Whew!

Okay, now that all the non-fiction is posted, I get get down to explaining where I've been all this time.

Scratch that.  You can pretty much figure it out: school, work, Haven, etc.  How about I describe my plans for the summer and next school year instead?

Oh, I've pretty much given up on listing all the books I read for the 50-Book Challenge--keeping track of them as I go is extremely tedious, so when I get around to writing the list, I can never remember all of them.

Anyway, next week, we have a new shift bid at work.  Due to the nature of next Fall's school schedule (one class on Monday/Wednesday, plus two music lessons on either Monday or Tuesday, and two online courses), I'm hoping I finally have the seniority to get the shift with four ten-hour days and three days off--specifically Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.  Failing that, I'll try either to get the overnight shift with any days off, since my classes are all after that shift ends, or the same shift I have now (0430-1300) with Tuesday/Wednesday or Monday/Tuesday off, which I will then ask to be split to Monday/Wednesday like last Fall, in order to accommodate my class schedule.

A week from this coming Tuesday, I will be accomplishing a goal I have had on my list for over two decades: I'm going to Holland!

I've wanted to go ever since I found out 1) What countries are, and 2) Grandma and Grandpa S. were born and raised there.  In fact, I decided years ago that the first time I was able to afford to take a vacation outside the country, I would go to the Netherlands.  Everywhere else could wait until after that.

I will be staying at a hostel in Rotterdam, and might go to at least say "Hi" to Grandma's friend in The Hague.  I will definitely be visiting The Hague, as well as Amsterdam, the Kinderdijk, and some other places around the country.  I plan to travel by train from city to city, and by bus or taxi within each city.  I might rent a bicycle for in-city transportation as well, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to afford it.

My plane leaves around 5 p.m. on the 29th, so I will be working that day before changing clothes and going to get my luggage from the car.  After that, I will check in and go back through the checkpoint.  I have a layover of about an hour and a half in Rekjavik going both directions, but I figure that will only be enough time to eat, if I need to.

The return flight lands back at Dulles around 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 7th, so if I still have the a.m. shift then, I will not be able to get home in time for a shower and enough recovery time from jet lag in order to function properly at work the next morning.  So, I am taking off Friday, June 8th as well, and returning to work on Saturday, June 9th, which is actually Mom's birthday.

No matter what schedule I have this bid, I should have July 4th off (or at least the day after, so I don't have to worry about going to bed on time), so I'll be able to be in the Haven's annual group picture this year.  That's good, because I had to miss last year's photo.

After my vacation, I'm going to be running an RPG at the Haven, probably on Tuesdays, based on Anne McCaffrey's Pern.  I'm currently tweaking the Cinematic Unisystem rules to accommodate that setting, and I hope the game goes well, because I'm extremely excited about it.  It's going to be set about 500 Turns after the events in The Skies of Pern (in other words, approximately 3,000 After Landing), and I'm not going to say anymore about it, because I don't want to give any spoilers to the people who may be interested in playing.

Next Fall, my classes are as follows:

EN203 with Ted Taft (the same instructor as for EN205 in Fall 2011 and EN204 in Spring 2012): American Literature from the beginning to the Civil War.  EN204 was from the Civil War to modern times.  Mondays/Wednesdays 1100-1215.

LF101 with an as-yet-unnamed instructor: Introductory French - I took French in Middle and High School, but when I signed up for it, the A.P. French class was cancelled, so I could not take it for college credit.  Therefore, I have to start back at the beginning for French at FCC.  Online Course.

MU103 with James Hontz: Fundamentals of Music - I've been trying to take this course for ages, since it's the prerequisite for the Music Theory and Music Composition courses, but never had the time to take it when it was offered before.  Online Course.

MU178A with John Pursell: First Year Brass (Trumpet) - I'm way out of practice with the trumpet, and I want to get my lip back, so I'll be taking weekly ½-hour-long lessons.  Schedule unknown until August, will either be Mondays or Tuesdays.

MU184 with James Hontz: First Year Guitar - Since I only know one real song on the guitar ("Merelan" from The Masterharper of Pern Soundtrack Songbook), and can't really play it at tempo, I figured I'd get actual lessons.  The class I had signed up for in senior year of high school started out with just theory, so I dropped that class in favor of Show Choir, and hadn't gotten around to getting personal lessons yet.  Now, I will have.  These lessons, unlike the trumpet lessons, will be hour-long sessions.  Tuesdays, 1430-1530.

After next semester, I will only need two more Literature courses before I can graduate and get my A.A. degree in English/Literature.  Those courses are the second half of British Literature, EN202, and the second half of World Literature, EN206.  If one or both of them is not offered in the Spring of 2013, my academic advisor, Dr. K, said that we could substitute any other 200-series Literature course, though I don't know what that could be, since I've already taken all of the other 200-series Literature courses I know of.

Anyway, after I get that degree, I plan to go back to FCC and change my major to Music.  I hope to later transfer to a four-year school and get my B.A, so that I can teach music.  That way, if I can't find a position teaching at a school, I'll at least be able to give lessons in my spare time.

I also started writing a story back in November. It's nowhere near finished yet, and it's already over 13,000 words (48 pages, Times New Roman, 12pt, typed and double-spaced or 14 pages, Times New Roman, 6pt, typed and double-spaced). There was no way I was going to do it for Na-No-Wri-Mo though, since I have trouble writing it in anything other than fits and spurts. It doesn't have a title yet, and I'm not going to write a description of it here. I want to finish it before I send it out to the world in general, though a couple people have already read earlier parts of the story.


My original plan was to finish it and send it to the Writers of the Future Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writers Contest (which used to be judged by Anne McCaffrey, who as most of you should know was the author of the Pern series--among others--and my favorite author of all time), but they have a word limit of 17,000 words. Given that I'm maybe half-way through the story at more than 13,000 words, I'll probably be way over the limit by the time the story is finished. If that is the case, and I can do it well enough, I'll abridge the story so that it's under the limit and submit the abridged version to the contest. Then, I'll send the long version to a publisher after the contest is over, no matter whether the story gets a prize or not.


If I cannot abridge the story and still keep the major plot intact, I'll just send it to a publisher.


Lots of plans, lots of stuff to fill my time.  I'm also watching my way through all of the Stargate serieses and movies.  I'm currently nearing the end of Stargate: SG-1 season 9 and Stargate: Atlantis season 2.


No new knitting projects lately, but can you blame me, busy as I've been without them?

It would be really neat if . . .

. . . there were an RPG for Pern, don't you think?

End thought.

On with the updates:

Kayla and I didn't actually get to see the new Batman movie the day after my last post, but we did see it eventually. It was awesome. Of course, with my little knowledge of the Batman universe, I was kind of spoiled--I just knew that Gordon couldn't really be dead, 'cause he had to become Commissioner first.

Heath Ledger was awesome as the Joker; if I didn't know it was him, I wouldn't have recognized him--his voice was completely different from usual, and the makeup was (necessarily) heavy, of course.

A few Sundays ago (I don't remember exactly how many), Anna found O'Malley (one of her orange tabby cats) on the staircase, struggling to breathe. She rushed him to the animal hospital, where they found that he had fluid in his lungs.

There were four things that could have caused that, and various solutions to those problems which could have been implemented. But each solution had its down-side, and none of them would have guaranteed that he wouldn't have fluid in his lungs later on, so he had to be put down. He was five years old.

Anna was devastated. We had a little funeral for him out back that same night, and Anna painted a cinder block brick with his name on it for a headstone.

A few days later, someone stole the power adapter for the camper. I came home from work that Wednesday (or maybe it was Thursday?) to find that there was no power going to my TV, my alarm clock, my VCR/DVD-R, or my computer. I tried resetting the breakers both in the house and in the camper, but nothing worked. So I looked at where the extension cord got plugged into the camper, and there was a piece missing, which allowed the extension cord to have the camper plugged into it. It still hasn't been found.

So, the day after that, Anna and Kayla cleaned out Anna's old room (Kayla had already moved out of it into Kimba's old room, since she moved into a house downtown), and I slept in the empty room on Anna's "nook" pillows for a night with a few "essentials." The day after that, Jason got his room cleaned, and moved into the empty room. That Saturday, I was able to move
all of my stuff into Jason's old room, and slept on Anna's pillows until last weekend, when I setup my old daybed.

After Anna gets married in February, I'm going to move all of my stuff (except the daybed and my books) into my old room (currently Anna's), and we're going to use the room I'm currently in as a guest room which will double as my library.

Or that's the plan, anyway.

A few days after I moved into the house, Tim (Anna's fiancé) got a new puppy. She's a shepherd mix, and he named her Brian, after the dog from Family Guy. She's so tiny, and cute--too bad she'll have to grow up and get all annoyingly big and everything.

Yesterday, Anna, Kayla and I went shopping for various things, including lingerie and new pillows for me and groceries for all three of us. We also picked up the dress I bought at RennFest a few years back, since we're going there tomorrow--both Anna and I have Labor Day off, and Kayla has agreed to come, as long as we don't make her wear any garb. I said that was okay, as long as she at least tried Anna's dresses on yesterday and looked in a mirror; she did, and then promptly took them off and got in her regular clothes again.

My Friday night D&D game is no more. Actually it was technically a "new to RPGs" game, so since at least two of us had gotten GM memberships at the Haven, we don't really need "instruction" anymore--not for playing, anyway. Instead, Gene started up a new game, based in the World of Darkness. He's doing a GMs-only, mostly one-on-one Changeling game.

Pretty much, the concept is, he'll work with each of us players individually on certain days of the week (my day's going to be Friday), and we'll have to post on the message boards within 48 hours about what our character did during the latest session. We'll also be able to have one-on-one sessions with the other players, I'm thinking as well. The world itself seems interesting, and I'm looking forward to playing it. I created my character two nights ago, but I forgot to give her a name.

My D&D 4.0 character went into the "Old Characters" section of my RPG player's binder. I've also got a GM binder for my Serenity game, as well as for a series I'm writing for the Buffy RPG.

Whoops! It's been a few days.

Let's see . . . what's happened since I actually posted something that wasn't the FoLC map?

On Thursday, Smallville was a re-run, so I actually *gasp!* went to Institute. It was pretty fun. Sister C. was teaching though, so I didn't see Brother M, who taught Institute when I went before.

Something I need to remember:

I can never remember all of the apostles, so I decided to make a list and put it here so that I can look at it more often.

1. Boyd K. Packer
2. L. Tom Perry
3. Russel M. Nelson
4. Dalin H. Oaks
5. M. Russel Ballard
6. Joseph B. Wirthlin
7. Richard G. Scott
8. Robert D. Hales
9. Jeffrey R. Holland
10. Henry B. Eyring
11. Dieter F. Uchdorf (spelling?)
12. David A. Bednar

There. Maybe I'll remember them all now.

The lesson in Institute was about Paul, and the first group of letters that he wrote, which was to the Thessalonians. I've got a bunch of notes about the chapters 2, 4 and 5 of 1 Thessalonians, but I don't feel like typing them all out. It's pretty much a lot of encouragement and advice for missionaries and stuff.

I finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while I was at work on Friday. Since I was only a little more than half-way through when I left for work that morning, I hadn't brought another book with me, so I didn't get to read anymore after that.

After work, I called Comcast to figure out why our wireless network had disappeared from the list of available networks, but they didn't have anything to do with it. It was LinkSys. I called LinkSys, and the techie guy helped me to re-establish a network from our wireless router using Kayla's computer. I had to use her on-screen keyboard though, because the one on the desk was broken.

That evening, Anna and I went over to Jason O's house for movie night. Kayla and Cassie came too, but Patrick J. and Kendra (or is it Kendall?) didn't.

We watched a couple of movies while we played Twenty Questions the board game, and then played three different kinds of Scene It! -- Harry Potter, regular, and Disney. It was Me, Jason and Devon against Anna, Kayla and Cassie. Cassie was pretty much their "mascot," and Devon just sat there, so it was really just me and Jason against Anna and Kayla. Anna and Kayla won all three games. Anna won Twenty Questions.

When we first got to Jason O's house, I slipped down the stairs to get into the TV room, and my right foot ended up underneath me, bent with my toes pointing up toward the top of the stairs. It throbbed for a minute or two, then it felt better.

Yesterday when I went to check the mail, I was coming back upstairs after getting it, but then I realized I forgot something. So I started to go back down to the entry way, and must've missed the step, because I slipped off that step too. And my right foot ended up twisted on its side that time. It throbbed for a couple minutes and I limped for a little bit. Other than a twinge every now and then, it's feeling mostly better though. But two twistings in two days is kinda painful.

I went over to Mom & Dad's house yesterday to get Anna so she could help me with my grocery shopping, since Kimba was borrowing her Cabrio and the Fairlane wouldn't start. I got a keyboard from Dad's spares so that Kayla would have a working keyboard on her computer again. I left a note for her on Notepad too. Anna helped me get a lot of stuff while not paying too much--and thank goodness too--as it was, the bill was $111 and change!

Today was the 2nd day of General Conference. I didn't watch though--I was doing other stuff. I got up around 10:30, got something to eat and checked my online places for updates. Then around noon-ish, I went upstairs to start on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

I got through Chapter Three before my eyes wouldn't stay open. I had a pretty long nap--about two hours' worth--and then decided to get some sort of snack. I had some toast and a couple sweet pickles, then got ready to go to Mom & Dad's for dinner.

When I got there, Dad asked me whether he should make meat balls or meatloaf. I said meatloaf. Then, Jason and I played Dragonriders (a computer game based on the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey) on his computer, which Dad finally got up and running correctly.

After a bit, Dad asked us to peel and cut potatoes for dinner, so we did that and got back to the game. Then we had dinner and played until 9pm, when it was time for Jason to go to bed. We got pretty far and got quite a few quests done before we had to stop. We've decided to play every week, and Jason said he'll either not play during the week, or create a new game for playing on his own so that he and I can play the game we started today together.

Next Saturday, I have to remember to go to the pool house between 10am and noon so that I can get my picture taken for a pool pass. Then early next month, the neighborhood is having a community yard sale, so I've been going through my catalogue at LibraryThing to see which books I could stand to get rid of. I've tagged them all "to sell," and there are 209 of them.

Sometime this week, I'm going to look at the physical books on that list (I printed it out) and decide which ones are in "read 'em and pitch 'em" condition, which ones are in fair condition, and which ones are in great condition. Then I'll price them $0.25, $0.75, and $1, respectively. If there are any hard-backed books on the list, they'll be $3 each.

After I've gone through the books, I have to go through my other stuff and see what I want to get rid of. There's probably a bunch of clothing that can go, and I have three towels I never use (I have two that are much fluffier, which I just switch when I do my laundry each week) . . . but I'll figure the rest out later.