Yeah, so I haven't written anything. NaNoWriMo and school have stolen my soul. D: I've been so busy with the two! Oh well. Here's a nice long update. Please be warned that there is foul language. A lot. That's what happens when I get ranty.

Current Mood: stressed

I forgot to mention that I have to transcribe the lecture from Japan and the West to notes and work on a study guide that I haven't even started yet. Plus I'm doing NaNoWriMo. Kill me now. XD

Current Mood: stressed

I looked at the reading I have to do for my US Since 1865 class for tomorrow. It's freaking 49 pages long!!! 49 pages. 49 PAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *head explodes* I SO do not have time for this. I literally do not have the time. I have a crapload of reading to finish for my Japan and the West class (37 pages since I am behind) and then I have to read another 40 pages for Wednesday for the same class. Plus French homework. Plus I have to read and critique three stories for my Creative Writing Fiction class by Wednesday. And those are 8-12 pages long. I do not have the time or the attention span to read all that. Altogether, I have to read 152 pages. The US Since 1865 is due tomorrow. And the rest is due by Wednesday. *dies*

Current Mood: stressed

Today is November 1st, which means NaNoWriMo has begun. For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and the challenge is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. From November 1-30. This is my second year doing it. I'm very excited. I totally stayed up until 1AM yesterday so I could start at midnight and wrote for an hour before heading to bed.

And so begins a month of stress, bitching, whining, and self-loathing. Most importantly, it's a month of writing.

I already have a NaNoWriMo horror story--in the first five minutes that NaNoWriMo had begun, I started over twice. I ripped the page I was working on from my notebook (I'm one of those crazy ones who has to write things out first--I can't go directly from my head to my computer) and abandoned it. Twice. In five minutes my Inner Editor (henceforth known as IE) was going crazy and bitching about where I should start the story. I have threatened to throw her off the breakwall into Lake Superior (which in November isn't something you want to do--Edmund Fitzgerald anyone?) so she should be quiet for a while. Plus I promised her that after I got past my daily wordcount, if there was time, I would work on some edititng.

This year's novel is a continuation of last year's NaNo (the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo). It has now been decided that the two novels are going to be published under the same title, Dante's Requiem. They're two separate books still. Book I is called Prelude and is undergoing revisions. *stares at IE tied up in corner* What? I am revising it. I swear. Book II is called Requiem and it's being written this year for NaNoWriMo. Each book is going to be about 50,000 words when done (though Book I is at about 46,000 right now, though I didn't write out two sex scenes and two other scenes that I had to skip due to time constraints so it's going to be a bit longer than that) for a grand total of 100,000 words.

I'm feeling pretty good so far. We'll see how long that lasts. I get to do homework today since I procrastinated on it, even though I wanted to get it done early so I could dedicate all of Sunday to writing. Oh well. I'll still have plenty of time to get to my daily word count. I take half hour breaks every half hour. That's the only way I'm able to remain sane. I've actually got most of my homework done already. I did manage to get most of it done. I just have a wee bit of French homework due tomorrow (which isn't hard at all) and I have to finish transcribing the lecture from my Japan to the West class to notes, read the freaking book, which I've been procrastinating on, and work on a study guide. I have to start the study guide early because there's a lot of fricking material to know for the test. *dies* Then if I'm lucky, I can start on my reading for my US Since 1865 class, but I probably won't get to it until tomorrow night. He warned us that the reading was a bit lengthy, so I've gotta keep that in mind. And in between all this, I'm going to be hacking away at my word count. And I'll be lurking in the forums. And I'll be whining/bitching/ranting here. And I'll keep an update of my word count here. Because I can.

Word count: 585 words

Current Mood: chipper

I'm doing a mini ramble on cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Two cutscenes in particular, the one with Axel and Saix, and the one with Xion and Axel. It's mostly an Axel ramble. :D

( 358/2 Days Ramble Warning: Spoilers Ahead )

Current Mood: chipper

Ugh, it's Monday again. The start of another long week. I had class at 10, and I have two more classes at 2 and 4-5:40. I have homework to do, a paper to write, a story to finish, and a quiz to study for. I just need to figure out when I can do all this. Life pretty much sucks right now.

Current Mood: crappy

Oh my gosh, it's finally here! 358/2 Days is finally out!! Of course, having spent almost $400 on books this semester meant that I couldn't afford a DS and the game (I don't have a DS) D: so now I have to resort to Youtube for now. I've been watching intermittently all day trying to find the cutscenes I adore. Finally found all them. Now I'm going back and watching the entire playthrough someone posted on Youtube. This is gonna take a while. Especially since I have to study for my Japan and the West test tomorrow. XD Note: I am so totally blowing off my Creative Writing Fiction homework in order to study for this test because I can't do both. I just can't. It's WAY too much work in a short period of time. I can't read a crapload of pages and do the writing assignment with this test looming and I haven't studied at all yet because I've been too busy doing all my other homework and going to class. I WAS going to skip my French class today in order to study but my roommate talked me out of it (and I'm glad she did). After my US Since 1865 class ended at 5:40, I came back, quickly ate dinner, and got up to the library right away. I knew if I didn't, I wouldn't go and then I'd be screwed. I'm going to start studying soon but I have a system where I study for half an hour and then take a half hour break. It helps because I don't have a great attention span. I have to take frequent breaks. So on my breaks I am going to be watching 358/2 Days and rambling on about it so bear with me.

( 358/2 Days Finally In English!!!!  )

Current Mood: stressed

I finally wrote (and finished!) an outline for Dark Angel (which will be forever dubbed DA to make things so much easier). I'm looking at about 15 chapters, maybe 16, depending on how the earlier chapters go. I might end up splitting some of them up, but we won't go there right now because I haven't exactly gotten to them yet. It's a lot shorter than Identity, which was 32 chapters, but then again, I still have to write another book that takes place after DA and before Identity. The last book was published first and now I'm going back and writing the first two. How did this happen? Plot bunnies happened. Stupid effing plot bunnies. DA and Identity were two different universes but somehow I realized that the two plots needed to fuse together into one big universe. Okay, I'm going to do a livejournal cut here because there are some spoilers for Identity, which not everyone has read and it's a long story too.

( Identity Ramble )( Identity Ramble )

Current Mood: tired

Today was an interesting day. I saw my ex-friend today twice, both just in passing. I don't really want to talk about what happened between us because it's highly personal and very touchy. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. I don't know if he saw me, but he didn't say anything to me either way. I was like, "oh my god" when I saw him and started flipping out a bit mentally, but I tried to stay calm and not have an anxiety attack. Which I did. I also asked God to send his angel to help me be strong and I felt amazingly calm. That was when I was on my way to French (which is an insanely long walk, by the way). Then after French I came back and went up to the library because I had an hour before my next class and on my way out after the hour break, I passed by him again when I was going out and he was going in. I didn't say anything to him and he didn't say anything to me. I guess he was pretending that I didn't exist. But I survived and I didn't have a complete mental breakdown so that's good I guess.

Current Mood: blah

I swear my laptop hates me! And I didn't do anything wrong that would cause it to hate me. I don't hate it. It just hates me. This is a new laptop, mind you. I got it at the beginning of the fall semester a couple days before the new semester started and it already hates me!! First, when I was doing the whole setup thing at the Superior Dome (where the laptop distribution takes place), it was the only one there that decided after I shut it down properly that it was going to install updates. 20 of them to be exact. I couldn't do anything except sit there and wait for it to finish installing all the updates. The DVD player doesn't work for some movies, it says something like, "play stopped. Copy protection signal detected". Some DVDs do work. And now like every other time I try and put it on standby mode, it gets stuck trying to do that. Why me?! I didn't do anything wrong, I swear!!!! Oh, and for some reason, it signed me out of everything, like my hotmail, livejournal, Deviant Art, and so on. For no reason. It freaking hates me!!!!

Current Mood: crappy

Well I'm back up at Northern now and I'm having mixed feelings about it. I'm happy, but at the same time I'm not. Does that even make sense? I cried a little yesterday after my parents left though I have no idea why and I also cried last night a little. It wasn't really crying, but rather tears. I got teary. There, that sounds better. I've just been weepy I guess. Probably because it's almost that time of the month, if you know what I mean. I always seem to get really emotional around the time before that time of the month starts. I just started thinking, "oh my god, I can't do this. I can't do this whole school thing." But then I rationalized with myself that I needed to do this and I could do this. I'm going to do this. But just in case, I asked God to send one of his angels to look after me and I did feel better this morning.
 
I slept in until about 11, got up, got dressed, got breakfast, and then my roommate and I went up to get our textbooks. I spent about $300 on them!! Ahhhhhh!! *headdesk* My French book was $155 new and you couldn't get it used!! I also got a really neat tote for my computer so now I have a nice safe place to put it rather than in my backpack of doom. I also got a new pair of headphones because my other ones just spontaneously died in one year. I freaking hate when that happens!!

There's still a whole lot of stuff I have to do before classes start Monday. I got my new laptop yesterday. Oh my god, it is so great!! I love it already!! SO much more storage than the old computer and it's just a whole lot nicer. Our room is still a bit of a mess. My roommate was supposed to have a loft, but things didn't work out so it's a little crowded right now. I have my loft set up and she's planning to hopefully have one built (we're keeping our fingers crossed). We have a nice little TV and I have my PS2 so we can play Kingdom Hearts. It's a lot better than last year already.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with everything I have to do before the semester starts. At least I got a planner so I'm a bit organized.

Current Mood: stressed

Did a bunch of car stuff tonight with my dad. He changed the oil while I watched so I now know how to change the oil of my car. It's actually surprisingly simple. All you do is jack the car up and put it on jack stands, take the cap off from the bottom of the car, let the oil drain into a pan, put the cap back on, and refil the oil. He also checked the air filter and the transmission fluid. My dad rocks!!

Current Mood: cheerful

Oh. My. God. Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete is SO freaking awesome!!!!!! The original was good, but this one was much better. More of the Turks, stunning quality, and just plain awesomeness. Marlene and Denzel both have new VAs and they had to redub all their lines, but it works. Both VAs are really good. Marlene is so adorable!!!!!!!! I love her!! By the way, I made all these photos myself.

I still don't understand the opening scene, even now, many years later. D: It doesn't help that there are Japanese characters with no subs. D: The bane of my existance!!!!

And there's another confusing scene with Kadaj and Rufus. I honestly don't know why this is here.


I was a little sad that they got rid of the song "Sign" but they sort of had to I guess since that whole scene like totally changed. All of Rufus's lines are different. Well not all his lines, but a good majority of his lines have been changed. But it's a lot better. 

And a lot more Reno and Rude. Hmm, I find it interesting that Reno calls Tseng "the director". And Rude compares Tseng and Elena to cats. Kinda odd. The "found ya" bit was incredibly creepy!!!!!!!!!!





Ohh, he was comparing Rufus and Tseng to cats. Lol. Still odd.



Seriously. You see this, then the screen goes black, and Kadaj says in a creepy voice, "found ya!"

OMG Denzel's past. It makes me want to cry!!! (I almost said "it wants to make me cry". Epic fail!! XDDDD) 

I adore the scene with Kadaj and Rufus at Healin. Where Reno and Rude totally get their asses handed to them by a silver-haired teen. XDDD  Who later turns into Sephiroth...yeah, those two are pretty screwed.


Who can forget this epic scene?!


Pretty serious stuff, huh?




I think I like this one best: Reno and Rude in the foreground suffering like hell and Kadaj and Rufus in the background. Poor guys. D:

Reno and Rude's lines were changed a bit at the part where they come up to Loz and Yazoo (who comes up with these names, seriously?!) at the monument so it makes more sense now. Lol, blame Rude for YOUR big mouth Reno!!! 

Ohmygosh, the scene with Marlene and Cloud is SO cute!!!!! I love how she channels Barrett for a moment. She's so freaking adorable!!!


Reno: Hell-lo.
Rude: Hell no.


LOL! 

Even better:

Reno: Is it after us?
Rude: I'm not looking!

Oh my god, the helicopter chase scene with Reno and Rude was the best!!! And Rude has a fucking bazooka.


Rude+bazooka=total awesomeness!!

Yazoo has a weird ass laugh. And a really girly scream.


Reno: WTF?



And then he realizes he has the helicopter control in his hands!! LOL!!!! I love Reno!!!!


Reno: Ohhhh. Oops. Heh heh.


Preparing to go out with a bang. ^^

They changed the Advent: One Winged Angel Music a bit and I was upset at first but then I realized how much better it was because you could actually *hear* the characters speaking. XD

Is that one long-ass sword or what?!


Probably one of the most badass animated villians ever created!!

This version is a lot gorier. Case in point:


Oh look, it's Cloud-On-A-Stick. XD I couldn't resist.

And it's a lot more bloody too...



I totally adore this movie in its entirety!!!! Eh, sorry, this turned out to be an insanely long post. XDDD






 

Current Mood: excited

Part seven: Agrabah
This one turned out really long. XD

( Agrabah )

Current Mood: productive

Part six: Traverse Town Part 2

( Traverse Town Part 2 )

Current Mood: productive

Part five: Deep Jungle

( Deep Jungle )

Current Mood: busy

I got 50.5/55 on my Microbiology pratical exam!! That's a 91.2 percent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought for sure the dilution problems were going to be the end of me!!

Current Mood: speechless