aamcnamara

1. I had a Readercon! I met some people I had previously known only as Internet usernames, including Leah Bobet (with whom I chatted sitting in the hall outside the very awesome and entirely too warm Interstitial party on Friday evening) and Brit Mandelo (with whom I failed to have any conversation, but waved at in passing), and saw some of those people one only sees at conventions (like Ellen and Delia, or Claire Cooney and Pattie Templeton, whose name I am probably spelling wrong), and met a couple of excellent people for the first time, and saw vcmw and aliseadae, which was fabulous.
1.5. I did not get Delany to sign my copy of Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, because apparently I left it in Minnesota.

2. I have now taken the Starburst Challenge, which means little if you did not go to the summer writing camp aliseadae and I attended as junior high/high school students. (We were so young then!) It is where you are given a Starburst and have to unwrap it with your eyes closed and determine what flavor it is, and it is a Thing at MITY. When I actually was at MITY, I did not know whether I could eat Starbursts. Lately I discovered that I can. So Sally and I went in together on an extremely expensive package of Starbursts from the hotel lobby shop and I took the Challenge standing on a grassy slope by the Burlington Marriott parking lot.

3. Sally and Kate polkaed down the hallways of Readercon.

4. I now have extensive notes, plus bits of actual text, on a short story and a novel, both of which I just need to sit down and draft, dammit, except that I keep not being near a computer (and when I am, doing such important things as Checking My Email And Marking All Those Emails I Saw When I Checked It At Work As Read On My Computer).

5. ... Also I got a really nice rejection on my flash fiction "Katabasis" and I intend to change a couple of things and send it out again, but I haven't yet.

6. I read some books on my commute, but I forgot to write them up for a post and lately I've been using that time to write (or, well, think about stories), so there you have it. Not totally destitute of books, but busy. (I got a library card yesterday. So there may yet be more books.)

7. Yes, this entire post is "I have a brain! Really! Sometimes! It's just buried under... things!"

8. In mad-scientist news, part of my job involves testing things at higher and higher voltages until they produce large purple sparks and stop working.

The semester started on Wednesday. I am not sure how I feel about this.

Classes I'm taking are:
- Real analysis: should be interesting and teach me things--it's full of people who are about at my same math level, which rocks.
- Quantum mechanics: best class ever? Quite possibly. (I have been waiting years to take quantum mechanics. On the first day we got a thermal image of a zebra. As far as I care this class can do no wrong.)
- Second semester of Greek: more maiming! More violence! Always fun.
- Science, revolution, and modernity: a critical social thought class, which seems very interesting and also kind of intense (six books plus supplementary readings? 3-4 page paper nearly every week?), at least to my physics-major brain. But hey, readings and not problem sets, so that's nice.

I auditioned for the five-college early music program and got placed in a group. Singing madrigals! I haven't done that much since freshman year of high school, and I have missed it. (I kept forgetting to check and see when auditions were, the past few semesters.) I will have concerts to go and do, in addition to two hours' weekly practice.

[Edit: And of course working in special collections. Forever.]

In grand college tradition, I would also like to attend at least a few meetings for the Coalition for Gender Awareness this semseter--I've been on their email list since last year--and, oh yeah, try out for a play. I am going to try out for the play anyhow, which might be a bad idea but oh well. CoGA might have to wait. I seem to be cycling through all the things I want to do; I just have to hope that I have enough time to actually do all of them before I graduate.

Not helping with this: I hope to study abroad for a semester next year. I have a shortlist, just need to fill out all the forms. I do have some time on that.

Meanwhile, though, I still have physics research applications to do. I am getting through them, but I have some left--the plan is to do those today. (Also, my homework for tomorrow.) I submitted my application to the U of MN materials science REU program this morning, which I point out especially because their application webform has a box to type in for gender, not just buttons for male and female. Win!

For, I'm pretty sure, the first time in my life, I went today by myself to a restaurant, sat down, ordered food, ate, paid, and left--taking extra food with me in a bag. Okay, there was a bit of stuff in there about allergies, and checking up on ingredients of things, but it was pretty low-key. And I got a salad with chickpeas (and oil and vinegar), and fried-rice-with-vegetables, and hibiscus peppermint iced tea. I could have had other things, probably, if I had wanted them.

This is... okay, maybe not the hugest thing ever, but pretty awesome. I mean, eating out isn't that fantastic of a thing--but it is a thing. A thing that Other People do. And now, apparently, me too.

Then I went and bought food and came back on the bus. My plan is to avoid the dining halls over fall break; only one is open for the duration, and it's the one that usually doesn't handle allergen-free diets due to too much traffic. The only problem is of course that I bought meat (frozen, but still) and then had to spend an hour-plus getting back due to the seven-thirty bus not showing up until seven-forty-five. I cooked it as soon as I got back, and stuck it in the fridge. With luck, I won't get trichinosis and die! That would ruin my entire fall break.

In the next four days, I hope to make a bunch of progress on the A Returning Power rewrite, start outlining the first draft of The Urban Fantasy Novel for early revision, and do some physics research. I was going to start all of this stuff tonight, but I ended up reading Sayers instead, so... I'll let you know how all those grand plans go.

Tonight at my college there is going to be a geek dance.

Once upon a time, one of my LJ interests was "dressing like Chrestomanci". (Still is, on facebook.) Chrestomanci in this case meaning Christopher Chant.

People are encouraged to go to the geek dance in costume.

You can probably see where this is going.

I already owned fancy vest and pants and shirt; I'm borrowing/stealing a piece of cloth for a cravat. (Even though it's from a different book, I fully intend to say "I call it the way I tie my cravat" at least once this evening.)

However, I had no dressing gown, and a good dressing gown really is the piece de resistance for any Chrestomanci outfit. I considered and discarded my bathrobe; it's lovely, but too simple for Christopher.

Thus, today, a trip to the Salvation Army, which turned up two gowns-for-over-pajamas. (Is there a simpler word for that concept? If there is, I am unaware of it.) Both are shiny. One is egregiously mint and the other is fuchsia with flowers in relief.

Unfortunately, there were no dragons to be had, either there or at the fabric store.

Thanks to the good offices of the same friend who drove me to Salvation Army, I now have a mint dressing gown with a fuchsia lining.

I assure you: there will be pictures.

Today a friend and I went to the Walker Art Center Free Thursdays thing. They always have some sort of event, too. This week it was reinventing and recycling toys, so they had all these toy bits and you could put them together with glue guns.

I only burned my fingers with the glue gun twice! And only one of those grew a blister, which has even now stopped hurting.

The resultant toy, anyway, turned out to be a butterfly-dog-bear-cthulhu-something that glows monster.

So life is good, and I have one of these:



(Awww. Isn't it cute?)

Victory, victory, victory. I wrote a first draft of a short story this past weekend. It's not a terribly good draft, or story, but it is a first draft of a new story, and it's complete, and sometimes that's what counts. I have a few ideas on how I can start to revise it, too. These have partially been put off until I don't have to go to school any more. (That is, until Thursday. That is to say the day after tomorrow. Ack.)

I always thought I would be one of those people who disliked high school without exception, who were relieved and glad and happy to get out. And to a certain extent I am. But there are pieces of this place that I will carry with me forever.

Today in theater class I did a 'senior farewell' piece. I might post it here when I type it up. It's said that anything that goes up on the Internet can never be taken down again, and I kind of like the idea of that piece going out and on into forever.

Also, on a less maudlin and self-centered note, the June issue of Ideomancer is up. I did not help edit this one, but it's awesome anyway. (Okay, maybe a little bit of self-centeredness.) You should go read it.

Note: strawberry popsicles are awesome.