Happiness

I’m feeling a bit philosophical today, perhaps since I watched the end of a great TV show’s second season. It inspired some thoughts in me.

I’m sure someone’s said this before, but I believe that what we do when no one's watching is what defines us. We’ve got friends and family, coworkers and people we meet at the supermarket. But when it comes down to it, we all end up alone sometimes. We break up with people, we lose people, and some of us aren’t charismatic enough to make many friends. Sometimes, everyone’s busy, and we have time to ourselves, and we feel lonely.

It’s how we use this time that counts. We need time to get to know ourselves. To heal our bodies and minds. To believe in ourselves, get through the hard times, and make our dreams come true. I don't mean to sound cliche. When times are hard, do we have the strength to pick ourselves up? Make ourselves happy again? Do something meaningful? And I don’t mean we have to change the world. Doing whatever simple thing we love to do can be meaningful. Sometimes we can only depend on ourselves, and if we appreciate ourselves enough, we can make it. And we can make anything happen.

Appreciating the little things can help make us happy again. "That first sip of hot tea on a cold morning," to quote Owen from Torchwood. Our favorite stories, be it book, movie, or TV. Favorite foods. Writing, talking, dreaming. Places we love. This world is really a beautiful place. We just have to realize it once in a while.

Photo: One of my favorite things to do. Sit on the beach and watch the ferry come in and out, breathe in the salty air, and appreciate life.

Disbelief

Eleven o'clock this morning, I wrote the last word of the first draft of my novel. About 300 pages, and 87,000 words. I didn't even plan it to be a certain length, but my goal was at least 300 pages, and I got there. I seriously can't believe it. For some reason I remember starting it in August, but I can't think exactly what year. My guess is it's been over three years. I took a few long breaks, but I knew eventually it would be done. And now it is.

For so long, it's been something on the backburner. "I'm writing a novel," I'd tell people. But it never quite felt true, I never felt like I'd accomplished much, until I realized how many pages I'd written. But it was always unfinished. Now, draft one is done. I'm not saying the story is set in stone now; it certainly isn't. It's what my teacher's assistant said last year, a "shitty first draft." They always are that way, and if you can't get over that, you'll get stuck trying to make it perfect the first time. I've put the mess of ideas in my head to paper, and started organizing it into a coherent story. Finishing any sort of writing thing for me is a big deal, since like so many other writers, it's hard for me to end things. I get bored of the story, or get stuck, and I get another idea and start writing something else. This time, I stuck to it, and got it done. I've got to treat myself somehow today. Maybe a nice Starbucks mocha, or a trip to the bookstore, or a new notebook. Something.

I think I'll take the advice of my creative writing teacher last term and put the manuscript aside for a while, now that it's done. Let the ideas bounce around in my head for a few months. Maybe I'll start the second draft during the summer. My work is in no way over. But I've come to a major milestone.

Photo: A man was flying kites at the beach yesterday, and I snatched a few pictures. Spring is certainly on its way! Though, I wish we'd gotten more snow this year. Call me crazy, but next year I'll make a point of it to be somewhere cold over the winter.

Starstruck

I don't quite know why, but I've been a bit of a fangirl lately, thanks to my friend who introduced me to Doctor Who. It's brought up my old desire to travel to Scotland or Ireland or England or somewhere awesome over there on the British Isles... one day, mark my words, I'll get there! Anyway, if you haven't heard of Doctor Who, or have but haven't watched any episodes, I highly recommend it, especially the seasons with the 10th doctor, David Tennant. What a cute little Scottish bloke... and so, so sad I had to get into the show after he leaves it.

I'm also following Neil Gaiman on twitter (@neilhimself), and enjoying it. He's such a great author (please, please read American Gods, it's brilliant), and these days he's winning all sorts of awards and doing all kinds of cool geeky things. For example, meeting Felicia Day (star of The Guild another must-see if you haven't), and possibly, eventually, writing an episode of Doctor Who... I really need to start reading some of his other stuff, like The Sandman. I mean to try to do that over the coming break. When I'm not writing my own fantasy stories, of course.

Photo: I haven't been able to take many pictures these days, so I'll give you a little snapshot of all the Doctors over the years. David Tennant is the one on the left, in the middle.

Making The Day Better, And A Writing Update

Last Monday wasn't a good day. Started out with a bad dream, then various annoying things happened all day including not having my iPod charged and forgetting my umbrella, until the day got better in the evening when I finally got to watch my Monday night TV shows, namely Chuck, 24, and Heroes. Today, it's different. I woke up to go get a cinnamon roll at the cafeteria, and checked my mail to find the coat I'd ordered quite a while ago finally arrived. Despite the fact that I have a quiz today and I had to do errands during my two-hour break, I treated myself to a Japanese lunch. Plus, tonight I get to watch my favorite shows again. Lesson: if you ever fear (or even think you know) you will have a bad day, make it good. It's possible.

This weekend I had some extra time, but instead of writing I listened to a radio show on BBC Radio 2 hosted by David Tennant and Catherine Tate. They're brilliant. But because I seem to not have motivation every weekend, and next week I have midterms, I'm putting off writing until my winter break (extended a week because of the Olympics!), when I don't have other things to do or distract me. I'm so close to the end of my first draft that I am setting a goal to finish it over the break.

Photo: A lovely picture I took a while ago of my favorite sushi... unagi. Eel, for those of you who don't speak sushi.

A Bit Of Studying... And Clubbing

This weekend I had a simple assignment for my mythology class at the library, basically an intro to the library system so that we know how to use it when we get research papers in future classes. Despite the tediousness of some of the questions (find the call numbers for Greek literature), I have to say I had a lot of fun browsing through old books. It was crazy, the number of old volumes that I could pick up and not know a word of because it was in Greek, or Latin, or French. And all the tattered, faded covers! It almost made me want to have a research paper to do, so that I could have an excuse to look through the books more often. Almost.

And, on the other end of the spectrum... I went clubbing for the first time last night. At first I wasn't even planning on going, but then my friends started running out of people to go with them, and I thought of something to wear, and soon I was getting ready to go. I mean, I'm legal in Canada, I might as well see what it's like, since I've heard good things!

On the way there I was nervous, naturally. It didn't help that the person with us that had gone clubbing the most had the most to drink beforehand. I'd chosen to not have any at all. Personal choice. She was quite tipsy, so she wasn't able to help quell my anxiety. But we got there and inside the club smoothly, no hitches beside my friend trying to remember which bus stop it was near. The minute the bouncers finished checking my ID, I started down the steep staircase, feeling the booming music, and forgot how loud it was going to be. When I realized this, much of my fear went away. Nothing like loud music to get rid of any awkward arriving-at-a-party feelings. And, nothing like feeling the bass vibrate through your body to get yourself moving to the music. The music was all techno that night, with some popular songs and a lot of bass. Which I was quite happy about.

There were a few creepy guys, lets face it, you have to deal with that at a club. But according to one of my friends, they weren't as persistent as they were last time. Course, there were some cute ones too. But most were taken. Hours of dancing and awesome music passed, with some sitting and some drinking (none by me).

We left when things started dying down. It took entirely too long get a cab afterward, since we were in the clubbing section of town and things were starting to wrap up everywhere. We were tired of waiting, so we wandered to where we thought there was a bus stop. The bus didn't come there that late, though. Lo and behold, we found a Blenz Coffee that was open at 3am. I didn't know any coffee shops stayed open that late! But we stopped and warmed up, and finally when we called this time, a cab showed up. We got in, had a fun conversation with the cab driver on the way back, and got back to our rooms, exhausted. Fun times.

And as for writing this weekend, I had to give myself a break. I've been feeling stressed and a bit homesick, and I had other work to do. Including watching the crazy awesome Saints vs. Vikings football game. ;)

Photo: A lunar new year display at the T&T, an Asian superstore in Vancouver. Sorry, this has nothing to do with either studying or clubbing. But it was such a cool display, I had to get a picture of it when I went shopping! That's a whole dragon, by the way, not just a head. So. Cool.

My Methods Of De-Stressing

The workload at school is gradually increasing, and it's about the time I need to stop and convince myself to not worry. I feel guilty procrastinating and then find out later I hadn't needed to worry about it, since it took so little time. I thought I'd share a few ways I've been de-stressing, since everyone has to work on it these days.

As for ways to escape my current reality (aka TV and movies, I haven't had time for books), I've been watching Chuck and Heroes, and my friends are getting me hooked on Dr. Who and 24. I try not to miss a single episode of any of them! Another friend is into football, and I've been watching a few games with her, rooting for her teams. Also, I went to see Daybreakers yesterday. It was a bit too gory for me but the storyline was well done, how they created a world taken over by vampires.

I was also reminded of one of my favorite logic puzzles today, found at the Conceptis website. Doing a puzzle like Pic-a-Pix or playing tetris on Facebook with some good music (Metric, The Killers, etc. etc.) are great ways of de-stressing! Or procrastinating...

In other news, I managed to make my goal of 1000 words of my story this weekend! I think I'll do 1000 each weekend, plus another 500 during the week if I can. I didn't write much yesterday, and I was worried I'd run out of time to write it all today, but I finished. Plus a few extra words. I'm writing the climactic scene; my story is getting very close to being done. I'm excited.

Picture: A simple completed Pic-a-Pix puzzle. They're a bit time-consuming, but it's very satisfying to see the picture at the end.

Getting Back To Writing

It all started with this amazing door-size dragon poster I found at the poster sale here on campus. My friends suggested I buy it, and I wasn't sure I wanted to, since it was a tad expensive and I had little room on my wall for it. But I decided to buy it anyway, and a friend helped me stick it to my ceiling, above my bed. Now, I wake up to an amazing picture of a burning castle at night, a dragon in the foreground with a moon behind it, and a man with a long overcoat and a sword overlooking it all. I got to talking with my friends about how inspired it made me feel to write, and I got one of my friends inspired to write in the process. That in turn made me want to pick up writing my story again, and... here I am, writing the ending to the first draft of my novel.

It will take a little while to write the ending, as so much has to happen. But at least I've started it. I'm sure I'll have to do many revisions of this after I finish, and I'm a little daunted by the work. However, I know that very few people who want to be writers manage to finish anything, let alone finish the first draft of a novel. I'll be celebrating in no time. Right now, I'm trying to do 500 words a day on the weekend, and as much as I can during the week. 500 words may be too much do to every single day. Yesterday I started writing and got 700 words done, and today I got 600 more done. I seem to get on a roll after the first 500. With my "writing music" playing in the background (Loreena McKennitt, David Arkenstone, Enya, Noirin ni Riain, the LotR soundtrack, and more), it feels so good to write. I feel at home.

Photo: A gorgeous view of the mountains from the ferry, from my recent trip back home over winter break.

Link: Small picture of my new poster.