South Mountain

South Mountain is a city park, though it's more of a nature preserve. Hiking and biking trails are everywhere. Mom and I didn't do much hiking because of the heat, but we drove to the lookout point at the top and I took some pictures.

The stone building is for visitors to look out of and get some shade. Or that's what I assume, anyway. Hundreds of people have written their names on the rocks inside, professing love or that they "were here."

On the way out we looked all over the place for a flowering cactus I could take a picture of. The drive down was precarious in places. Even my mom, who I think is fearless in many ways, showed a little fear of heights. Only a few pieces of metal keeping you from going over the edge. Finally near the bottom, we found a place to pull over and walk over to this amazing cactus.

I find saguaro cacti--which were all over the place--almost alien. It looks like they're green stick-people with many arms. Like those broomstick-people in The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. Except prickly. If there ever were aliens in the southwest, maybe they brought the saguaro.

Today we arrived in Sedona, and I finished reading The Girl Who Played With Fire.

On Writing

Tomorrow we go to Sedona. We went to South Mountain today and I took more pictures of sprawling vistas and flowering cacti, which I'll probably post tomorrow.

Here's a little bit about the book I finished a few days ago.

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Book 5: On Writing, by Stephen King

As a writer, I found this book very inspiring. The first half is a kind of memoir, short tales about his colorful childhood. There are a few writing tips thrown in there, but the majority are in the second half. The more detailed tips about grammar I've been taking into consideration as I edit my novel.

He has other ideas as well, about how to structure a story. He doesn't work well with a pre-drawn plot, so he starts with a situation. He says "Misery is 'two characters in a house,' ... Gerald's Game is 'one woman in a bedroom,' and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is 'one kid lost in the woods.'" This way, the story and characters can grow and develop as they will and the plot isn't forced to go one way or another. I like this idea, and may work on a short story this way. Not that I plot everything at first, anyway. It feels more like I've gotten permission to write without preconceived structure.

It has laugh-aloud humor, entertaining stories, and good advice from a very successful author. Anyone who writes, is thinking about starting to write, or finds writers themselves interesting would enjoy it.

Japanese Friendship Garden

I'm a day late, but so it goes when you're on vacation. The Japanese Friendship Garden was gorgeous. They've kept it true to customs, including the rule that you can't see everything from the entrance--instead you continuously discover different areas.

They let you feed the koi fish, so they came right up to me when I took pictures. I didn't even have to use food, they just thought I had some (sorry, fish). There were so many of them, in so many different colors.

The heat's been intense, but bearable. Today we're going swimming at a friend's pool, which will be perfect for a day of 98F/37C temperatures. Don't get me wrong, though. I welcome a break from the rain and chill of Scotland.

I've started editing my book again, and been enjoying having it in physical form. My new red pen is getting a lot of use. I'm also thinking it's time to look for an agent.

I finished On Writing, by Stephen King, as well. More about that tomorrow next time.

Heat

Yesterday morning, mom and I went on a walk to Dreamy Draw, a local park and hiking/biking path. I particularly liked this cactus. It's been very hot and is getting hotter, with tomorrow's forecasted high at 100F/38C. Thankfully that looks like the highest it will get, as it will start cooling down after that. Our plan is to hang out in the mall and movie theater all day and take advantage of the AC.

My mom's reasons for moving to Arizona were in no small part influenced by the weather. In Washington she started getting tired of the wet and the clouds. By contrast, I grew up in it. When people ask me, "How are you doing with this weather?" in Scotland, expecting me to say, "Horribly," I can happily say, "Seattle is just like this. It's not a problem at all, I'm used to it. I like the rain."

Now, after a long winter and mostly wet spring, I did feel ready to visit the sun for a couple of weeks. I'm doing all right so far, though I'm noticing the beginnings of a sunburn today, probably from the Japanese garden we visited and walked around a lot (more on that tomorrow). I expect that by the end of the two weeks I'll be ready for cool weather. But right now, I'm enjoying wearing shorts, eating ice cream, and not getting hit by cold air when leaving a store.

The Alchemist

Didn't manage a blog yesterday. I don't think I'm completely used to the time difference yet. Crashed before I could write this down. I got another book read though, which was pretty much the highlight of my day. And I had a good day, so that's saying something.

In the past two days I started and finished reading The Alchemist. My mom had the book and was reading it, and I had been interested in it for a while but thought it was too expensive to buy.

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Book 4: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

I found it really inspiring, as it talked about things I believe in. Be in the present moment. Follow your dreams now, before you fall into a rut of "someday..." And accept that all hardships you endure are part of the path to your dreams, necessary lessons for you to go through to achieve what you want.

Also, a passage of it spoke to me.

"What is a stranger doing in a strange land?"
"I am following my Personal Legend. It's not something you would understand."

- The Alchemist, p. 111

The main character is asked this by someone along his journey. His "Personal Legend" is what the author calls the dream--or the path to the dream--that he wants to achieve. This is sometimes how I feel like answering people who ask me, "Why Scotland?" The way I'd like to answer is something like, "I've always felt drawn here." But people want a more solid answer, like "I have relatives/ancestors here," or "This school is the best one to go to for my degree." My connection with the land feels like it's deeper than that.

The book was short and sweet, a fun and thoughtful read. Perfect for reading in a sunny garden, which I ended up doing. I'm not surprised it's sold so many millions of copies worldwide.

Arizona, Day One

The last leg of my flight to AZ was an interesting one. Almost the entire time I could look out my window and see distant lightning in the clouds. The turbulence was a little intense at times as well. And seeing Phoenix from the air was amazing, lights as far as the eye can see. Apparently it's the second most populated city in the US.

My first day in AZ was fun. Brunch at a nice cafe where I got an "Egg Sammie," or eggs (I chose scrambled) with my choice of other things, of which I chose provolone, ham, and bacon, on an everything bagel. With coffee. Definitely satisfying.

Then I printed out the first revision (second version) of my book. I love having a physical copy, it makes how much work I've done on it feel so much more real. I also got new pens to commemorate. Now I can really get the second edit started.

The highlight of the evening was a Japanese restaurant. It was odd though, since I ate sushi beside a fish tank. Eating fish. It felt a bit cruel, like I was making them watch me eat their brothers. Nevertheless, it was delicious. Also, my mom is getting to know the owner of the place through an interesting networking connection, and so she let us try a bit of one of her specialties for free: the darker meat of a tuna cooked in a teriyaki-type sauce. Very tasty.

Tomorrow will probably be more reading and writing, with some more delicious food. Perhaps Mexican in the evening. Haven't had a decent burrito in months.

Also, the heat hasn't been unbearable yet, but could be by the end of the week.

When In Philly...

I'm now at Philadelphia Airport, finishing my first ever Philly cheesesteak. I feel a bit sick, though it tasted good. The first thing I noticed after leaving the plane was the humidity, despite the temperature not being that high. This didn't make the coffee I got at the cheesesteak place any more enjoyable. I maybe should have bought a cold drink.

The flight was long but not horrible. I got very few hours of sleep last night so I kept dozing off... only to be repeatedly woken up by flight attendants asking me if I wanted a drink or a snack. I kept thinking I'd fallen asleep for an hour or so, but slowly realized it was only half-hour spurts. The flight was about 7 hours when I mistakenly thought it was going to be 5. I've got one more flight in 6 hours that's 5 hours long. I'll be happy when I arrive in AZ.

One thing I was confused about on the plane was when they ask you to turn off all electronics, "anything with an on/off switch." Is this strictly necessary? Isn't the problem cell phone interference rather than say, a kindle (with wifi turned off, even)? Is this some sort of way around explaining exactly why we need to turn off electronics, for the people whom it would confuse?

Also, as is expected these days, I'm getting annoyed by how many stages of security there are. In Glasgow I went through regular security and had someone ask me if "anyone had given me bags to carry," etc. Then when I got to Philadelphia, I had to go through immigration, take my bag from baggage claim, go through customs, give someone my bag to put on the plane to AZ, and go through regular security again. I just walked off a plane! How am I going to acquire anything dangerous between the plane and security?

Frustrations aside, now I've got plenty of time to chill. I think I'll either do some Fill-In puzzles, read, or take advantage of this free wifi and continue with Project Euler.

Freedom

Exams are over. It's a strange feeling, since I've felt the burden of either assignments, dissertation writing, or exam studying since September. So strange, in fact, that I had to start working on something again. I chose to start reviewing the C++ programming language since I'll probably be using it in my internship in a couple of weeks.

I'm reviewing it using the problems on Project Euler. It's a set of math-based problems that are too complex to easily solve on paper or with a simple calculator, and so programming is the best way to go about solving them. One reason people do the problems is to learn new programming languages, and so I thought it would be useful to use. I started doing them a few months ago to learn Python, and got to problem 5. There are over 300 in total. Over the past 24 hours or so, I've done the first 5 again in C++. It must be my way of dealing with studying withdrawal. Or perhaps I'm tired of learning theory and am ready to apply my knowledge. Either way, I feel fairly productive and have had fun.

On the left sidebar of my blog you can see a picture from the Project Euler site depicting my progress. I'm not sure how much programming I'll do over the next few weeks, but you'll most likely see that number go up over the course of the summer.

Tomorrow morning I leave for the US. I might manage a blog when I have my hopefully pain-free 7 hour layover in Philadelphia.

Quick Update

In 17 hours, I'll be done with my exams. Yes, I have a countdown. I've studied everything at least vaguely, and feel moderately confident about my last exam. I could be wrong, but we'll see tomorrow. So I'm going to focus on the fun stuff.

Right after the exam, partying will be had, all night. Not sure where or doing what yet but the day will be epic fun. Which means I may have to skip the blog tomorrow if I don't end up by a computer. Sunday, off to AZ for sun and red rock and reading and writing. Then come back and move to a new flat and start a fun internship. Things are finally going to be good. I just have to concentrate until 3:30pm tomorrow.

When my worries are not studying anymore, I'll hopefully find it easier to come up with things to blog about.

~

Exams to go: 1

Last song played: Tegan and Sara - Burn Your Life Down

Kirby

Intense exam today. Probably got my worst score yet, just because the questions were about such obscure things and didn't really test us on our overall understanding of the course. Bright side, only one more exam, the day after tomorrow.

I don't write that much about video games, as I'm afraid it will alienate some of my audience. I'm suddenly inspired to though, from a Kirby pin (which I got at the PAX gaming convention in Seattle last fall) on my bulletin board. I should write about games more often though, since I enjoy them. If you play video games you'll likely know all this, and can read with nostalgia. If you don't, these are classic games worth checking out.

Kirby, if you don't know, is a little creature featured in many Nintendo games. His main 'power' (across all games) is sucking air in around him, which in turn makes him swallow nearby enemies and acquire their powers. I first encountered him in the game Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, when I was young and the Nintendo 64 was still popular. My friend owned the console and almost every time I went to visit her we'd play something on it, frequently this game. Kirby has to search for these crystal shards in order to save the world and win the game. Along the way he encounters enemies, which he steals powers from and uses them against other enemies. It had fun minigames too.

That game was probably the reason I choose Kirby so often in the much more recent Super Smash Bros. games. In addition to the power I mentioned, in this game (and possibly others I haven't played) he can also fly and turn into a rock. These are best utilized by combining the two, and then dropping onto an enemy. This can cause quite a bit of annoyance and frustration to other players. I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl a lot at my dorm in Canada with friends on my Wii. Sadly it's too bulky to easily bring to Scotland. Perhaps one day.

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Exams to go: 1

Last song played: The Presidents of the USA - Peaches

Bogged Down By Exams

Finally, one of my three last exams done. Next one tomorrow morning, a day break, and then the last one. Studying has been intense, but stressing even more so. I'm bad for that.

I can't really be bothered thinking of a proper blog topic. It's late, and I want to play a game to de-stress before bed. Maybe Team Fortress 2. Found it fun a month or two ago, but haven't really played it since I started playing League of Legends. Which is rather addicting, even though it only has one map for 5v5 and one for 3v3. Apparently another 5v5 is in production, but it has been for quite a while. Another map, please, we don't need more champions. There are enough to memorize how to play with and against already.

Sorry to say that's all I have the energy for tonight. I'll be more creative next week. My brain is too full of Networked Systems. At least I'm keeping up the daily blog thing.

~

Exams to go: 2

Last song played: Metric - Combat Baby

My Recent Inspiration

Another day of studying, but mostly stress. Finally I came to my senses. Read a book, played some League of Legends, wrote this blog, did my best to relax. Tomorrow morning at 9:30 is the first of my three final exams, and at this point there isn't much more knowledge I can absorb.

Even though I wasn't able to keep up with that 50 book challenge, I think I'll continue to write up reviews of the books I read this year. This one I received from my mom, who found it in a used bookstore and thought of me. It turned out to be a great gift, getting me excited about reading and writing again before the end of exams. It's been important to me during the past two months to have something to look forward to, something keeping me going.

~

Book 3: The Wand in the Word, by Leonard S. Marcus

This is a collection of 13 interviews of fantasy authors: Lloyd Alexander, Franny Billingsley, Susan Cooper, Nancy Farmer, Brian Jacques, Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula LeGuin, Madeleine L'Engle, Garth Nix, Tamora Pierce, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, and Jane Yolen. I've read at least one book by 9 of them.

The questions asked are about their influence by J.R.R. Tolkien, WWII, and their various upbringings. Many of them have met Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and/or seen them give lectures, of which I am very jealous. Each author submitted a picture of a page from an early draft of one of their works, edited and scribbled-on sheets of paper that show that these famous authors are as human as the rest of us.

I found it very inspiring. Some authors did well in school, some did not. Some have a work schedule every day, some do not. Some know the end before they start to write, some do not. It shows how everyone has their own style, and no one person does it the "right" way. Mostly their advice to writers is to read and write as much as possible, and learn to not dwell on the criticism. A must-read for anyone who likes writing in any form, or anyone interested in the life of an author.

Drink Your Tea

After midnight, and no blog ideas. I blame studying taking up all of my time. So I'll pick up the prompt I found on a blog: "Stand up. Turn to your right. Count objects you see, and stop at #3. Write about whatever item #3 is."

Item #3 is my mobile phone. It's a T-Mobile G1, which I got for Christmas last year. It has many defects, for a few reasons. One, it was bought slightly used online, so I had to buy a new battery to replace the old bloated one. Then about a week after I got the phone, I was driving along the road with it on the armrest between the driver and passenger seat, and I had to stop suddenly. It slid forward into a cup-holder containing a mug with about a centimeter of tea. I wasn't able to take it out of the mug until I came to a complete stop, which was a few seconds. Despite my best intentions at drying it, the keyboard is now mostly unusable, the buttons on the front don't do what they're supposed to, and I can't pick up calls--I have to hang up and call them back.

So far I've been able to figure out workarounds to make it do what I want. I can check my emails and various social media sites (though slowly), text fairly well with the on-screen keyboard, and make the very few calls I need. Over time though, its problems are going to grate on me. Android updates are unattainable without hacking, since it's an old model. I'm going to get tired of having to hang up and call people back. I'm thinking that if my internship this summer doesn't give me a free mobile phone to work with over the summer, I might just splurge and get a new one. That I know will work.

I've learned my lesson. Always keep your phone in a safe place. And drink all of your tea.

~

Exams to go: 3

Last song played: The Airborne Toxic Event - Innocence

Doctor Who

A new episode of Doctor Who aired today called The Doctor's Wife, and I've been excited to see it ever since I found out Neil Gaiman was to write it. In a spoiler-free quick review of it, I'd say it was everything I'd expected from Gaiman and more. Intense plot twists and surprises, strange characters, and dark undertones are all big parts of his writing style, and they were all there. I highly recommend it.

For those of you who don't know, my interest in Doctor Who started a year or two ago, when a friend from UBC introduced me to it. She was so enthusiastic that I couldn't help watching one or two episodes, and from then on I was hooked. I started with watching the David Tennant episodes, and now consider him "my" Doctor--as in, the actor who was playing the Doctor when I first watched the series. Some people consider Christopher Eccleston "their" Doctor, since he was David Tennant's predecessor and the first Doctor to be on TV in many years. Since the whole series started in the 60s, and there have now been eleven doctors, people will undoubtedly start watching at different seasons of the show. That's not to say Matt Smith, the current Doctor, doesn't play it well. After watching so many episodes now with him in it, I'd say he is a worthy successor to David Tennant.

I was assuming that when I came to Scotland, since it's in the UK, most of my friends would have heard of Doctor Who and be interested in watching it. I was surprised to find so many people hadn't seen episodes of it before (though they usually have heard of it), but there are a few in my group of friends who do watch regularly, including my boyfriend, of which I'm very glad. Doctor Who is something that is so compelling and intriguing that it must be shared.

~

Exams to go: 3

Last song played: Foo Fighters - Everlong

On Kindle Books

Today I bought two books for Kindle that I'll take with me on my trip to AZ. I bought Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, like I said a few days ago, but I decided on something else instead of The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.

I've been reading The Wand in the Word, a collection of interviews of 13 fantasy authors (Brian Jacques, Garth Nix, Madeline L'Engle, Tamora Pierce, etc). I don't think this book was actually mentioned at all, but in the middle of reading the interview of Garth Nix I was reminded that I hadn't read Stephen King's On Writing yet. I then looked up reviews of it to see if it would be worth getting. A while ago I picked it up in a bookstore and read the first page, then got turned off of it because it was so much like a memoir, which wasn't what I was looking for. But the more I read these reviews, I realize the beginning is like this to draw the reader in; funny stories of his childhood that make you want to read more. Later in the book, he does talk about the actual act of writing, in detail: themes, grammar, sentences, and more. I decided this would be a good thing for me to read before editing my book again, and so I got it instead. It was a few dollars less than The Wise Man's Fear as well, since that one is brand new. I'm very excited to get started on these, though I'll have to still focus on studying for exams.

On another note, I was remarking to myself how much I love the Kindle store on Amazon. Choose the book, buy it (even easier since I had a gift card), and if your Kindle is connected to a wireless network, the book is instantly downloaded. No need to go to a bookstore or wait for a snail mail delivery. Mind you, I absolutely love bookstores, but these days I go to them more for their atmosphere and for ideas of what to buy than to actually buy books. If I know what book I want, and I want it for Kindle, the Kindle store is perfect.

I'm also interested in how much I've changed my opinion on Kindles since I got one for Christmas. Before, I wasn't sure I'd be comfortable with it. Holding a real book is definitely enjoyable, and there's nothing like having a bookshelf full of good books. Used books can also be incredibly cheap. However, since I move around and travel so much these days, Kindle books are extremely convenient. Not to mention there's no need to pry the book open to read the left-hand page.

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Exams to go: 3

Last song played: Chromeo - Night By Night