I did a lot this weekend. Here’s the rundown:

• Friday: On Friday night, I watched some movies with David, Lukas, and Jason. And what exactly did we watch? A ninja love story, of course!

  The name of the movie was Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, and once I got over the male protagonist‚Äôs terrible eighties rock band mullet hairstyle I actually enjoyed the film. Apparently, kung fu is key to making a romance movie that I’ll actually watch.

  Then we watched The Shadowless Sword. Surprisingly, in every scene I saw, the sword appeared to have a shadow. This movie also had its share of bad hair. And men with eyeliner. And amusing subtitle mistranslations (for example: “I sell stuffs!” “I learned to repair things because some dorks kept coming into my shop and breaking things.”)

  As we watched these movies, we picked up a few rules for good wuxia. For example, it’s not a true romance unless it’s fatal for one or both of the people involved. Also, dying to prove your point, no matter how trivial, is perfectly valid. And if you go to a teahouse, there will be fight. It’s as inviolate as a law of physics.

• Saturday: I cleaned house, and then spent the rest of the day in coffee houses writing and plotting. Well, mainly plotting, since I can’t start really writing until November 1st. I’m planning out my new novel’s scenes on note cards, so I can move them around as needed (and so I will know what’s going to happen in this chapter before the characters do.) I’m also plotting my previous novel. As you may recall, I got over 50,000 words, but the plot arc hadn’t even started to come down. I’m pretty sure I’m about half finished.

  So I’m working on the old novel to get in the practice of writing 2,000 words a day. Actually, 2,500 words a day, because my goal this year is to write 75,000 words- 50K from my new novel, and 25K from the old one. It’s going to be tough, but last year there were times I wrote more than 5,000 words a night. So as long as I don’t get behind, I should be able to meet my goal.

  Saturday evening, I went to movie night and we watched Garden State. I thought the movie was pretty good, but the music was great.

  Also, Amy taught me how to knit. Knitting is cool here, oddly enough. So I’m knitting a scarf, but I knit a hole in it yesterday, as impossible as that seems.

• Now it’s Sunday. I went to church this morning, and now I need to do laundry. No surprises here.

Lunch is for people who don’t have the option of just striking out into the heart of the city and seeing what’s there. Last week, I walked down to the piers. Today, I found Pioneer Square. Tomorrow, I think I’ll find the shiny glass library. And I’d like to find Pike Place market again. Then maybe I’ll be skilled enough to find the “beyond” in Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I’ve been working for almost a month now, passing the critical two-week stage with flying colors. That is to say I like my new job. While I’m not as “positively enchanted” as I was when I started, I still regret nothing. And I do so enjoy my buspass. And “Bagel Wednesday”. And “Pizza Friday”.

Actually, this Friday was a mini milestone. I finished my first application at work (after spending the first two weeks wading through training materials.) It still has to be tested, and has kind of a low priority, but before too long, people will be using it for REAL. I used XML supported by a few simple functions to replace pages and pages of java code. I am teh awesomest.

It’s been very important to me that I do as I said I would in the job interview and pick things up quickly. It was my main selling point. I feel that I’ve done that. In fact, I’m continually surprised at how easy this is.

I know that part of it is just that my last job was so whack (wiggidy whack? nope, just the regular kind.) It’s like I’ve now got Job2.0(TM)- now with reasonable hours, expectations, management, pay, dignity, benefits, training, you name it. In fact, my supervisor appologised for not giving me more training, never realizing that any training is more than I’m used to.

I was terrified that this was going to be more than I could handle, but it’s all so easy. Something happened between college and now, the pieces fell into place, or maybe I just grew up, but now all of the computer science is more coherent and much less mystical than I ever remember it being. I really cannot explain why these things were so difficult for me to understand back in the day.

Anyway, I should balance things out by saying that there are still challenges, and I have had to ask a lot of questions, but I can do this. And that’s really what I needed to know.

• NaNoWriMo’s almost here!!! I very nearly have a plot, but I may throw the whole thing out next week for sheer awefulness.I thought about not competing this year. For about 3 seconds. The world should fear the terrible writing about to be unleashed. Bwahahaha!
• Why is it that all kinds of awesome video games are coming out once NaNoWriMo completly suberts my life? Guitar Hero 2 comes out in November, but what really pains me is that Final Fantasy 12 AND Neverwinter Nights 2 (you know, the games I’ve been eagerly anticipating for YEARS) both come out on October 31. It’s a recipe for disaster.
• At least I’ll have some good music to listen to this year. Pillar’s got a new album out and so do the Decemberists (side note: I briefly considered using the songs in “Picaresque” as NaNoWriMo fodder.) Also, I bought a live cd by Robert Earl Keen last month, and it’s really good. Actually, it’s kind of horrible. The songs are so upbeat, but they’re about terrible things. They do sound like Texas, though. Makes me miss home.
• I joined an RPG, once again making myself the nerdiest person I know.
• The weather here is so nice now, like Autumn arrived all the sudden, and the air is crisp, and the leaves are changing colors on the trees. It’s kind of like popcorn popping- some kernels going off before others- so it’s not widespread yet, but here and there is a bright red tree in a sea of green.
• Because of the nice cooler weather, and because I can’t write at home- too many distractions) I’m at Shinka Tea right now, writing and drinking a Coco Diablo. That’s hot chocolate with chili. It’s actually good, not the culinary disaster you might expect. I also bought a freaking awesome mug/tea infuser.
• There’s probably some other things I’m excited about that I can’t think of right now…

For three days now, I’ve been telling everyone who will listen (and some people that are simply too slow to get away) how great it is to have a bus pass. But now I’m a bit less elated. This morning, in the cold and rain, I waited at the stop for my bus to come. It wasn’t really that cold, but I don’t have a jacket. (Insert “You know you’re from the Valley when…” joke here.) I waited a few minutes, and then I saw the #7 coming down the street. I got out my bus pass and felt just a little less cold. Then the bus drove right on by. I stared at it, disbelieving, until it was out of sight. Then, I went back to looking down the street, as if I could summon another bus, just by looking hard enough. A little while later, I saw the #7 coming down the street. It also drove right on by. It was as if the bus drivers had heard stories about me. Finally a third bus came. It was one of those fancy articulated buses too. There were only 3 other passengers inside. I guess everyone else that needed a ride got on the earlier bus(es). About a block before my stop, because there were so few people on board, I just told the bus driver that the next stop was mine. He drove past it. To some drivers, I guess, stops only count if you pull the cord. So I pulled the cord and got off at the next stop. And then I trudged through the cold and drizzle to the Exchange Building. But then I bought a raspberry hot chocolate at Tully’s and now I’m not miserable. The End.

BTW, on my way home tonight, I’ll take some pictures and post them to flickr this evening.

I know it’s been a while since I posted. Quit yer cryin’! The last time I took a break from blogging it was for 5 months. Or for 8 months. Something like that. Why is it that when you finally have time to do things, you always seem to lack the motivation? (And the money?) Anyhow, now that I’ll be working, instead of just theoretically employed, I can feel order returning. Here are some things that I probably should have written about earlier, as well as a preview of coming attractions:

• First up, I got a Flickr account. So now you can see pictures of all the things I’m not writing about. Here’s a quick tutorial: the picture you see on the main page is a thumbnail, you can click on it to see the full-size version. If that’s still not enough, you can click on the “All Sizes” button to see the really big original. On the main page, there’s also a link so you can view the pictures as a slideshow. Much less clicking that way.
• I think everyone knows this by now, but I have officially gotten out of teaching. For now. I start my new job on Monday. I’m not completely sure what that entails, although it does involve taking the bus downtown, walking a block or so, and taking an elevator to the 10th floor. Quite a bit different from working 15 minutes away from home and being able to park for free. More on that later on this week.
• I’ve joined yet another book club. Justin started this one, and it couldn’t be more different from the other one I attend (this group runs to highly educated, moderately serious theologians; the other group is ladies only and we talk about chicklit. And boys.) So, if I ever get caught up with the reading, I’ll probably be writing about The New Testament and the People of God, too.
• Oh, and I never wrote about Fascinating Womanhood. For a while, the book made me passionately angry. But after a while, I decided it was more sad and pathetic than anything else. I should still probably write about it, because it truly is a staggering work of heartbreaking…something. Most likely terribleness.

That’s all.

I’ve thought this for some time. No regular human being could accomplish so much (multiple grad school classes, teaching English and biology, and Mary Kay at the same time!) and now I have even further proof. Read the rest of this entry »

I fixed my recent comments code for the sidebar. As it was, the code got all previous comments, whether or not they had been approved. That means the bizarre spam comments I deleted still showed up. I fixed it all with a little SQL statement in my php (this one: WHERE $wpdb->comments.comment_approved = ‘1′ ) and now only for real, approved comments show up. w00t!