Tomato Soup

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Monday, March 31, 2003

It's almost April.
Can you believe that? It seems like only yesterday I was complaining that February is far too short!

I shall now fill in the last few minutes of the month by showing you this cute image of the lovely Amaranta Valtonen. My first even halfway successful Vakian doll (although neither Aeva nor Marian is technically Vakian, or at least Marian isn't, for certain, and Aeva's designation...stop! not getting into that!).

When Maranta shows up a small, relatively unimportant pocket-city after she escapes from the ruin of her Center, she sets off a chain of events that gets a whole storyline going, so I really can't be blamed for being rather fond of her. :) Here she is in her work clothes (she manages to hook up with a group of miners).

"ETP", by the way (usually class designations are in lower case letters, though) stands for "empathic telepath", and the bits after that give the breakdown numerically (I have a very elaborate system worked out). Since it has been experimentally determined that pure empaths aren't stable (which is a nice way of saying their one empath went crazy), etps are generally considered "empaths" since they are the closest it gets. (And I will have it noted that while I have definitely pushed this rule a bit, I have not broken it. Your magic system has to have boundaries, even if it is a science fiction-y we-don't-call-it-'magic' system.)
Sarah - 11:44 PM - 0 comment(s)

I'm getting my ears cleaned out.
Hey! Stop it! I'm serious! I have an appointment in about half an hour, which is why I am sitting here on the computer instead of jetting back home immediately after class.

I'm getting so lazy about lunches. This is the first time I have packed a sandwich on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday since Salli and Heather were here, at least. (And I've gotten pretty bad on Thursdays and Tuesdays, too...ever since I found the Tim Hortons, in fact. Imagine that.) It made a lot of sense when I was sick (I just wanted to go home and pour hot liquids down my throat :P), but now there is no excuse.

Okay, I have a confession. I sort of skipped church yesterday. Part of it was that I didn't have the energy to run, and I would've been late, part of it was that I really was not feeling up to sitting there during the sermon clenching my jaw and hoping not to hear anything anti-war (I continue to insist that as Christians, we have no business telling God to give us peace; "thy will be done", and all), and part of it was that I was in the middle of making a really cute doll. :P

So I decided that if I was going to say I had reasons, I had better have reasons. So that is my current prayer request: help me to get a handle on this whole mess, at least enough to respond as a Christian instead of just getting angry and cynical. The other thing I decided was that I was going to start doing devotions from my Book of Common Prayer again. My current goal is at least one a day, for this entire week. So far, so good (two days :P). I did morning devotions on the metro. Call it a Lent thing, perhaps?

I am working on more dolls, and in fact have made a couple of very nice ones, but they are for the Forest anniversary, so I am not sharing them yet (unless I manage to corner you on IM).
Sarah - 1:17 PM - 0 comment(s)

Sunday, March 30, 2003

I know I had something productive to say...
But I forgot what it was. :P

My little ez-mod mascots. :) Aren't they cute? (Actually, they appear to be the same girl, and no, she is not me.) I've been playing with accessories. The cool thing about more "modern" clothing is that it is quicker to shade than evening gowns or full skirts! There's a third one (who actually was the first), but if you want to see her you will have to go looking, because it's a little...er...violent. ;) While I was wandering about yesterday, I came to the realization that I was really quite comfortable wandering about. I used to always feel self-concious on the streets, but now I don't even particularly notice the busy traffic or the crowds of people. I think I have adjusted to city life. (Is that cool, or scary?)

Sarah - 4:21 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, March 29, 2003

And here's the rest of the gang...
Action poses! :)



The first one, the running pose, is on a base from Emmi at Swan Lake. She makes some lovely bases; I am particularly impressed by some of the dance poses. Chiela is running (clearly) with a long pointy object. I don't know where she got it. Perhaps it was part of the decorations?

Pari, meanwhile...well, she is the team medic! None of that blood is hers, though. I'm not sure if she is using that knife to do something medical (as Rayne said, ewwwww...) or if she is keeping it handy to defend her patient(s). A shame to ruin such a lovely dress! ;) (Base by Xandorra.)

As for Mary...Salli, if Heather is there, tell her "Barrels. And Ladders," and see if she can guess what Mary is up to. :) Those are bottles of various alcoholic beverages; I think Mary is raiding the bar. Hint: alcohol is flamable. And glass shards are sharp. (Base by Josie.)
Sarah - 9:14 PM - 0 comment(s)

...
(That would signify "happy silence".)

On something of a whim, I went to see Spirited Away this afternoon. (It's a miracle in and off itself that I got up soon enough to catch the 1:10 showing!)

I am truly impressed. Usually I do not think much of what the anime fans consider to be "great" (Evangelion, anyone?), but this was truly lovely.

There was a pretty solid crowd; the theater wasn't full, but it was not by any means empty. I have seen new releases with smaller crowds, and we are talking about a movie that was first released six months ago. (I think the Academy Award is responsible.) There were many parents with children. Not the sort of crowd you would expect to spontaneously applaud at the end.

If you get a chance to see this movie, do it! If you have any sort of imagination, you will enjoy it. The art is just lovely, of course, but the story is just as sweet. Not "empty", sweet, fluffy nothing-really-happens, either, and not pretentious.

The heroine, Chihiro, is adorable, but not overly cutesy, annoying, or precocious. She is—get this, what a novel concept—a refreshingly "real"-feeling little girl. What she accomplishes, in a world that is as fantastic, magical and complex as one could wish, she does by simply being a kind, loving child. You're not hit over the head with moral lessons, either. Yes, people, there is an actual story! (And it mostly makes sense, in a slightly kooky internal sort of way.)

This is a film to show to people who do not think that animation can accomplish anything worthwhile. (Or even better, to call to mind when you begin to have your doubts.) I laughed out loud (the little soot critters...when Chihiro helps one of them and the rest of them...hehe, I won't spoil it!), but more importantly, it still makes me smile, a couple of hours later.

That, and it left me with story-craving that could only be satisfied by splurging (okay, is three books for $6 really a splurge?) at the cheap books display on the way back, buying candy, and renting a movie. :)

(Aside: At the grocery store, they have this little display of maple sugar candies. Including these really adorable tiny ice-cream-cone-shaped candies with syrupy filling and a sugary layer at the top. I know because I was so intrigued and amused that I bought one. Pure sugar.)
Sarah - 5:50 PM - 0 comment(s)

I know you're out there!
So why aren't you answering my questions? :P If you don't answer, then I shall...uhm...tell Shay that you are bored! ;)

She's not flying, by the way. She just jumped off a staircase or something. And I am afraid that the piece of glass might be from a chandelier. (The housekeeping staff is not going to be happy.) Base by Xandorra. Unless I say otherwise, assume it's by Xandorra.

Lora (my roommate) and I watched A River Runs Through It because it was a movie, and it was on television, and it was in English (we have several film channels, but they are all in French, i.e. mostly American movies dubbed in French). Yay, serious movies on a Friday night. I shall have to do something mindless to make up for that.
Sarah - 12:15 AM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, March 28, 2003

I'm all alone!
It's so sad! *sniff* There has been no one around to talk to me or see my cool new dolls all day. :( And Salli was the only one around to respond to questions yesterday (but she did not answer them). :P

Forest Mafia has a new mascot. Is he a Mafia member, striking his helpless victim down with one evil glare, or is he our intrepid Mage, using an admittedly creepy-looking identification spell?

My first male doll. And he's balding! I love that. Okay, so I also love the glowing red (RED!) eyes. And the cuffs on his pants, and the rolled-up shirtsleeves.
Sarah - 11:45 PM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Red, red, RED!
I. Love. This. Doll.

Her name is actually "Sarali", I believe. (That is, I think that this is Sarali!) "Daulaka" is her profession, the only Tsinali profession with red face-markings. For other people, red is a funeral color. The daulaka is of such central importance that I was going to wait until I had a better handle on the style, but...red! I couldn't resist.

And yes, her pose and those ribbons are supposed to be showy. She has a certain appearance to maintain. ;) I didn't add any magical effects because those are just for show; the real things she can do are invisible. (And let me tell you, Sarali can certainly take care of herself!)

Sarali is not strictly a proper daulaka, but as an empathic mind-healer she is technically qualified, and as the clan needs a daulaka, and Sarali (who is half Tsinali) needs to hide out with a patient who is supposed to be executed for murder...well, they make an exception. ;)

Anyway...two questions:

1. Should I continue to provide background information about the characters, or just post the doll and be done with it? (Or would you prefer more or less information?)
2. Should I put these up in a more permanent location (i.e. a page of my website)?

Sarah - 7:36 PM - 0 comment(s)

Bored, bored, bored...
I am quite caught up at Amon Hen, I have launched the International Community Showcase, and Salli has not posted the next Mafia round yet. (Silly Salli, working on the school paper instead of posting Mafia results!)

So I got all Tolkien-geeky over lunch (toasted everything bagel with cream cheese, yum!) and sat there looking up references to Christianity and Catholism in my copy of Letters. Maybe I'll post some of it. But I was also remined of something I did for Calc C last year (the only math project I have ever enjoyed):

Here is a much-shrunk version of my parameteric plots masterpiece. Yes, that's right, this entire thing was done in Maple using parametric plots! Every single curve, line, or loop in the tengwar I did myself, "by hand", by tweaking the equations until they were just right. And then I played with the colors a bit and added the ring (and my "signature" at the bottom). Yes, it is the first line of the ring verse. I believe it says "ash nazg durbatulûk" and the bottom part says "Sarah", phonetically, of course.

That was definitely one of my shining geek moments. I ended up being one of the three winners (which means I got homemade pizza, yay!), so mine was shown to the entire class, and at that time it was cool to like LotR, so I got a lot of surprised approving glances. :D

(And some people looked at me like I was nuts. Which I enjoyed just as much! MWAHAHAHA!)

Sarah - 12:58 PM - 0 comment(s)

I like having clean hair.
Unfortunately, unlike Salli, I do not enjoy washing my hair. This is a problem. My life is so tough!

Other reasons my life is tough:

• When I put my coffee on the windowsill and forget about it, it gets cold, and then my nicely, lovely coffee is cold and yucky.


• My medication lasts for about three hours and I can take three a day. Assuming that I get eight hours of sleep a night (which I do not), you do the math.


• I hate, hate, hate the tase of toothpaste!


• My middle class today is cancelled, so I have about four and a half hours to kill. Make that...three hours and fifty-one minutes. No, I am not already counting the minutes.


• The pretty doll I was working on last night is on my own computer, back in my apartment, and not available to me here (as if I would work on it in public anyway). :P


• I'm hungry. I'm always hungry.

However shall I survive these trying times?

Anyway, back to my hair. I washed it last night, something I am always glad that I did after I have done it, but always reluctant to do again. Partially this is because if I wash it every day, it gets dried out and frizzy and yucky and that's no fun. But now it is all soft and curly (because I slept on it wet) and it even smells nicely of my shampoo. I pulled it back with a bandana this morning instead of shoving it into a ponytail, so it is falling over my shoulders instead of behind my head where I can't see it. (This explains why I am suddenly talking about it.) And because it is just pulled back with a bandana, I don't have to worry about it being uncontrollable or ending up in my mouth when I'm trying to eat!

When it is behaving (which is seldom), I have great hair.
Sarah - 10:37 AM - 0 comment(s)

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Previewing coolness.
Go to the ezboard help forums and act like you are going to post something. Don't actually post. Just enter "test" or something and preview. ::sigh:: Isn't it beautiful?

And even better, I noticed before Dan! MWAHAHAHA!

Oooh...dizzy...this stuff is great, when it hasn't just worn off. :P And then I have to wait for the next dose to take effect...

I don't think they sell Dramamine in Canada. Or at least not this part. I mentioned that Dramamine helped when I was talking to the nurse, and she had never heard of it! Scandalous!
Sarah - 7:53 PM - 0 comment(s)

Now this is more like it!
A post with a doll again! Finally! I was beginning to feel almost normal. ;)

I think I'm in caffeine withdrawal. The doctor said that caffeine could make the dizziness a lot worse, but he also said that caffeine withdrawal is an old wives' tale, which shows how much he knows! How could you be a doctor and really think that? Caffeine is a drug. You can be addicted, and you can go into withdrawal. It's not like the kind where you start hallucinating or anything, but it does result in caffeine deprivation headaches. Trust me. I have studied this.

Anyway, here you get to see my first Tsinali doll. There will probably be more. (Alas, they are likely to take a while, because they really ought to be very detailed. Tsina clothing is always detailed.) Patra here (a good Tsinali name) is a dancer (not that this is necessarily what she would dance in). I think her blouse would look better if it were white, but I don't feel like changing it.

Sarah - 6:23 PM - 0 comment(s)

Just in case you thought I hadn't been doing anything...
...I did this:



Those aren't the full thing, of course. Oh, and the reason most of the words end in "-ka" is because that is the feminine ending for a profession-name. I am not going to tell you want they mean unless someone expresses interest. :P

They looked rather silly bald, so I made it into a hair study as well. You will probably see the full hair for the two that were cropped off eventually. ;)

Guess which one is my favorite! ;)
Sarah - 12:27 PM - 0 comment(s)

Skip, skip, skip!
I am skipping class! Wheee!

Well, not really. Well, actually, yes, really, but not by design. My whole end of the metro is suffering from an "interruption de service" and they weren't even giving approximate times for it to be running again, so I left and came home. Because at that point, even if the train came in five minutes, I would still have been twenty minutes late for class, and it's only a 50-minute class, except about half the time when he finishes early and it's more like 30 or 40 minutes. There was just no point in me waiting around who-knows-how long to get to, at the most, about twenty minutes of class! It's not even a very important class. I'm sure I'm not missing anything.

I should do something productive, but my medication hasn't kicked in yet and I just feel like taking a nap!
Sarah - 11:39 AM - 0 comment(s)

The medication works!
I know because it wore off about an hour and a half ago, and I oh-so-wisely decided it would be better to save it for tomorrow since I am going to go to sleep soon (and it doesn't bother me while I am horizontal).

I was going to blog a bit before midnight, so it would show up as Tuesday instead of Wednesday, but I got distracted while going to the kitchen for tea and a snack. (My roommate and I had a nice long vent regarding insensitive, disrespectful, oblivious war protests.) I shall not get into that here. It's not good for my tension levels, and I might say something inappropriate about France which I would later regret. I usually rather reservedly like France.

I turned in my third computing assignment this evening. About two hours before the deadline. I don't think the program was very good, but I should at least get some credit for it. I did two of the bonus questions, I believe. :) The whole process seems to have been much less painful than last time, but I think that's just because the pain was indirect; I was too sick too worry about the project much. :p

Updates!!! (Sometimes I get overly excited, have you noticed?)

I haven't ::gasp!:: actually made any new dolls today, but part of that is because I am working on a rather extended study of Tsinali face-markings (necessary to precede a study of Tsinali clothing). More later. If anyone cares. Does anyone care?


Sarah - 12:44 AM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

I do not feel dizzy.
I also do not feel nauseous. And I've got some nice beachfront property to sell you, and I saw Elvis this morning on the metro.

Why, oh why, oh why, must this (quote: "this happens sometimes after you have a cold") happen to me? And more importantly, why now? It's not like I have a programming project due at 11 o'clock tonight or anything...oh, wait. It is. :P But the net result is that I just don't care.

I am, however, armed with a prescription for anti-dizziness medication, which I cannot get filled until I get out of class in two hours and take the metro back home. We won't discuss what it is like to ride the metro with my ears in their current condition. I don't want to think about it.
Sarah - 2:02 PM - 0 comment(s)

Monday, March 24, 2003

I think I'm in a doll-making rut.
But I don't care, because I love the pretty colors!

These four ladies are all graduates of various branches of the Drathen Arts Academy (aka "spy school"), from very science fiction storyline of mine. (We continue the theme of important female secondary characters...) They must be very good at what they do, because they have been assigned to a new team under the leadership of the Drathen Special Forces' best field agent. Of course, he's so put out that he is being talked into doing this that he makes them undergo their additional training at the Academy, where they are supposed to be "undercover" as freshmen.

Here they are dressed for the annual spring dance, which is a fantastically dressy event that is considered to be sacred in that it is the last time in your life as a trainee that you can be assured that This Is Not A Training Exercise. I don't know if these four have realized that they are not really freshmen and therefore exempt.

If you are at all interested in the characters (does anyone care about this stuff, or should I just shut up and show you the pretty pictures?), the alt tags give a little bit of information. Otherwise, just look at the pretty dresses. :) Oooh...shiny...
Sarah - 11:53 PM - 0 comment(s)

Speaking of minor deities...
...I found a "new" (as in, I just found it, not one that is actually so new it is in danger of disappearing tomorrow) webcomic that you should really read. Because at this point, decent story-driven comics with decent art that Sarah has not yet discovered and that have enough of an archive that you can actually form a judgement are few and far between. (If you think you know of one that I don't know, please do share.)

There was something else that I was going to share, but I totally forgot it.

Oh, right. The comments.

I added some basic emoticon functionality. You can't see a list because I am too lazy to put one up. :P But it appears that the change is retroactive, so you can see some of them in action. Can you guess any of the others?
Sarah - 1:01 AM - 0 comment(s)

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Salli makes a request, and then she's not even online to see it!
But here is Zuraythé. Yes, another Eshilés Loyhalé, finally! She is "Fortune", another persona of Ral.

As Salli says:

Merchants and traders profess to follow Zurathé, equating her with prosperity and success. Her most numerous adherants are city dwellers, although they do not typically understand her true nature.

The Lady of Fortune is the patron of luck that should happen, as a result of one's own actions, or perhaps as part of some larger pattern. One could say that Zuraythé delivers deserved luck. People tend to associate her solely with good luck, although she also brings petty bad luck. (Vengeance, after all, could hardly be expected to punish minor infractions.) People generally think they deserve good things, never mind that it really only occurs randomly. The truly sincere among Zurathé's priests and priestesses are forever trying to explain that she is ultimately a face of chance, but to little avail... possibly they do not quite accept this themselves.

And all she gave me to go on was that she should look prosperous. Sheesh. DETAILS, PEOPLE! I need details!

I have been trying to avoid gushing about her skirt.

Edit: Salli made me take off the make-up. :P
Sarah - 10:08 PM - 0 comment(s)

I have a new shading technique.
I like it so much that I put up an image of just the dress, without any hair in the way, so you can see how pretty it is. :) I like it because it is all mine. I didn't get it from a tutorial or from anything that anybody else is done; I made it up myself! :) Using Picture It!, of course. It only works with certain colors, but I really like the effect here.

"Ellie Valentine" is an alias/pen name of one Ellery Vaden, who, incidentally, happens to be the origin of the name "Ellery" (and the reason why I insist that "Elly" must be spelled with a "-y"). She's a freelance investigative reporter, the star journalist on the biotech scene, and somehow she has contrived to look like a ditz, probably for the purposes of obtaining information from someone rich and clueless. She's from a universe where life is for the most part dominated by the centuries-old war between two rival empires, one of which relies primarily on cutting-edge technology (the other is famed for its espionage network), so Valentine's field is remarkably cut-throat and essentially the equivalent to war reporting.
Sarah - 4:12 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, March 22, 2003

I went out to dinner!
With my uncle from Florida! How random is that? I've been getting a lot of phone calls from people who only speak French and who clearly are not looking for me, so imagine my surrpise when I pick up the phone and it is someone sounding very American and asking for me! Yay!

It was nice to see my uncle (we don't see each other very often, having something to do with the fact that they live in Florida and we live in Ohio), it was nice to hear an American accent for a while, and it was nice to eat real food at a real restaurant! Yum! (My first course was...tomato soup! ;) It was really incredibly good! Wow! Now that's tomato soup!)

This new doll was another attempt at Picture It!-shading. I really like the color of her hair, though, and the face was kind of fun because I decided that she needed make-up.

And then I made the sad discovery that she does not look like any of my characters! I seem not to have too many red-haired heroines these days. Actually, now that I think about it, I do, but none of them fit the more "modern" style of the dress. So I decided that she could be Naranirsa Kyltanya, whose color is green, so the dress makes sense, even if the style does not! Maybe she is visiting our world, but more likely she is making a rare appearance at a gathering of Ylshaerei and really shocking the conservatives. :) Nirsa would do that. (She's thinking "You have no idea who I am, do you?")
Sarah - 9:39 PM - 0 comment(s)

I should be working the PCS.
And I will do that. In a moment.

Here I try that Picture It! shading technique again. Really the whole thing was a study for the dress. I tried shading the arm-wrappings the same way, and it looks fine, but it's way too much trouble for such a little bit that would be easily shaded by hand. It takes too long to trim off around the edges afterwards.

But of course she has to be a character, or at least have a story, so I have decided that she does seem to be dressed like a Sa'rashi lady. Which means that she is probably an assassin, which I think explains why Sa'rashi ladies wear fairly sheer, form-fitting dresses as opposed to the much fuller skirts in style in the rest of the world: it's very difficult to conceal weaponry in a dress like that.

But not impossible. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three places where she could hide a small dagger. And of course she could strangle a person quite neatly with those ribbons!

Aside from not trusting each other and being very good at killing people, Sa'rashi nobles enjoy a lively social scene and are very good at dancing.
Sarah - 12:29 AM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, March 21, 2003

I am drinking Vanilla Coke!
It still hurts a bit to swallow something cold, but at least I can do it. All week I have been too sick to even drink Vanilla Coke, and that's pretty bad!

My nose is very stopped up, of course, but it is a big improvement over yesterday!

Now that I feel better, though, I am beginning to feel a massive guilt trip about my programming assignment, which I have hardly started. AHHHHHHHHH!
Sarah - 6:00 PM - 0 comment(s)

Let the games begin!
I thought I'd make a doll to be the "mascot" for the Forest "Mafia" game.

She is supposed to look all sweet and innocent and normal...except for the bloody knife behind her back! Because the whole point of the game is that you never know who is in the Mafia, but you can be sure that they look perfectly normal!

The animated dripping blood seems like overkill to me, but I really needed the drops to make it clear that it was supposed to be fresh blood on her knife, and when I started animating, it just had to drip. Gravity, you know.

My first animated doll! What do you think of the wink?

I'm looking forward to the game. (What a good idea!) It'll be fun to see what sort of stories people come up with. How will not being able to see each other face-to-face and hear each other's voices affect the strategy?
Sarah - 2:31 PM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, March 20, 2003

It seems like all of my posts have dolls on them these days!
You'll never guess who this one is.

Tip: Glasses are a royal pain! Do not try to do glasses! There just is no way to fit eyes, glasses frames, and eyebrows, all the proper distance apart. There has to be a space between the frames and the eyebrows, or they sort of blur together (and no, I cannot just change the color, that is the color they are). And with the hair pulled back like that (an effect I really like, by the way), there just have to be eyebrows. What I really need is to put half a pixel in between, but of course that is quite impossible. :P

And no, I couldn't just leave off the glasses. Because that would be Just Plain Wrong. For the same reason that I couldn't change the color of the glasses.

I found it necessary to add something new: ears. Because it just doesn't work without them! There is no fudging by picking hair style that covers them allowed. I don't even know any hair styles that cover my ears (except leaving my hair down, which I never do because it is crazy).

Yes, that really is the color of my socks.
Sarah - 11:27 PM - 0 comment(s)

You guessed it!
The guy I saw at the health center said he didn't see any signs of infection or anything like that, so it's probably "just" a virus. Which pretty much just means Suck It Up And Deal.

Wait, you probably didn't guess that.

What you did probably guess is that this is yet another doll who has nothing to do with the Forest! Her name is Marian (well, obviously) and she actually comes from the story as Aeva, but she's a very different sort of character. For one thing, by the time we actually meet her in the story (outside of maybe flashbacks) she is in her forties. This is a very young Marian. Her father was a brilliant geneticist and she would probably have ended up being another innovator of the same caliber, had things turned out differently. But then it would have been much less dramatic, and there would be no story, so you wouldn't be seeing a picture of her, so it's really just as well.

I'm tweaking my technique for eyes. What do you think? This is another of Xandorra's bases. I'm beginning to really like those bases. They have personality.
Sarah - 5:55 PM - 0 comment(s)

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

I feel really rotten.
I hope that Sudafed kicks in soon. I think I'll go to the health center tomorrow unless I am feeling much better. I can't really work like this, and that's a problem when I have a programming assignment due Thursday!

I thought I was getting better because I woke up this morning not nearly as miserably as yesterday. But now I feel rotten again. :\

Trinka looks so peaceful. I wish I were her. :P If you look closely you will note that the blue mage-light reflects a bit of light off of the left side of her face and her left shoulder. I really like that effect. :) (Picture It! is good for something. Barely.)

Edit: This is done on a base by Xandorra. I think it may be my favorite base so far, but maybe that's just because she turned out so well!

Sarah - 9:36 PM - 0 comment(s)

And now for something completely different.
Well, to be honest, I don't know about completely different, since she is still a doll! But she's not a Loyhalé or even from the Forest and she is definitely science fiction, not straight fantasy.

I might edit the hair later. I like it, but it's not 100% Aeva.

I am quite fond of the belt (more precisely, I like the belt loops) and the miscellaneous weapon. (It's not really a gun. She doesn't need a gun.)

Aeva is from a story that you have never even heard of, because I have never told anyone about it. (I have a lot of stories like that.) I suppose she's kind of a secondary heroine—I discovered her partway into the story and she started to get really interesting and have her own entire plotline.

"Midnight" comes from the blue hair. Aeva sets out on her own and ends up meeting a bunch of refugee street kids. As she is feeling rather bummed at the time (watching the people you grew up with destroy your new home and kill most of your adoptive family will do that to you), the then-leader of the older girls decides, in her infinite teenaged wisdom, that what Aeva needs is a makeover. So they dye her hair (it's naturally white-blonde) and call her "Midnight" for the shade of blue (she's using aliases anyway).
Sarah - 2:40 PM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

I could just cry.
So I logged into WebCT to get a copy of assignment 3 for Intro Computing (*cringe*). It's 150 points, not 100. Yuck. :P

And the grades were up for assignment 2! Eek! And I got a 90 out of 100!!!. Remember, folks, an 85 is an A! I got a good, solid A on The Programming Assignment of Certain DOOM! You may recall the angst.

But I still have only 31 out of 100 for assignment 1 because the files are still stuck in WebCT purgatory. ARGH!
Sarah - 10:16 PM - 0 comment(s)

I seem to be unable to stop.
Although there are other things I should really be doing!

This is Pralle. She's sort of a nature-y type. As Salli says, there is Lady of the Harvest Pralle (who would have reddish hair), Happy Field Hand Pralle, and "Earth Mother" Pralle. (No, they're not separate personalities, just different associations with the same person.)

Salli says that this must be '"that jerk who thought I was a field hand is about to get what's coming to him" Pralle.' Apparently, farmers believe that she occasionally appears as a field hand or similarly lowly-placed individual, maybe even resembling someone familiar, so it is always advisable to treat such women with respect. ;)

Her hair is supposed to include a braid wrapped around her head, but you can only tell if you look closely because the contrast is not great. (It's really cool, though, I promise! Look closer. ;)

I think that the deal with the dress is that it is the sort of thing that would be worn by peasant women in certain regions, and it's distinctive enough that the style is well-known. Except that it's a little nice for working in the fields. ;) Also note that she has darker skin that the others. Comes from working in the sun all the time. ;) (There are darker-skinned races in the world of the Forest, but the Forest is in the north, so we don't see many of them.)

The simpler shading on the skirt and the "stitching" on the sleeves were no doubt inspired by Mir. ;)
Sarah - 8:28 PM - 0 comment(s)

Calling all writers/artists/fantasy fans...
Something that Mir said reminded me of this.

If you haven't read Tolkien's marvelous essay "On Fairy-Stories" yet, you need to do so, immediately. If you are a fantasy fan, a writer, an artist, a creative person, or have ever felt the urge to make something, you've got to read this stuff. Tolkien talks articulately about the prevalence of the "fairy-story" (which is not, in his mind, necessarily a "fairy tale"), where they come from, and why they are not just for children. (In fact, he implies that adults may need them more than children!)

If you have ever resented hearing "fantasy" said as if it were a lesser form of a greater art or been accused of being "escapist" like that's a bad thing, if you have ever heard anyone talking about fantasy as if it Isn't Good For Christians, or if you feel that happy endings are not the easy way out (and that sad endings do not necessarily make Great Art), this will help you to feel more comfortable about what you may be beginning to suspect. And maybe turn on a few inspiration light bulbs. ;) Even if you've never given it much thought, it's good reading.

And then you get to read "Leaf By Niggle", which is sort of an illustration of the essay, and also a beautiful metaphor for Tolkien's life as a peculiar sort of artist (and remember, his "art" was linguistic, so it also speaks to the capacity of everyone to create, or as Tolkien would say subcreate in their own way).

Both of these (along with some other great stuff) are available in The Tolkien Reader, which you can usually buy at a used book store. I got mine for $1.00. (What you're looking for is listed as "Tree and Leaf" in the table of contents. It refers to both "On Fairy Stories" and "Leaf By Niggle", which can be confusing.) I think they're also both in Tales from the Perilous Realm which I have seen in stores here in Canada. I feel like there is one more, but I can't remember it.

It's worth a little bit of effort. Every serious fantasy fan, and especially anyone who is a writer (or who just likes to come up with stories ;) or yes, even a roleplayer, needs to own a copy of this essay.
Sarah - 5:06 PM - 0 comment(s)

Oh, I forgot something.
I should really have mentioned that I got my Intro to Computing midterm back. I think I got an A-. I have such a hard time remembering how to interpret the grades. He gave the grade distribution, and it looks like only a handful of people did better than I did. Not bad, considering that the rest of them just took Intro to Computing 1, while I took Introduction to Computer Science for Liberal Arts Students at another school, in another programming language, over a year ago.

(It just said "Error 203:java.lang.NumberFormatException: " when I tried to publish this. How weird. That's just the sort of error that gives me headaches in my programs. :P)
Sarah - 1:45 PM - 0 comment(s)

Que je suis malade.
There are some things that one can express better in French. That's one of them.

The reason I declared myself to be feeling "crummy" yesterday was that I had a sore throat and a headache the likes of which I haven't had since the massive tension headaches at the end of last summer. (I think it was a combination of sinuses and leaning over my laptop, squinting over miniature figures all weekend. Those wings were brutal. One. Pixel. At. A. Time. And the colors are so close together it's hard to see them.) That, and I was super-sensitive to light, and on the way back from class I was wincing away from the sun-reflecting snow and I had to take my coat off because I was too warm (and it can't have been mor than 40 or 45).

I figured that serious measures were in order. So I took a bath. It was nice. :)

I was feeling less miserable by late afternoon, but by the time I went to bed my nose was getting sniffly. And then I woke up this morning and felt just awful. (Having gotten only four hours of sleep did not help.) The only thing that dragged me out of bed (getting up was sheer misery) was that it was even more unbearable to lie there with my head aching, my throat full of knives, and my sinuses feeling like they were about to explode. I managed to pull myself together enough to gulp down enough coffee (ok, carefully sip, because it hurt to swallow) to get me to class more or less on time.

Now, the delightful thing about sinus problems is that when you are lying down, everything goes to your throat, but when you stand or sit up for a while, it all ends up in your stomach instead. And of course I was too ill to eat before class, so I had to obtain a raisin cookie to eat during my second class since by that point I was feeling rather nauseous on an empty stomach.

Too much information, I know. Now I think I drank too much French Vanilla Cappucino with lunch and I'm feeling slightly unsettled again.

But it's an incredible day outside. My fourth consecutive day to go outside without long underwear. (Okay, you didn't really need to know that, but seriously, it's rather liberating. Before Saturday I literally had not gone outside once without long underwear since I arrived here in the beginning of January.) Today I even pulled out one of my brightly-colored bandanas to tie around my hair. (Okay, so really it was because it allows me to leave my hair down, more or less. I usually wear my hair pulled behind my head in a ponytail—it has to be simple since I usually wear a hat over it—but that sort of pulls at my head and at the moment I am hyper-sensitive to such things.)

On the way over to the library to get Tim Hortons (yes, it's in the library!), I was passed by a class of very small children who I can only guess were going to the museum (their teacher was talking to them about dinosaurs). They were literally no more than a (small) head higher than my knee, all of them bundled up. They were so adorable, all of them holding tightly to their rope, none of them as high as my waist. Awwww...

In other news, in Intro to Computing 2, I think we just talked about a method that could be used to implement dictionaries using a table of little dictionaries. Only in computing (you have to just love recursion, it's so absurd and yet it works). But the best part was that the prof kept referring to "little dictionaries". He actually said "little" all the time. (The fact that they are small is important in this context because it means that you can implement them simply and keep the times for basic operations effectively constant.) All I could think was "awww, look at the cute little dictionaries!" every time he said that. It also reminded me of my cute little (red) French-English "pocket" dictionary (not the same meaning of "dictionary", but still).

(Hey, Reyl looks really awesome on this computer! :) Slightly different contrast, since it's not a laptop. The color variation in her wings is better. Gee, I wonder what people think, walking behind me as I write this with her staring out from the last post?)
Sarah - 12:18 PM - 0 comment(s)

Monday, March 17, 2003

Meet Reyl.
Remember Ral, the Eshil Loyhale with multiple personalities?

Reyl is one of those personalities, a representation of a very particular aspect of Chance. Sometimes called "Vengeance", Reyl is the classic avenging angel of the Eshil Loyhalel. Because some people really deserve bad luck.

Anyway, this is the little cute version of Reyl. She never actually looks cute and she seldom stands still. Picture her screaming with rage, hair streaming out behind her as she swoops down from above to slice you to tiny pieces with her twin swords or her long spear.

My first wings. They took an inordinate amount of time. Yes, folks, this is done entirely in MSPaint, one pixel at a time. (I think that's why I have such a killer headache today.) It was also this first time I used to this particular base. I don't think I shall use it again; it's a nice, somewhat dynamic pose, but a little top-heavy for my tastes. Although I think that is partly the fault of the armor. (I think Reyl would actually wear armor like that. You'd almost have to. You'd need the support. :P)
Sarah - 3:02 PM - 0 comment(s)

Sunday, March 16, 2003

Post post post!
If I post now, it will show up as Sunday still. If I post later it will show up as Monday. :P
Sarah - 11:42 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, March 15, 2003

I feel like I'm about 14.
I had no idea making these things was this easy! Isn't Sasheylal cute as a doll? I think she has the right kind of attitude for it. ;) Except I wasn't thinking and I forgot that she's supposed to have her hand over her eyes, so instead she's just got her eyes closed.

Credit for me actually DOING that goes to this gal, who makes awesome bases where they aren't slouching so badly it makes my neck hurt just looking at them.

Sheesh.

I went shopping this afternoon. I bought (prepare yourself) a twelve-pack of Vanilla Coke, instant coffee, instant decaf coffee, and sugar cubes, because they didn't have the little pour cartons. Hehe. SUGAR RUSH! Well, not really. But still.

And I rented Road to Perdition, which lasts two hours so I should really be watching it instead of sitting her on my computer doing pixel art in MSPaint. (Maybe I'll sit in there on my computer doing pixel art in MSPaint...)
Sarah - 9:10 PM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, March 14, 2003

Coffee...mmmmm....
I really enjoy my coffee! This time I got hazelnut creamer. :)

I went to see The Recruit, which I highly recommend if you like a good spy thriller. I am not entirely certain that it actually made sense, but I was tremendously entertained anyway. (That, and apparently they show Salli's metro stop or something.) I admit that I'm a sucker for spy stories, and Colin Farrell is very easy to watch. ;)

I figured that since I was really going anyway, that wasn't much of a reward. So I got ice cream. :) Yay! I've been craving ice cream for weeks now, which is really weird when you consider that ice cream has probably been warmer than the average air temperature around her lately.

I think maybe I'm experiencing PMS. That would explain the random bursts of depression. :P

(Almost guitar time! Yay! Except I just know that Carol is going to come over during the middle of Farscape...)
Sarah - 7:33 PM - 0 comment(s)

I got a good grade!
My first decent grade since I've been here. :P

We got our exams back today for differential equations. (And a good thing, too, because I was about ten minutes late to class. He passes things out in alphabetical order, so I was just in time.) I got 35 marks out of 40, which doesn't sound that great (it's 87.5%), until you figure out that McGill's grading scale is different (which partially explains the harsh grading, but only partially). 87 is an A! Not an A-, either—it's a definite A. I got an A! Woohoo!

The funny thing was that on problem 4, the grader wrote "verify that y1 and y2 are solutions". Even though I clearly had done that (just a few lines above) and I got full marks anyway. (I think I was one of two people to get full marks on that problem, which may have been an oversight on someone's part.) What's funny is that I got "helpful" comments for a problem that I got right but all I got for the one I missed five points on was an "x". :P (I figured out what it was, though—stupid algebra error! I hate exponentials! I should've gotten that!)

::happy sigh:: I think I'll reward myself by catching a movie. :) (Which, gee, I was going to do anyway...)
Sarah - 12:37 PM - 0 comment(s)

I feel like I should really post something.
Something, something, something!

Salli posted no less than four times yesterday. Rayne posted three times, if you count the one at almost two o'clock in the morning. Mir also posted four times with the same proviso. Plus she redid Eri's blog template.

I feel so underproductive. My great contribution yesterday was to take a nap. Oh, and do my acoustics assignment and further the Council storyline and get started on the epilogue to the fire storyline.

Oooh, oooh! I'll post a preview!

The room is dark, its features difficult to make out in the shadows. Noises or smells from outside reveal nothing; it could be anywhere.

The shadows bend and shift impossibly, and then a female voice declares sardonically, "oh, I love what you've done with the place. But your decorator seems to have forgotten the lighting." There is an audible pop and a small spinning ball of some translucent, incandescent blue-white substance appears in the area, hovering above the mage. Her hair reflects muted copper in the half-light.

The original occupant of the room remains seated. If he is surprised, he shows no sign. Instead he comments "I do have a door, you know."

The mage you know if you're from the Forest, but the man is someone new. Mwahahaha! I bet you can figure out his name, though. ;)
Sarah - 10:11 AM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, March 13, 2003

Sheesh...
So I didn't have class this afternoon because the prof was out of town and the TA had to be away, too. So there I was, on a Thursday when I had to get up at 7 o'clock. "Perfect!" I thought. "I'll take a nap!"

I woke up four hours later when my phone was ringing (it was my mother). Four hours later.

Whatever happened to nice, short little naps? I was expecting maybe two hours, max. I don't think I would have woken up at all if the phone hadn't rung! And now I'm going to be awake all night! :P

I guess I must have really needed it.

(And now, of course, so much for my great intentions of actually MAKING something for dinner. I'm thinking canned soup sounds really good right now...)
Sarah - 7:33 PM - 0 comment(s)

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Nearly-midnight caffeine buzz!
I went to a random Rebecca St. James concert tonight. Not because I am a big fan, but because I have always said that the reason I don't know much "contemporary" Christian popular music is that nobody ever comes to my hometown, so I never get to figure out what's good! So when I heard there was a concert, I figured it would be hypocritical of me not to go! My first experience with a "mainstream" Christian artist. Also my first concert of any sort that was not a) for "local" group or b) at a national youth gathering.

It was at this fantastically incongruous church in downtown Montreal. (Storefront-storefront-Neo Gothic church-storefront-storefront...). I got there half an hour early and they still were not letting anyone in because the setup was running late due to the truck with most of their equipment having been stuck at customs for twelve hours. (You have to love Canadian bureaucracy. In the sarcastic sense.)

And then I got inside and it hit me that I was like the only person in the church who was there all by myself. Yay, angst. :P

But the second performer was a young woman whose name I could not spell. (The whole time I was thinking "I could use her outfit". This whole character design thing is getting out of hand.) She ended by singing parts of "All In All". Which was totally awesome, and then she spontaneously segued into "I Love You, Lord". And encouraged everybody to sing through it. Twice.

I can't tell you how many times I have have been desperate to sing familiar worship songs. I wasn't exactly crying at the end of that song, but my eyes were sort of moist, which is about as demonstrative as I get. Because that's the song that I want to sing when I'm happy and I can feel God around me and I just need to sing about it. And also when I really need to feel like that, and I'm about to fall apart, and I'm clutching at whatever I can grab. And in case you're not sure if you know what song I am talking about, here are the words (they're simple):

I love you, Lord
And I lift my voice
To worship you;
Oh my soul, rejoice!
Take joy, my king
In what you hear;
May it be a sweet, sweet sound
In your ear.
And then there was a group that it turns out was from Alabama. Or at least their lead singer is. He said "y'all" at least twice (and later, when I was getting autographs, he said he liked my scarf, yay! no one ever comments on my lovely handwoven scarf). I cannot begin to properly express how good it was to hear American accents (and saying "y'all", which is a like a "comfort food" to me except more like a "comfort word" because my grandparents all said it). And they were so excited to be in Montreal, to be in Canada, and completely comfrotable with being Americans in Canada. (More "this is so cool!" than "please don't judge me because I am an American". Sort of like I was a couple of months ago.) It was really very nice to hear that, and in public! I really needed that. :)

And then Rebecca St. James finally came out, and of course it was quite a show. And then she announced that it was almost intermission and I was like "what? how long does this thing last?" And I left. ;) Because the whole experience was emotionally exhausting, and to be honest, I don't have that kind of attention span. :P I'd already heard the two songs I knew, and I couldn't really follow the words on the others (too much background stuff), so I was sort of zoning out.

It was kind of funny, though: most of these people were from Australia (except from the South U.S. folks), and they keep referring to hold cold it was or "this cold night", etc., etc. But it wasn't cold today. It was actually really warm! I'm pretty sure it reached freezing this afternoon. Imagine what they would think if they were here on a day that was actually cold! (Why yes, I am getting blasé about cold temperatures...)

Edit: Oh, and Salli: The woman standing in front of me in line (whose skin was a dark as anyone in Gospel Choir, so tough luck chalking it up to a racial thing) referred to the concert as "Gospel". She clearly did not mean anything more specific than "Christian". I thought you'd like to hear that. :)
Sarah - 11:24 PM - 0 comment(s)

I did it!
This is Eruanna, my little Poogle princess. Well, at least she thinks that she is a princess. (She's really a snooty little thing.) After much consideration and consultation with Salli, I decided to paint her Desert.

See, I like my Breged the way he is. Red. Because, well...red.

And Misu got her Shadow from the Lab Ray. There is no way I am changing her now that Kat has gotten me a Shadow Aisha plushie!

But I was never really happy with Eruanna's green. So I figured she was the one to paint.

I decided this last night and it took me until now to find someone to make a trade. :P There are lots of them up for trade, of course, but I had a hard time finding someone who was actually around to accept my offer! The person I finally found was desperate to sell; I was desperate to buy, so it was a good deal all around. :)
Sarah - 1:35 PM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Hot chocolate is yummy!
"Will you watch—?" "Sure!" People answer that question before you are done asking and without looking up. It's probably not the best way of protecting one's things.

If you've got an ezboard account, log on from one of the beta servers and try adding "ezboard" to your friends list. Then try adding your own user name. (All I can say is, some of the staff have odd senses of humor...)

I feel all international and helpful today because I happened across a discussion at the Community Center where the theme traders were trying to help someone who only spoke French. So I played translator, and it worked! Yeah!

Then I weeded the Movies & Television forum at the PCS. The last weed was in September or something, so there was a lot to be done! Now we are one big step closer to having all of our weeding caught up to 2003! (The last time I tried to weed that forum, my account glitched and had to be restored...Nhat is my hero, by the way.)

And the spacebar on this computer is a royal pain. Only the left half of it works! I'm so used to using both thumbs on the space bar (like you are supposed to do—I think), so this is driving me crazy! AHHHH!
Sarah - 1:49 PM - 0 comment(s)

Monday, March 10, 2003

Inspired by Mir's efforts, I finally got around to creating some of my own "bumper stickers" like I've been meaning to do for some time. They're sort of vaguely Forest-themed.

I meant to post first at the Forest, but ezboard is currently having a reasonably enormous bout of server trouble (I do hope it's not another random hardware thing), so I'm not even sure I'm going to get to work the PCS tonight.

Anyway, here is the first one. I suppose I shall reveal them one at a time. :) (And if you're clever enough to figure out that it is #7, not #1, let me go ahead and tell you that I haven't uploaded the others, so there's no use looking!)
Sarah - 11:17 PM - 0 comment(s)

I like soup!
It's high time I remembered the original inspiration for this blog: FOOD!

Tonight I made minestrone soup. It came from a mix; I'd tried their chicken soup with wild rice (quite good) but nothing else. (The minestrone was sort of an idea for something I could feed to Salli and Heather, but they ended up preferring Easy Mac and vegetable crunch. Go figure.) I felt so domestic! (Whenever I cook something on the stove instead of in the microwave, I always feel like I am accomplishing something.)

I chopped up some of the leftover celery and onions from the vegetable crunch, and some of Heather's snow peas. Just a little bit of fresh veggies for added nutritional value and to fill out the soup a bit. (Mixes tend to produce more broth than soup.) I don't know if it was what I added or if it was just a good mix, but it turned out to be quite substantial. Very yummy! And the best part is that I have about two bowls' worth of leftovers in the fridge!

Some people consider soup to be the last resort if you are cheap and hungry, but I actually really like it. :) It's easy to make, too, which of course is the real motivation. But I do love it; soup is a comfort food for me. Besides, in this city, one needs something hot for dinner!
Sarah - 7:44 PM - 0 comment(s)

'I will remember my covenant...' (Genesis 9:15)
I spent most of lost summer teaching the ending of the flood story. The part where God makes his first covenant: that never again will he send a flood to cover all the earth and destroy all living creatures.

As Salli put it, I've never disagreed with a Lutheran pastor so much in one sermon! My goodness! He tried to make it all about violence. (And then we stood up and sang "A Mighty Fortress", which was delightfully ironic.) This is not a lesson on non-violence. It's about getting another chance when you don't deserve it. Because those people all deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth. Just like we all deserve to be punished. God gave us a chance to get our acts together on our own and once, just once, he gave people what they deserved. But after that, he made a new deal. The pastor talked about "even God changing". That goes against everything I believe. God does not change. Not ever. It is our relationship with God that changed. After the flood, God started us down a path that resulted in his only Son coming to live like us, be with us, and eventually die for us. Instead of giving us what we deserve, he took it upon himself.

It is true that violence is generally bad, and peace is generally good. But God has every right to inflict violent punishment upon us, his people—in fact, we pretty much have it coming to us! But he doesn't. Not because violence is bad, but for the same reason that God gave people a chance to get their own acts together: because God loves. That was the theme that we attached to this story (actually, the story was supposed to be from Isaiah, but it was too abstract for little kids so we often used the rainbow story): God loves.

(If you have anything to say about the whole "God does not change" thing, please reply! I'm interested in knowing what impressions others have gotten.)

I didn't intend to turn this into a theological discussion. I meant to talk about the yummy Indian restaurant where I dragged Salli and Heather after church. Delicious! Indian food is the best!

That, and my blog template finally seems to be updating again. Yay! I tried to add links down the side several days ago, but they wouldn't show up. :\
Sarah - 5:52 PM - 0 comment(s)

Saturday, March 08, 2003

"Remember, celery is rocket science."
We made vegetable crunch! Yum! I chopped the celery, and Salli made fun of me.

For some reason, none of my template changes are actually showing up. :P I added a bunch of links to other people's blogs, and when I go back to edit the template, they are there. But they don't show up at all on any of my pages. ::sigh::
Sarah - 9:45 PM - 0 comment(s)

Friday, March 07, 2003

Salli is here!
Well, actually, Salli is probably at the exchange office right now. Or at the coffee shop, where I am meeting her after class. And Heather, too! :)

Salli thinks that I am going to be late for class. What Salli does not realize is that I am waaaaaaaaay early! I won't even be able to get into the classroom for at last another ten minutes, and the prof is always late!

I think we might go to the botanical gardens. There's some sort of butterfly thing that I keep seeing signs for. Otherwise, there are no plans at all! We might catch a movie today or tomorrow. We will surely go to the book store—I'm betting this very afternoon. And my mother sent stuff to make vegetable crunch! (I think that was a hint. She sent me such an enormous amount of food! Including six cans of spaghetti rings.)

Yay! (I so don't want to go to class. I'm going to be completely bored and not thinking about differential equations and Laplace transforms at all. Which, come to think of it, is completely normal.)
Sarah - 11:24 AM - 0 comment(s)

Thursday, March 06, 2003

I am so bored!
I'm caught up at the Forest for once. I am out of things to do. Because I was going to get some ez-work done, and then bam!, ezSarah went kaput. I wasn't even doing anything!

At the moment I do not have any homework to be working on. Before you feel jealous, note that I am going to get an assignment in my 2:30 class. :P And I just took my computing midterm this morning! I think it went pretty well. I kind of enjoy coming up with algorithms. (GEEK ALERT!) Of course, I felt pretty much okay about the Heat & Waves midterm, too...

I normally like my next class (acoustics), but today I HAVE NO MORE ATTENTION SPAN!!! I completely approve of the prof's approach to looking at data (we're guessing, anyway, so does it matter if our results are that precise? no, and it would be misleading to imply that we know more than we do), but sometimes it gets a bit slow. Because it's mostly physics for music people. I am not a music person. I mean, I sort of am a music person, but I am a much better physics person.

*ahem*

I got so bored an hour ago that I actually got up and ventured into the library across campus (for the first time) and down to the basement where there is a Tim Hortons. Mmmm...bagel and cappucino...I love Tim Hortons. If rampant anti-Americanism is what it takes to get us Tim Hortons, then so be it. (Except that McDonald's does well here, too, so scratch that theory.) I was far too scatter-brained this morning to pack lunch. It just wasn't happening.
Sarah - 1:40 PM - 0 comment(s)

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

I will not provoke the Canadian protestors.
I will not provoke the Canadian protestors. I will not provoke the Canadian protestors. I will not provoke the Canadian protestors. I will not provoke...it's not working.

Today's class was CANCELLED. I came all the way out here and THERE IS NO CLASS. Normally, I would appreciate a day off. But this is not a day off, it is not because the professor was ill, and it is not for any good reason.

McGill students are "on strike". What a joke!

strike, noun, "A cessation of work by employees in support of demands made on their employer, as for higher pay or improved conditions. "

STUDENTS CANNOT STRIKE! In order for a strike to be effective, you've got to deny services to people in a position to exert pressure on the people who you are striking against. If you're a student, and you "strike", you are denying services only to yourself. (Oh, and anyone else whose classes are cancelled! I PAID FOR THAT!!!) It's just plain STUPID. And you are only hurting people who are powerless to affect change.

*ahem*

Proposed scenario:
Canadian Governmental Official to U.S. Governmental Official: Hey, you think your education system is screwed up? You'll never believe what our students are doing!

Let's pretend for a moment that I am not deeply suspicious of the motivations behind this idiocy. (Hint: They're not so much for peace as against the U.S. in general.) It's a really darn stupid way of going about things. How on earth is this going to help anything? I'm as opposed to war as anyone, but this is absurd.

I suppose it might, just possibly, give George W. a good laugh.
Sarah - 11:54 AM - 0 comment(s)

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Gadgadsbogen!
Copyright 2002 NeoPets.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used With Permission ;)

What a funny word! (I don't think it's a very good made-up word, but whatever, at least they tried!) At any rate, check out the dancing banana-thing! Isn't it the best?

And they've got a whole page of random dancing fruit images.

It's so spectacularly random and wacky! I love it!
Sarah - 11:47 PM - 0 comment(s)

Things I need to tell Salli!
Because Salli is presumably at the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper thing at church, and I want to talk to her now. :(

1. No, you do not need to bring me West Wing and 24 tapes. There's one episode of 24 that I did miss, but the rest I have all seen.

2. Dress warmly. Bring a scarf and warm gloves and a hat. It will be cold. No, a headband ear warmer thingy will not suffice, but you can wear one under your hat if you like (I recommend this). If you don't have long underwear, a lot of people wear tights or hose under their jeans.

3. Watch out for the "points d'ineptitude" signs on the way up. They're funny! :) Stop at lots of rest stops on the way northeast—they all have Tim Hortons and Wendy's coming from that direction. (Going the other way, they apparently all have a McDonald's.) That, and they will accept American dollars; sometimes the exchange rate is very good. It's an easy way to pick up some loose cash. Otherwise, expect to use your credit card a lot, as that'll probably be easiest.

4. A fairly common thing in Montreal, at least, is to have a light first turn green with an arrow pointing straight ahead. Then it turns solid, and that means you can turn. But when it starts flashing green, that means you have a protected turn. There are signs but they are usually just in French (and use words you don't learn in 17th century French Literature classes).
Sarah - 5:16 PM - 0 comment(s)

I'm just tired.
And I feel kind of self-conscious doing this in a public computer lab, with people all around (most of them behind me). But hey, the girls at the next computer are looking at "The Dr. Pepper Rip-Off Page", so what do I have to be embarrassed about?

I got my Heat & Waves midterm back this morning. And it sucked. Very much. I didn't understand: I knew the material. I more or less understand it. I knew all the equations. What the heck went wrong? I've never bombed an exam like that! Not even in quantum or classical mechanics, both of which were about ten times harder than this.

I mean, sure, I make stupid mistakes all the time, but if I understand the material, I expect to get a decent grade. Because the exam is supposed to reflect my understanding of the material!

I think it's two things:

1. It was a bad exam. I thought it was just me, but the other people who came out behind me were talking about it and they were thinking the same things I was. The first question was confusingly-worded. The third, we all thought we had understood and then we got a bunch of red x's for no apparent reason. (There is never any apparent reason!!!)
2. It wasn't a test of my understanding. When you've got twenty stupid little equations to memorize, it's next to impossible to keep track of what every little bit means. I'm not used to being expected to do that. The answers are treated as more important than the process. Which is just silly: since we are given arbitrary data, the results cannot possibly actually mean anything!

I would think it was Canadian physics education, or maybe just large universtiy education, if it weren't for my other physics class (where we constantly talk about the quality of our data and the assumptions we make in our analysis). But Heat & Waves is turning out to be a total bust.

The material is easy. But the professor is more concerned with getting to as many equations as possible than with making sure we understand the foundational concepts. It's like intro, only with more strict grading (because if you get the first part of a 4 point question wrong, you miss all four points, even if the last three-fourths were perfect, with only the numbers wrong, not the reasoning). On the problem where I missed three points out of four, actually I only made one (very small, interpretational) mistake.

My physics classes last semester were more difficult, but I did better. I felt like I was learning something. We would always either derive equations in class or make arguments for why we didn't need to, and the problems we did were difficult, sure, but they required a thorough understanding, not mere regurgitation of a formula and remembering a factor of 2.

I just don't care about this stuff. I don't feel that I am learning anything from it! It's all numbers and no substance. I miss classical mechancics...heck, at this point, I even miss oscillations and waves! Sure, it was a class as boring as this one, but at least I felt like I was accomplishing something!

In other news (I say that a lot, have you noticed), the programmimg assignment is now not due until Wednesday. All together, now: "ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHH!" There's a certain emotional release when you declare that an assignment is done. I can't go back to that tension. I just can't.

And I can't submit my three-page project outline for acoustics because Word is giving me all sorts of crap. I'll have to do it from my own computer after class. :\
Sarah - 1:24 PM - 0 comment(s)

Monday, March 03, 2003

Yeargggh.
So I went ahead and installed enetation commenting (for you, Dan, I did it for you!). However, it's not working at all at the moment, so don't bother trying it. (I checked their support forums and it seems to be happening to everybody, so I figure they'll fix it eventually.)

I submitted my project. It sucked and I don't care.

And then I noticed the little "submit" button. I didn't notice that before. Does this mean that my last assignment was never actually turned in? I sure hope not! I'll have to talk to the professor about it tomorrow. The sytem keeps track of when I upload the files, so surely I can prove that I did indeed do it on time! (It's not my fault that everyone just assumes I know how to use WebCT! Well, excuse me for being an exchange student from a school where professors actually grade things personally! Sheesh! I'm dealing with enough just trying to figure out Java.)

Sarah - 6:32 PM - 0 comment(s)

javac Test3.java
Don't ask what happend to "Test" and "Test2". I don't want to talk about those.

I should really be doing...I don't know, just about anything besides this. Like, say, sleeping. Or, if I really can't sleep, working on my programming project.

But I need to get this down now so that I can read it tomorrow morning when I wake up in a panic. :P

I have not been slacking off. Well, okay, so I've been slacking off, but not on this project. I started in plenty of time. I had all week. ("Break", ha! But many people went away for break. I stayed in my room and worked.)

The first few days, there was that whole tension tension TENSION thing. And for me, tension is a Problem. I take medication for it. And last week was bad for that. I needed to deal with it. I legitimately couldn't focus on just about anything on the computer (including "fun" things, which rules out the "just slacking off" theory).

And then suddenly out of nowhere I was getting information about my summer plans and certain things had to be dealt with right away. These are things that will have much more impact on my life than one programming project. They had legitimate priority.

And then, well, ya know, I kinda sorta have a job. And I needed to do it, so that I could get paid for the month. Which is useful for such insignificant details as paying the rent and buying groceries. And it was the end of the month, and that month was February. I hate February. I bet I've said that already.

And I was working on the project. I got most of the regular problems out of the way (okay, I still have to write them up) early. The big project I left for last, not because I was putting it off but because I wanted to have a firm understanding of everything else first. (Okay, that may have been a mistake, but I was also waiting to get the grade from the last assignment, so I would know if I was getting the documentation all wrong. I still haven't gotten that grade. This so gives me moral superiority over the professor. :P)

And them I put two solid days into it. I really worked hard. I thought about practically nothing else and did practically nothing else.

And now it's almost 1:30 in the morning, the project is due tomorrow night, I've got a paper due Tuesday, and I am tired. And tense. And I have a headache. And the way my throat feels, the cold weather is finally catching up with me.

I am still a perfectionist on the computer. I feel that I can do better than this. There's a whole additional part that's described as "for an additional challenge" which I am just plain ignoring. (Because, hey, I could do it, but it would take a while, and I don't feel that I need an additional challenge at the moment.) The project I'm going to turn in tomorrow is not going to be my best work.

And that's okay.

Because a person has to have priorities. Little things like my life after college and my health have to come before any one grade in any one class. Most people can afford to stress themselves out over one project or a week or two of intense classes and tests and assignments, but I can't afford to do that. Because for me stress-related illnesses are an ever-present reality. I can't just ignore sources of stress in my life: I have to fight them, or they take control. I can feel that starting to happen now.

I need to relax and stop stressing about this before I make myself sick. No, strike that. Make it "before I make myself sicker than I already have made myself". And right now, it's this project that is the biggest source of non-essential stress in my life.

I want to be good at computer science. It was the one class back at my home school that I really loved. But I want it for me. I want to have the skills. And I know that I'm getting them. My grade in this class is insignificant: I'm at a huge disadvantage because I didn't just finish taking a course in basic Java last semester.

A couple of months ago, I barely knew what Java was. I'm catching up, and I can handle the algorithm design part of the class with no problems. I like designing algorithms. It's like a puzzle! But the implementation part trips me up all the time. I've learned the basics, but certain aspects still seem so counter-intuitive! Just little things, but it's enough to make this more work for me than it is for my classmates. But the algorithms, they're supposed to be the important part of the course! And I can handle that. And I know that I am learning.

And that's going to be enough. Because I say it will. Because it has to be. Because it's what I have. And because I have got to cut out the stress.

And if that means getting a crummy grade on this one assignment, then so be it.
Sarah - 1:19 AM - 0 comment(s)

Sunday, March 02, 2003

‘Yes, I know; keep silent.’ (2 Kings 2)
Poor Elisha. He already knows that Elijah, his master, is about to be taken up to heaven. He's got to be feeling pretty bummed. And to make matters worse, Elijah keeps telling him "hey, I've got to go way over there, you stay here!" And all poor Elisha wants to do is stick with his master to the end, but no, everywhere they go, a bunch of know-it-alls have to tell him what he already knows. Like he needs reminding. And he's like "thank you so much for reminding me; now shut up."

Anyway. I was asked to read the lessons today in church. So...I did. Including the Psalm, which was supposed to be Psalm 50:1-6, but ended up being all twenty-four verses because the whole thing was already printed in the service booklet and they didn't want to confuse the congregation.

I guess it went pretty well because afterwards it was "congratulations! great job!" at every turn. I was particularly touched by the older gentleman with a heavy accent who told me, "You read with your eyes and your face." I liked that.

Other people said they enjoyed watching me smiling. (I can't help it! It's a funny story! Okay, so maybe it takes a little something "special" to see it as funny...) That I read it like I was telling a story. (Revolutionary concept, I know. Except...oh, wait, it is a story! A really cool story that really happened! Riiiiiight!)

In other news, I spent literally all day yesterday working on my programming project. Around 5:00 I decided that I had worked hard enough and as soon as I got this one little glitch figured out, I'd stop for the day. Around 11:30, I gave up on that particular little glitch and started over from scratch. :P It's due tomorrow. YEARRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHH! This accounts for the lack of posts yesterday. And also for the fact that my little imood indicator has been stuck on "pressured" since Friday night.
Sarah - 2:08 PM - 0 comment(s)

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