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the_flying_dolphin
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Name: Moriel
Birthday: 12/17/1986
Gender: Female
Interests: Writing, largely fiction, largely novels (at the moment, one in-progress, a couple more in the Idea stage, and a big fanfic), although stories and poems make it into the picture occasionally. Reading constantly, mostly fiction--I'll read almost anything clean, as long as it's interesting, though I don't care much for horror or straight romance. Mentally critiquing almost everything I read. Singing all the time. Music in general, especially from brilliant people like Relient K, Switchfoot, Solas, Sixpence None the Richer, and others I'm too braindead to remember at the moment. Daydreaming about various oddball things. Internet stuff. HTML, to the extent that I can remember it. Photography. Photomanipulation. Everything related to Tolkien and the worlds he created. Languages. Etc.
Expertise: Writing, to some extent. Editing other people's writing, to some extent. English grammar (though I'm getting a tad rusty in that department--I keep letting split infinitives slip into my speech). Computers, at least in my family. The internet--same thing. Languages, compared to everyone else in my Spanish class. School, period, compared to most of my classmates. Being sarcastic (let's say I have a dry sense of humor). Being a cynic. Making others think I'm a freak. And so on and so forth.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/16/2003
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| One book and one foot, rather. I finally finished Perdido Street Station, per Anthony's suggestion (to Jolene, but whatever), and--well, I'll just paste in my review on Amazon:
A masterpiece, and yet...
4/5 stars
Pretentious
as it might sound, the word that kept coming to my mind as I read this
book was "virtuosity," and I can't think of any other way to sum it up.
Mieville has more skill in painting with words than possibly any other
author I've ever read; the way he uses words is nothing short of
astounding. The steampunk and fantastical elements are somehow
believable because it's not presented as strange; dark and bizarre as
it is, New Crobuzon seems real, a place where real people truly live
and die. The city is beautiful in its ugliness. The plot is more than a
little slow to start, but once it does, things pick up and move along
fairly swiftly, and you realize that you've slowly begun to care about
these odd characters.
...and those strong points are exactly the
novel's weak points. Mieville evokes a wonderfully gritty atmosphere,
but in doing so he tends to take time out from the plot to describe a
certain section of the city--all of which is important for setting the
stage, and it all left me rather in awe of his worldbuilding, but when
the plot gets going, all that description throws off the pacing. Things
start moving quickly, and then the next chapter starts with two pages
of description, and I found myself wanting to skip it to get to some
more action. The action scenes in particular can be more than a little
hard to see or understand, too.
And as for the ending...I'll try
not to spoil it. But here's the thing: when I started reading this
book, I got the feeling that it was more than a little cynical and
dystopian, and as such it was almost certainly not going to end
happily. In fact I thought it was the sort of book where one or more of
the main characters would die in the end. So I kept myself distant from
the characters, and in some ways it wasn't too hard. Lin, Isaac,
Yagharek, and Derkhan are all very interesting, but in their
own different ways, they all manage to be just a little bit
unsympathetic. But then we get the slake-moths, and things heat up, and
they're all forced out of normality and into situations that make them
choose to fight back. In a way they were growing up because of all this
horror. I started really rooting for them, wanting them to succeed.
And...well, I admit it: I like happy endings. In fact I'd just rather
not read a book that doesn't end happily, somehow or other. I like
seeing characters go through hell, but I want them to come out okay,
somehow or other, with hints that there's still hope. For these
characters, they all get what they wanted, sort of...and at the same
time, none of them does. It's just too bad that by the time they came
to that point, I really liked all of them.
...and I
forgot to say that it bothered me how much swearing there was, and how
it was used. I mean, okay, I prefer my books without any obscenity at
all, but when it comes to language use, the only thing that bothers me
more than swearing is casual swearing. If you're going to say it, at
least make it mean something. When virtually every single character is
dropping f-bombs in every other line, it gets...very, very annoying.
And it's not Mieville has a small vocabulary. His vocabulary is frankly
amazing (I've never read a book before that used words like
"palimpsest" and "exudations" that frequently, if ever). His characters
just need to expand theirs, apparently. (It can also be argued that
living in such a nasty place gives you nasty language, or something,
because that's how you deal with it, but honestly I don't care; I just
don't want to read it.)
But hey, it was my first true steampunk novel, I think. For whatever that's worth.
And as for the foot: anyone who's seen
my recent Facebook photos knows I'm still wearing the walking cast,
nearly four months after I first got it. Finally went to a different
doctor, which resulted in me getting more x-rays, a bone-density scan
(fine, just not awesome for my age), and a bone scan that involved
lying on a ridiculously narrow pad and having a thing pass over me for
a very long time (like, 30-45 minutes--I got to listen to my iPod so I
didn't entirely die of boredom, but it was a near thing, and I
felt like taking a nap once I got out of there), during much of which
it was down so close to me that it was nearly touching my nose. Right,
because that's not claustrophobic at all. (Also? There was a
wide strap of sorts holding my arms in place at my sides, which was
just because there wasn't room on the bed for said arms and the strap
gave them something to rest against, but all the same it made me
nervous and also pressed down on my stomach which was already hurting
rather, thanks, and my arms were definitely not too usable when the
tech was moving the bed up toward the scanner and it down toward my
face. Which, yeah, made me nervous. I'm paranoid and a writer, I can't
help it.)
Anyway, I had another appointment today, and the
current verdict, based largely on the bone scan, is that the stress
fracture has actually healed, but there's still pain because...wait for
it...a little chip actually broke off the fractured bone, and
obviously said chip is causing difficulties. So apparently I'm going to
get a Dr. Scholls thing that you normally use for warts so I can walk
in shoes again, and hopefully I'll somehow either reabsorb the bone
chip or a callus of scar tissue will form around it. Worst-case
scenario, they'll have to operate to take it out, which...yeah, w00t,
right?
Current weather: 17 degrees, and it keeps snowing
Current mood: okay
Current site: ADN and Google, researching for my editorial
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| Well, I rang in the new year in thoroughly unspectacular fashion--namely, by watching Evan Almighty, attempting to put together a "year in review" LJ post of my writings (fic, original fiction, and newspaper stuff) in 2007, and barely noticing that midnight was approaching. Lame, I know, and not exactly a good omen for 2008, if you believe in such things. Which I don't.
All the same, it would be awfully nice if 2008 could be the year of Actually Getting My Act Together, which is to say, learning not to put everything off until the last minute, and not wasting massive amounts of time on next to nothing, and actually Getting Things Done. You would think, since I am still maintaining my 4.0 after two and a half years at UAA (yep, all A's this semester too--and I was more than a little worried about a couple classes, especially one in which I got a C on my final paper--yeah, well, I blame the professor for that--and barely scraped by with a 90 overall), that I am actually one of those rare students who does have her act together, since it must be sort of difficult to get A's without knowing what I'm doing, but there you go.
I would also like to stop being late to everything. Like church. I am completely incapable of getting to church on time. I do not know why. Actually no, I do sort of know why, it's because I give myself basically no buffer time and I spend too much time on the computer every morning, which...is also why I'm always late to my 8:30 a.m. classes. I managed to register for another of those this coming semester too, ugh. Maybe I should've signed up for that time management class after all...
But yeah, two weeks left of Christmas break which is pretty cool, aside from the huge list of Stuff To Do during that time. I sort of wonder why I even write these lists, since I rarely get anything done on them and certain things have been on said lists since forever ago (like "sell some stories or at least try, sheesh!"), but I guess if I don't at least write them down I will be certain not to do them, and at least writing them down means I won't immediately forget. Or something like that.
I should probably also write some kind of reflection on 2007 here, but I'm hungry and I'll probably save that for LJ anyway, in part because some wonderful anonymous benefactor gave me a year of paid time there and space for 105 shiny, shiny icons. Suffice to to say, for now, that while 2007 was maybe not the best year of my life (I don't know which one was, for that matter), it was far from the worst (that title should probably go to...well, I'm really not sure, but I suppose 2006). I had some very bad times during the first couple months of the year, but 2007 marked my fight out of depression rather than into it, and I'm at a far healthier state mentally now than I was a year ago, so that's obviously a very good thing. I had a crazy trip to Florida this summer, which wasn't completely pleasant at the time although my memories now are predominantly positive (funny how that works), and a very good family trip to Nebraska from which I just returned, which was the first time I've ever spent Christmas away from home or with extended family. I worked two jobs this summer and finally worked up the courage, or something, to have rather a lot published with my byline in The Northern Light, including two real articles, a movie review, and a bunch of opinion pieces. I had my busiest semester yet--20 credits--and still survived with my 4.0 (and sanity, I think) intact. (I survived another poli-sci class, too, which is particularly astonishing.) I had my first writing workshop ever, which wasn't all fun, but it was also a positive experience overall, especially since I got three very short stories, one much longer one, and the first chapter of Thieves' Honor out of the deal...and even though being workshopped is extremely unnerving and not a lot of fun, and while it might be likely to just feed my unhealthy perfectionist nature, I think it's also a good thing to do, generally. Plus it was really gratifying to hear other students--at least four out of a fairly small class--tell me personally that my comments, on their manuscripts or during the actual workshop, were possibly the most helpful and focused out of anybody else there.
Anyway, as it's 3:15, I really think it should be lunchtime now, y/y? >_<
Current weather: 23°, although we finally got more snow while we were gone
Current mood: Ravenous
Current site: None
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| So, uh, yeah, I haven't posted here since before the semester began, and said semester is nearly over.
Huh.
All kinds of things have happened since then, like: I've gotten more stuff published in The Northern Light, mostly opinion pieces (ask me for links); I got all four wisdom teeth removed, and despite my apprehension beforehand, the recovery period when I couldn't lie around at home was worse than the actual procedure, for which I was very not conscious; I went back to Barrow for a few days as part of a Fellows trip, which reminded me that actually I don't miss the town at all despite oddly fond and nostalgic feelings I was having for it, but I do rather miss the tundra, despite how much I adore the trees and mountains here; I rewatched all of Doctor Who season 3 on the Sci-Fi Channel when it aired over here and discovered "Last of the Time Lords" wasn't quite as bad the second time around even though it still sucked; I watched "Time Crash" (DW mini-ep, another "Children in Need" special) and it was COMPLETE AWESOME; I dressed up as River Tam for Halloween; I got a stress fracture in my foot for no easily discernible reason; Kelsey got a boyfriend; um...what else? Well, there's always craploads of homework. At least I've been getting some writing done, but not much I can link to, because it's not fanfic (except "Too Close to the Moon," which doesn't count since I wrote it in July), it's original fic for my creative writing workshop (i.e., I have actually finished some OF short stories. I know, I can't believe it either). Speaking of which, I have two things due for that on Tuesday, crap. And a short, easy paper due Monday afternoon, and a not-so-short-or-easy paper "revision" (only I've just written part of it) due Monday by noon, and a poli-sci paper due Wednesday. So...yeah. Bad stuff.
If you want to see pictures of any of these things, Facebook is a good place to look. Actually if you have any interest in keeping semi-up-to-date with my life at all, Facebook and Livejournal are good, 'cause...as you can tell, I fail at updating this.
BUT. None of that was actually the point of posting this. The point was really this: I've posted a bunch of my photography (going to put up more) on brickfish.com for a scholarship competition, and you can win if enough people vote for you, which they can do once a day; you don't have to be a member to vote. And here's my album of all kinds of pictures.
Now my back is going numb and I have homework I should really attend to, and my hot chocolate is definitely not hot anymore.
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| Not, you know, that it would've mattered, seeing as I was gone less time than I've actually updated. I'm so bad.
Um. So. I was gone for ten days on a family trip to Florida, where I rediscovered how much I hate heat, humidity, and crowds, particularly when all three are combined, but Disney World is still fairly awesome. And I bought too much and spent too much money, as usual, and I'm afraid to add it all up and find out just how much I spent.
(OMG, why is my internet being so slow?? I need to unpack as soon as I'm done with this, yo!)
Anyway, it was in the 90s the whole time, and I love certain individuals but hate people in general (well, I certainly loathe crowds--nothing else makes me as claustrophobic), and...yes. And I was going to be gone longer than I thought, because there was going to be this Fellows trip to Barrow (yes, really...my idea, mostly) only the dates have been pushed back, which is good, 'cause it would've involved me getting home at midnight (about 4 a.m. my body's time) and then leaving for Barrow at 6 a.m. Yay sleeping in airports. And then as soon as I got back from that I'd be driving to Homer for a couple days for another Fellows thing, and then getting my wisdom teeth out the morning after, and then doing Fellows stuff two more days in a row, and then starting the semester. I'm still doing all that, except now I have three days' break. So, you know, yay me.
Must unpack now.
Current weather: 60s. SO MUCH BETTER.
Current mood: Glad to be home
Current site: LJ, Vox, Google Reader
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| Wow, I thought it hadn't been quite so long...over a month this time... *winces*
Um. I'm beginning to forget what I used this one for. Or maybe that's just because my LJ has become my repository for random stuff while this one has (supposedly) become more of a daily-life update sort of thing...which is kind of a joke, yeah, since 1) I update the other more often now and 2) uh, that's more what Jolene does, rather than what I actually do. >_< (Except her random stuff is usually more interesting than mine is.)
So. Yeah. The semester's definitely over. Last day was May 4, actually, and I got through with my 4.0 intact by the skin of my teeth--I really thought I hadn't in physics and my lit class (which would've been...unfortunate; I was expecting it from physics but not as much from the other, but he grades pretty hard), but I managed somehow, and yeah. That part still feels a little surreal; I'd truly expected to lose the 4.0 this time, and I would've been okay with it, but I'm still thrilled--obviously!--that I still have it.
And then we had relatives--my dad's parents and aunt--up for my sister's graduation, and one of my cousins came up the night before as a total surprise (I really wish somebody'd had a camera on me and Kelsey when we saw her--apparently the looks on our faces were pretty priceless). Kelsey and my cousin both ended up sleeping on my floor, which was...interesting, mostly because I'd just given my room the most thorough cleaning it's had in years (as in, a full garbage bag plus some of garbage, and a bursting garbage bag--plus lots of old magazines--to donate or sell somewhere) and my room was actually free of everything, which it hasn't been in...too long. And then I got two people sleeping on my floor and couldn't walk around in my room anymore. >_< Small sacrifice, though; it was great seeing Brooke, and seriously, my dad's side of the family is awesome. Just awesome. I loved just listening to the conversations that went on between my grandparents and my great-aunt--they're all so...sharp, I guess would be the word. Time has definitely not dulled their brains at all, and you can tell how much they love each other--my grandparents have a wonderful marriage, and some of the banter between my grandma and great-aunt (they're sisters) is not only highly amusing, it's a great window to all the stories and memories they have from all their years as siblings. My grandpa's basically a genuis, too--he's got a doctorate and all. I kept thinking how much I love being part of this family.
And then there's the whole fact that KELSEY IS GOING TO COLLEGE NEXT YEAR ZOMG, and I think she's still a freshman in my mind, or maybe a sophomore, and yes she would totally kill me if she read that. (Maybe it's a good thing she never blogs anymore.) Somehow the fact that she's graduated from high school feels far more surreal than the fact that I'm basically a junior in college now.
But...yeah...Other Stuff has been happening, but I can't be bothered to remember more of it at the moment. Summer session starts Monday; I'm taking a geography class and lab the first session to finish off my last natural sciences GERs, and then during the second summer session I'm taking a philosophy class (yes, really) for another GER of sorts. While working two jobs. I'm only concerned because one will involve doing some actual writing for The Northern Light, but you know what? I can deal. I might not want to do it (okay, I won't lie; the idea of interviewing somebody scares the crap out of me just a little bit), but I know I can.
Also, I've been sitting here way too long, and I'm getting sore. >_<
Current weather: 48° (spring! real spring! and everything's green now and it's beautiful!)
Current mood: Tired
Current site: Blackboard
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