i will

Sooo I've been couch potatoing too much, it gave me a headache. Today I was reading Halo: The Fall of Reach for hours after I did my French homework, which is why I was on the couch so long today, though I can't honestly say I would have moved much more if I hadn't had the book. I probably would have tried to find another book, haha.

Anyway, I finished it, and I enjoyed it surprisingly much considering it became straight scifi at the end, all "escape vector three oh four eight" and stuff like that, which is generally too much for me. I think it was mostly the experience of playing the Halo games that made me enjoy even the heavy scifi. It really made me want to replay them, actually, and since Danny's listening to the audiobook, he has the same urge. I imagine we will replay them soon, but first Danny has to finish the audiobook, which is funny since I started my book yesterday and he started it four or five days ago. Understandable though, in the end. He only listens while he's in the car for significant periods of time. I'm glad I finished first; I like knowing the ending so I don't have to risk him giving something away or so he can actually listen to the book while I'm in the car because it doesn't spoil anything for me.

I may read more Halo books, or maybe the Gears of War book. I'm not sure. There's not much else to read. I mean, aside from assigned reading, which of course I fail at doing.

I've been doing well at the gym, generally an hour of cardio plus 15 - 20 minutes of strength training three days a week, plus something small on Saturday or Sunday. Next week my personal trainer course starts.

Today I feel fat, but when I look in a mirror I look fine, which makes me feel good.

Um. Not working much; they don't schedule me Tuesday nights. Valentine's Day's coming up, Danny and I have a $50 giftcard to Friday's. I'm loving him more than ever.

I just finished reading the final Mistborn book, The Hero of Ages. I immediately wikipedia'd it and discovered that it wasn't actually due to be released until today, meaning the Borders that sold it to me on Saturday is very naughty indeed. I'm grateful, though. I loved the crap out of it, and I was seriously impressed.

I have more books left from that shopping trip. I'm hesitant to start one now when I have work at 4:30, but I don't guess it matters that much. I probably won't get far enough in to be truly addicted in the limited time I have.

Anyway, seriously impressed with Brandon Sanderson. Especially considering that I really was not fond of Elantris, his first book (and only book published before Mistborn). Granted, I didn't finish Elantris, but only because I found it hard to get through. I bet the plot was good, but... eh. Anyway, point being that he evolved a great deal between writing Elantris and Mistborn. I'm so jealous of the way his plot came together. Gah.

And I have to have writing for workshop submitted by midnight tomorrow night for Writers' House. Bleargh.

Just finished Breaking Dawn. I loved it. I was impressed with how quickly it moved.

( spoilers ahead )

Well anyway. I'm in two roleplays at the moment. One in which I'm Sirius Black right before James and Lily's wedding, and one in which I'm the Joker and my partner is Dr. Harleen Quinzel. It's nice. The draw isn't as crazy as before, but I do reply regularly and such, and of course it's entertaining or I wouldn't do it.

I had my last day at Starbucks, which was awesome. Glad to be out of there. I made $115 Saturday night at Hooters and I'm loving it so much. It's a ton of fun. I don't love the closing down part -- cleaning up the wait stations, picking up chairs, etc etc -- but who does love that part? I have so much fun hanging out with customers and stuff. I'm getting better at what I do, though I still forget to bring plates and forks and stuff to the table before the food gets there. So I'm gonna have to work on that part.

I worked last night, didn't make that much... but it was also pretty slow, and I did get my first paycheck. A whopping $22, which I should deposit now.

I want to write. And I can't wait for the 23rd, when we visit my mom.

I just finished Eclipse. I finished New Moon yesterday. It didn't take long to read them, they were so captivating. (Danny came home and saw me on the last ten pages and had to hold up all three books for Justin to illustrate my crazed ability to read.)

But wow. I really, really love these books. I think they've been elevated into my circle of favorites. The whole thing with Jacob and Edward did it... it's so deep and complex and hard but perfect.

I'm in awe. Maybe sometime I'll update with more impressions, but for now, that's just it. At least all I'll be putting into words.

And I can't wait for Breaking Dawn.

Worked 6am to 10:30am today. Well, more accurately 5:50am... I opened with Chris, who is always early, and as I'm always early too it works out. Marden didn't want to spend 8 1/2 hours working with the guy but I don't think he's bad to work with at all. Just maybe not as fun as some of the other shifts... but still cool.

Went to the reading/signing at Barnes & Noble in Tysons, too. Philip Pullman. Didn't stay long... I didn't know there was going to be a reading first, and there was a long wait for the signing anyway. But I saw him talk some, and I flipped through his new book. I decided it wasn't too disappointing. If I really was a huge fan I would have bought the new book but I decided against it. Now, if it had been George RR Martin or Orson Scott Card I would have stayed. The only reason I don't have The Hedge Knight yet is because I haven't run across it. I haven't looked particularly hard but if I saw it I'd buy it. And then there's Rowling, who I probably wouldn't wait for because the line would wind through the whole store and out into the mall... she's just so famous.

I need to exercise. I wanted to bike with Danny or something when we got home but "his stomach's been bothering him". I should just run myself but I'm still kind of full... and disappointed. I might, anyway, after I finish this, I don't know. If not, then tomorrow. His mom told him he needed to exercise because he was gaining weight. He didn't seem to mind but I don't know if he just wasn't reacting on purpose.

Meh.

ETA Picspam! Lots new pictures, mostly from Danny and Shane playing basketball today but also some Photography and two new Around the House pictures. I think that's it.


They're action shots in dimming light; the sun was sinking. So they're not that good, but I like them anyway.

I called Danny's mom and asked her if she needed an exercise partner. I figured it'd be easier for both of us if we exercised together... motivation wise, at least. She liked the idea and said she'd call me on her way home from work so we could meet to exercise. Yay!

My final grade posted sometime this morning. I have straight As this semester. Two of them were A-, but that still counts as an A! That makes a 4.0 this semester; averaged with last semester that's a 3.642 so far, which makes me Dean's List for the year as well as the semester. I've gotta look into this Dean's List business and see what it means, exactly.

Danny and I passed a deer on the way home from getting Burger King this morning and I wanted to take a picture, but I know he's been getting annoyed by my picture-taking so I hesitated and we drove right past it. So disappointing. It was daylight and the deer was so close to the car. Danny said afterward he was going to stop but I hesitated. Ah, miscommunication. Gotta love it.

Meh. I feel like I want a nap but I got plenty of sleep last night. I need to start writing again =(

Also I broke down and I'm going to read Twilight as soon as I get ahold of a copy. I wasn't going to, but we saw a preview before Indiana Jones last night and now Danny's going to listen to the audiobooks... and if he's going to be listening to parts of the audiobooks with me in the car I need to go ahead and read the books first so I don't get confused out of my mind.

ETA Dude, westerosorting. Made of awesome.

Found lolcat icons. Danny does not approve. I never thought I'd run out of space with 112 icons, but I'm getting there. Now every time I find new icons I try to go through and prune ones I don't really use but didn't really want to get rid of just to preserve the space I have left.

I've been reading The Ruined Map today. It's really weird. It's definitely more similar to American reading than that crazy Dunes one, but still... odd. It keeps mention of names to a minimum; the only ones mentioned in the narrative so far are I think the guy the detective's looking for and this coworker of the guy who the detective has talked to. Even the missing guy's wife doesn't have a name mentioned in the narrative, or her brother who dies.

I'm 2/3s of the way through so far and there's been a main character death, a raping, an organization of homosexual runaway boys... and various weird trains of thought. Also the narrator's wife popped up randomly in the middle of the book with no previous indication that he even had a wife.

But yeah. I need to finish it tomorrow and write the paper. I believe in class the moron teacher told us we could email it by Monday, but the original due date was Friday so I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow. I did procrastinate today... I got the most productive part of the reading done in the last two or three hours before Danny got home. But I did, however, write the reflections on the exhibits I had to go to. Which I did go to -- yesterday, at the Freer and Sackler galleries in DC. They were cool. We also went through the Smithsonian for fun, and I really wished I had my camera already. It should arrive on Saturday.

Danny thinks the Hufflepuff chat is "loser"ish. I visited for a couple minutes to see what it was like. I think I'll go more during Hogsmeade this weekend if I can do it when Danny isn't there to tell me how I'm a loser. Also, mentioning him in a post it much harder when he's actually paying attention.

Dumbledore's gay?

Okay.

A) That's great.

B) So does that mean Sirius and Remus can't be gay or she would have announced that too?

C) :(

Went to a Gears of War tournament today, stayed about six hours and only played once (and lost... a little pathetically). I got the new HP at midnight, but it took me until Sunday (which is still tonight for me, even if not technically) evening to finish because Danny wouldn't let me read it much. Toward the end when I was finishing the last hundred or so pages he started feeling really left out and said, "This is the first time I haven't always had your attention, I'm starting to get a little jealous of Harry Potter," lol. But I was so excited! And it was so good!

( post-DH madness, cut for spoilers )

Wow. Okay so, here's the short version of what's been keeping me busy:

x Danny, as always
x Transformers
x building a new website
x college orientation (go Terps!)
x HP: OotP

I guess that's mostly it.

So. Transformers was really good, fun to watch, and the most memorable part for me is how much of a little pervert Bumblebee was. I loved that he couldn't talk for most of the movie, the radio thing added a unique little element. And that preview before the movie, the one they aren't giving a title to, only a release date of 1-18-08 -- it's driving me up the wall. People are saying it's Voltron, but it seems like they're going to too much effort to be sneaky about what it's about for it to be another movie based off a show or comic or whatever. It's such a publicity stunt, but hey, it's working.

The website. Alicia and I are building an art website, mainly for writing but with niches for drawing and photography and what have you. The Afterglow should be up and running as soon as we have a decent number of members. I've been really erratic with websites in the past, letting them die and such, but I'm hoping to keep this one running if only as a project that might come in handy in college. It could look really good for me, you know? It's not just that, though. I'm sick of just letting my projects drop. Usually it's because I get bored with them, and usually it's because it becomes more about making a fancy website than art and challenges. The purpose of this site is a community for artists, perhaps especially for writers, to share their talent and both issue and respond to challenges. There's going to be a monthly literary ezine and things like that. Guides with tips and tricks to improve your writing. So we'll see how it works out. The website's built; now I just need members.

Soo, I spent Monday and Tuesday at orientation for Maryland. I got my university ID, which is infinitely better than my highschool ID (in which I looked like a strung out hooker). I also set up my schedule. I have no classes on Fridays, nearly nothing on Wednesdays... and even though I'm getting a lot of classes I probably won't like out of the way first semester, I'm also taking at least one course that'll be both fun and fill a requirement for my major. I met two people who I really talked to while I was there, they were both cool. One I may never see again since I met him by coincidence and we have very different majors. The other I'll have at least one class with next year... though that class may be one of the huge ones, haha.

Um. HP: OotP. It was a great movie, much better than GoF was. Of course there were things that were missed and even changed a little, but nothing too upsetting, really. (Don't read further if you don't want to know what was left out or changed.) There were a couple of things that were big speculation points in the books that were left out in the movie, though, and it kind of disappoints me since it seems like if it was all that important, JK would have made sure it was in the movie. Like the locket at Grimmauld Place, and the mirror Sirius gave Harry, and the way Sirius was hit by a red spell in the book and just knocked through the veil -- but actually hit by Avada Kedavra in the movie.

/HP: OotP. Begin sixth/seventh book speculation.

I've been debating with Danny over whether Snape's good or evil and stuff like that. First off, I remember the books much better. He's 'read' them once, two years or so ago, and that was on audiobook (hence the quotes around 'read'). Anyway, he's in the camp that simply thinks Snape can't kill Dumbledore and still be good. One thing he said was that even if that was the position, someone loyal to his leader would sacrifice himself before killing the leader or allowing the leader to die. Personally, I think Snape is good. I think he was in love with Lily. So does Danny, for that matter, but he thought it actually said so in the books. He was convinced that the books said Snape was edging in on Lily and that's why the Marauders gave him so much grief. Haha, I'm glad to see our intuition is the same on the situation, but it says nothing of the sort in the books.

Anyway, I think Snape was in love with Lily and it made him hate James worse than ever. I think he hates Harry so much because he's part James' child and reminds him so much of James, but I think he protects Harry despite it because he is Lily's child. If she died to save him... he can't let her sacrifice be in vain, I suppose. And he can't forgive Voldemort for killing her.

I think when he took the Unbreakable Vow, he wasn't sure just what he was swearing to do and that's why he hesitated, but in the end he had to do it anyway. I think when he found out just what he'd sworn to, he told Dumbledore. And I think that in the end, Dumbledore knew Snape would have to kill him, and that's why he went ahead and let Snape teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. He'd be gone next year, one way or another. For the one year he had left, Dumbledore wanted him to be in a position to teach Harry about the Dark Arts, something he obviously knows a lot about. Though of course Harry doesn't learn much when it's Snape teaching him...

Because the thing about the Vow is that it had to happen one of three ways. Draco kills Dumbledore, Snape kills Dumbledore, or both Draco and Snape die. I think Dumbledore wouldn't allow Draco to taint himself like that. And he felt Snape was far more valuable than he was. Especially after the act. There would be one agent for good high up in the Dark Lord's ranks, because after that Voldemort wouldn't question Snape, and neither would any of the other Death Eaters, most likely. None of the good guys would know Snape was working to help them... but they'd have help. It would be hard for Snape, and that's why Dumbledore had to plead with him. Not "Don't kill me." More like, "You have to do this." Because what's harder than working to protect and save people who hate you and would kill you given the chance? How hard would it be, how dangerous, to be an agent for good when you can't reveal yourself to the people around you and the people you're trying to help would never believe you? He would have to find ways to help without either side realizing he's the one who's helping, because the Order would treat any help he offered as a threat.

Back to OotP, concerning Horcruxes... I don't have the book handy, or I'd check, but when Voldemort possesses Harry, doesn't he taunt Dumbledore, saying he could kill them both right now? I may be remembering wrong. But if I'm right, I think that's the strongest evidence for Harry or part of Harry being a Horcrux. Because I doubt possession of an ordinary person would be the same. If you killed the person, Voldemort would probably just leave the body. I don't know. Perhaps if Harry is or has a Horcrux, it just makes it... different. Like when Voldemort possesses him, he actually becomes truly attached to the body because a part of his soul resides there. Plus, I really do think the whole transference of his abilities to Harry would make more sense with a Horcrux present. But I'm not really in either camp on that issue; I'm on the fence.

Danny is convinced that both Harry and Voldemort have to die. I've heard the arguments. I don't think it's gonna be that way. It would be a perfectly acceptable ending, I wouldn't be disappointed (sad, but not disappointed)... I just really don't think it's JK's style. I believe it would fit perfectly well, I just don't think JK would make it to where Harry has to die to save the world. Blah blah blah, Christ figure, yada yada... These books started as kids books, kids have grown up with Harry, I really don't think she'd do that to them.

But I guess we'll see.