still have to memorize two dialogues and a shit ton of vocab words for tomorrow, and since I bombed today's vocab test, I should probably get on that. Ugh, I can't wait until we can stop writing stupid pinyin on the quizzes - like, I know that you should know both the pinyin and the characters, but it's so much easier for me to remember how to write characters than pinyin, thanks to the dumb tones.

I miss Japanese and its monotone phonetic system :( Hell, I miss ITALIAN and its monotone phonetic system. Mi piace italiano perchè italiano ha un sistema fonetico senza toni. Adesso voglio studiare italiano! (Though I would prefer Japanese, I think. So far, Japanese has been the easiest language for me to study, though that might have just been because of the other people in my Japanese and Italian classes skewing my perception of how well/badly I actually was doing. I think I actually learned more Italian in one academic year than I learned of Japanese in twice or three times that amount of time.)

I really want to write, but this is SUCH a bad place to do something like that - even this (pointless?) blog post is kind of "against the rules". Especially since even when I don't write, I still space out all the time and think up characters and situations and epic battles and what not.

Anyway, I should go shower and study and SLEEP, since I have to get up at 6:45, eat breakfast, and sit through 4 hours of class before lunch. (FMySummer.)

What I Like to Write

Well hey there, writing blog. Since I wrote a post on Wednesday, I felt like I should write another one this week to account for the fact that my last post prior to Wednesday's was back in August.

I mean, really, a whole YEAR of school (minus two weeks of class, reading week, and a finals week that I won't be here for) has gone by since that post. Geesh.

Anyway, since even though I'm not really going to have any "writing time" this summer, on account of the fact that I'm going to be in an immersion environment for a Chinese language class I'll be taking (for 9 weeks...), I really want to start writing again. I've been trying to at least keep a journal during the year, but I really miss fiction, and now that it's clear that I'll never be able to take a creative writing class at my university...

Well, I guess I just need to get myself to do it on my own!

(I'm still hoping that I'll be able to take a non-degree creative writing class at a community college or something some time in my life. Because obviously, semi-prestigious research universities only want future prize-winning poets for their creative writing program. And I despise poetry if I have to study it for more than a week. Grumblegrumble.)

So, because I'm not sure what else to blog about, I'm going to post a list of five things I like to read/write!

• Happy and/or hopeful endings - I hate sad endings. Bittersweet endings are fine, especially hopeful ones. If someone is optimistic or at least willing to work to a better future, I'm fine. But sad endings? NO. I KILL DEM.
• Fun characters with good voices - I think this is why I like Meg Cabot...but yeah, I get bored with cardboard characters, so I try to avoid them (and improve when I accidentally write them!)
  
• Creative fantasy settings - I like creative settings, especially ones that aren't the standard Medieval Western Europe high fantasy
• Contemporary characters - I think I connect better when things are more contemporary
• Adventures - I like adventure! I don't know why :P

Things I'm okay with:

• Fantasy violence - I'm cool with fantasy violence. Realistic violence is a little too real. (Duh?)
• Romance - I was going to put romance in the previous list, but then I realized that I actually get put off by main-plot romances, since I sometimes find it hard to relate. And on that note...
• Gay guy pairs - I like reading about gay guys, but I hate writing them because I have issues with writing guys. Gay guy pairs intimidate me because there are TWO OF THEM, and I don't want to be stereotypical and make them feminine, because I know a ton of gay guys who are about as feminine as I want to study engineering. Plus, I suck at writing romances...
  
• Medieval Europe high fantasy settings - mehhhhhhh whatever. I'm kind of tired of Tolkien wannabes, and I've read enough Tolkien wannabes to be wary of anything that has a Medieval Europe-based high fantasy setting
• All female/all male casts - either too much estrogen or testosterone, depending on which gender you pick, but if they're well written, I guess I'm okay with it...sometimes

And things I hate:

• Suicide - I think suicide is really disturbing, and I really don't like thinking about it when I don't have to (ie in fiction). This is especially true when it's the main character who commits suicide
• Violence against animals - I really don't like violence against animals because I feel like it is twice as unfair as violence against other humans is, since the animal has no choice in the matter and is at a major disadvantage due to the whole brain thing. Humorous violence against animals will probably ruin an entire book/movie for me
• Never ending plots - seriously, if you're not going to start something with an end in mind, don't start it yet. It doesn't work, and just really makes me lose respect for the author and their inability to structure a story well
• Depressing endings - I don't like depressing things...since I like being happy! Yay, happiness?
• "Didn't I already read this?" - super derivative stories. Um...why should I read you if I've already read the exact same book/watched the exact same movie by someone else?
  

I'm not actually dead

Well hey there, old blog I never update anymore.

This is probably because I'm in college, but whatever.

I don't really write much anymore, which is kind of a shame...but I still, of course, have an extremely overactive imagination that probably keeps me from paying attention in classes in which I should be focusing on. ;)

Anyway, I did NaNo this year and won, and I did Script Frenzy and lost (though I think I got a little over halfway, so it wasn't like I TOTALLY failed. I also completed a script version of the second book in The Eleventh with what I had for Screnzy, so again - not a total loss). I probably won't be able to win NaNo in the fall, but I'm damn well going to try to get as far as possible. I'll only consider myself a failure if I can't hit more than 10,000 words - otherwise, I'll just be a loser. (And I'd always rather be a loser than a loser AND a failure.)

I'm not really sure what the point of this blog post was...

Oh, but as per usual, I've had some crazy dreams this year. Unlike some, I have crazy dreams kind of regardless of what I may or may not be ingesting - I do not need strange substances to be uselessly creative. I say "uselessly" because unlike creative people who use their creativity to solve problems and cure disease and whatnot, I just have weird dreams about:

• Adorable parasitic worms that latch onto your pinky finger and can guide you through underground tunnel networks
• Arranged marching band-based and sorority-based marriages that really don't make sense (and when I say they really don't make sense, I mean they REALLY don't make sense)
  
• Giant trolls drop-kicking me off cliffs during a fairy tale simulation
  
• Magic hamsters that grow into cat-like creatures and are targeted by an organization that probably is evil in some way
  
• Huns murdering and impersonating my friends, and then nobody but me noticing
• Trying to escape people in Chinese restaurants that are also trains
• Participating in a play in which I have to act drunk so that the audience won't notice my friends stealing all the pastries in the back (but really - if they were watching a play anyway, wouldn't they not be looking in the back of the auditorium already?)

There really is nothing like a strange, adventurous dream. I wish I remembered more of the dreams I had. Some of them were ridiculously entertaining after the fact.