crusing the beaches of malaysia

i must apologise to people who read my journal and who i also email. but it's just too much effort to write about the same events twice.

malaysia's going well. the perhentian islands were quite stunning, but not as good as railay beach in thailand. the best thing was the crystal clear water. we went snorkeling (snorkel - who invented this word? it is hilarious) and saw so many colourful tropical fish - big and small - the major highlight was seeing "nemo fish" (clownfish) peeping out from their anenemies (well, nemo can't spell it ethier). anyway - it was good. we're on the move again - heading south down the coast to another beach - this one reads really well. "situated on the south china sea"... "wind sculpted sand dunes" (rock on - dunes: i've been dying for some dunes to play in) ... "crashing surf" - it sounds amazing.

yea - i'm just after a huge dinner of indian thali (lots of samples of different dishes) and am very full and satisfied and not having racing brain waves. i ate shark for dinner last night. we decided to treat ourselves to a beach barbecue, and the choice was king fish, shark or barracuda. shark is nice enough, as fish goes. i'm not a huge fish person and it tasted a bit like soul. the sauce they had with it was wonderful, though.

so yea - that's my major news. getting buses around malaysia is trying. no one is very helpful (taxi drivers are like flies) and finding the local bus is hard. they have "express buses" which are like luxury coaches and cost a bomb. well - it's still only 8 euros or whatever, but the local buses are like 2, or something. and since we are budget backpackers, the difference means a nice dinner or food grabbed off a stall on the side of a street. that food gets really dull really fast. you can only eat rice and chicken so many nights in a row before you get bored of it.

yes - i guess i filled out this post well.
i really need a travel icon.

onwards to malaysia

ug, wierd o key here, so some wrds won't cme out.

we've reached malaysia, all safe and sound. the weather here is really hot - it feels as hot as india. thankfully it's not as humid as thailand. the heat i can bear, but the humidity - not at all.

we spent the last 3 days lounging about on the most perfect beach i have ever seen. fine golden sand, green turquise sea, mangroves and palms grwing up beyond the sand. the water was beautifully warm - i wanted to stay in it all the time. and of course, i built the obligatry sand castle. it was more of a fort, really. o_O

anyway. the trip has been going wonderfully. we have more lounging about on tropical beaches ahead, and some fun romps in natinal parks and KL and singapore to see. it should be fun.

bye.

babmoo rafting? yes please

ahh, thailand of the technology - look, i actually get to write more than once a week, amazing.

sooo... what's been happening? we headed north on a 17 hour train ride to chiang mai. sleeper trains are the way to travel. you wake up in your destination refreshed and ready for sightseeing. yea - we've been doing a lot of that. walking everywhere, my feet don't know what's hit them. i crash every night at about 10pm. not that that means much when askea drags me out of bed at 6 or 7. well... it's not that bad.
anyway, enough ranting.

chaing mai is a small city, nicely contained with most of the sights within an easy distance of eachother. so we spent the first day taking in 3 wats (temples) and i must say: if you've seen one wat, you've seen them all. they are beautiful, and interesting, but ultimately it's like visiting every parish church in ireland. anyway.
the other day in chaing mai was an adventure of small proportion. we booked a trip elephant riding, trekking and bamboo rafting. elephants are cute and lazy, trekking is gross and sweaty in this weather, but bamboo rafting - now that is something to write home about. it's just about the most fun i've had on our trip so far. i laughed the whole way down the river. excellent.
you sit onto this long narrow raft, held together by some rope and stuff and hold on as the river sweeps you downstream; around rocks, along bushes, into swells - brilliant stuff. we almost capsized at one point - the raft tilted dangerously over on its side, but the rafter dude straightened us and all was well again. we went just after a night's rainfall too - so the river was swollen, adding to the adventure value. brilliant. the only problem was that it didn't last long enough. ah well.

we're off to "the bridge over the river kwai" tomorrow, after going to see the grand palace. then onwards to the famed beaches of thailand. i can't really wait to get to the sea. i miss salty air. i actually bought a bikini too. me owning a bikini - there must be something wrong! anyway - it's a nice one, i feel somewhat comfortable in it.

right so.

thailand rocks!!

hello again,

first - i have to mention that i'm on a somewhat wierd keyboard. so sorry for any typos.

thank god we are out of india is all i can say. i totally couldn't wait to leave. it is such a horrible country. well - beutiful country, bbut way too much stress. we spent our first day in thailand wandering all over bangkok and looking at it's huge mall - mbk (8 floor chock full of stuff - there's a whole floor just for mobile phones).
we walked down kao san (the insane backpackers street) and got a bus to saim square. walked to the train station and got a boat home. yes, that did take the whole day. it's been fad.
thailand is a huge mix of everything from smells to people to experiences. it dosn't have the chaos of india and is way easier to settle into.

we're going to go see spiderman tomorrow afternoon. i can't wait :) we looked at the cinema lobby and it looks amazing.

i totally can't think of anything else to say. i've been up for 48 hours and it shows a bit. i'll try and get online for a bit in chaing mai.
i need sleep.

india: the short and dirty

it's really wierd, checking my journal on a computer in a forign country. emailing people wasn't so bad, but this is such a normal thing - i just checked my messages and was like "i only ever do this at home". odd. it's strange to think that i won't have a home for a year. not a real one.
it's funny the places you find to feel "safe" while away from familiar territory. airports and while in a car / plane are the only places i feel are familiar to me these days. it's a bit stressful, really, not having anywhere to ground yourself - i find my eyes welling up and my throat constricting at random intervals, but it passes quickly and everything is good again. i was just saying to penelope_stone how the good bits are amazing and how the bad bits are annoying, but quickly forgotten when things are going well.
i'd hate to have something really bad happen. i don't really think i could handle it.

so yea - this is a copy of the email i sent to everyone.


we're in Dharmshala now, with the monks and the Tibetans. one annoying thing about India is the Indians. everyone else is quite nice, but the Indians are such a pain.

we had a bit of an adventure when we arrived here (in India i mean). our hostel had no booking for us and so we were homeless in Delhi, in a cab that didn't know where the Tibetan enclave was. he brought us to a travel agents instead, which told us that every hostel in Delhi was booked out because of Indian holidays.
anyway - we ended up spending e1000 on an all inclusive tour, which has been working out very well, but wasn't really what we wanted. although, i would hate to have to deal with Indians at every stop, because this way we just get in a car, go to our next destination and check into our hotel when we get there.

so, apart from the people, India is a beautiful place. the Himalayas are amazingly beautiful. Delhi, while hot, has it's charm. there are tonnes of trees everywhere, a pleasant change from the fields and ditches of Ireland. i don't have pics, cause they are all on Askea's camera.

yep - so much has happened, and i have a wonderful journal that i'm writing in every day, but i'm just too lazy to take it out of my bag and type up.

the start of the travels

so this is my last night in my own bed for a year. not that this thought saddens me, i've never had a very comfortable mattress.

my hair is 7mm long.



yea.

it's really wierd. when the wind blows through it, it feels like ants are crawling on my head. it is really gross and icky. i see penelope_stone and i get a minor shock to see her hair so short. i suppose it must be the same for her.

i can't find the lid to a luchbox, the lunchbox i have my electronic things in. i can't think of much to say. we went to freakscene last night. mr. fadd played terrible music. as liam commented, it was like listening to daytime radio. i'm a bit tired now, though.

i had my last night of archery. my last arrow was an 8 pointer, heh. not bad. i'll miss it, i think. i'll have to find a club in new zealand.

i'm going on an airplane tomorrow! woooooo! i love airplanes, they are so cool. weeee.

goodbye so. my next post will be from asia. waaaa - how cool is that?! :) :) eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

almost gone

i think my luck for this month has been really bad. usually, i'm such a lucky person, everything works out perfectly, but recently things have been going a bit squewy. my application for a credit card got refused, my stomach has been paining me, and today, top of the bill, i failed my driving test. i just hope everything sorts itself out before friday. i'd hate to think my bags will get stolen, the hostel will have no record of our booking and we'll be kidnapped and ransomed in delhi, all because my natural luck has run out.
not that i think it has - it just likes to stay balanced. usually everything is good but when it turns, everything crashes. ah well.

i'm trying to pack - it's dull. i still have to finish my novel. i don't think that is going to happen at this stage. i could do it tomorrow, i guess. maybe.

only 2 days left at home. god, that's a little scary. then out into the big world, with no anchor back to what i know as real; everything different and new and scary. really scary. but fun. an adventure. wooo! something to really write about at last. no more inane blather about work, or college, or random page-filler that no one really wants to know about. fluf that is forgotten as soon as read. no. this will be decent. :roll eyes: yea right!

anyway. it's a little dark in here, so i will go.

i feel occasional pangs of remorse

yes - i'm aware how long it has been since i posted last. nothing has really happened since then. well, it has really.

we are getting organized for our trip. we did a practice pack last weekend - i'm seriously considering bringing only one pair of pants and only a few different tops.

our indian visas came through yesterday and arrived today. i have my first stamp on my passport. wheee!!

i'm having serious trouble with my driving test. it got re-scheduled to the 8th of may and i need it within 6 days. i really don't think that is going to happen. it will have been such a waste of time and money (and emotion) if i don't get my test before i leave, cause i can't see myself doing it after i return.

in one week i'll be on the road to dublin. wooo! i booked our hostel in delhi - i hope it's nice. it's 6km from the city centre. i don't mind - it's in the tibeten enclave, away from the worst of the touts and beggars and stuff.

why do people not accept that as a writer i can't spell some words? like responce and availible. is it not ok to master grammar if you have a few (hundred) words that you can't spell? oh well. i still have 2000 words (about) to write to finish my novel. it's the very last scene and i don't quite know (still) how to work it out. another battle is fine and all, but that will be three in a row. is it a bit much to end the book in a flair of magic and swords and stuff? meh.

i'm up to ep9 of heroes. the "wow" factor has waned but it is still very good. hiro is my favourite character. and peter. and isacc. he looks better as a junkie - clean hair dosn't suit him.

mmm, what else. i got the 3d houses finished. i should put them up on dA. if i think about it when i go home. they are ok. they have some problems, but it took waaay too long to render them for me to go back and fix them. the biggest one took 11 hours to render. the quality is really good.

right so. i guess i'll go now. i've filled up enough of people's friends' pages.

things about work and travel

today in work i sat and waited for the phone to ring or an email to come in while listening to japanese talk radio. it was cool. i actually understood 4 or 5 of the words. there were 2 girls on the program, though and they just laughed fakely all the time. it was awful, bit still - i got to brush up on my nihongo.
work's a bit wierd. i walked down to douglas at lunch today and i was feeling totally depressed. I think it's the house or something - it just dosn't have a good vibe to it. or maybe it's the doctor's energy contaminating the rest of the place. after lunch i wasn't feeling so bad - i was on my own and listening to the radio and messing with a spreadsheet eva asked me to do. hopefully tomorrow will be better.

i got more injections, so now i have hepatitis a and b, tetanus and rabies floating around inside me. wonderful! oh well - now i can ogle the monkeys of india without being paranoid of them biting me.

i'm so tired and i have to go work on the 3d houses. i just want to go to bed. blah. i'm going to go now.

100,032

wahhhhh! see that? 100,032. wow! it's taken long enough. it only took one month to get to 50,000 and three to get to 100,000. god. it has been a total struggle. Scene 1 and 2 of chapter 14 are both about 600 words. oh well. there's always the re-write.
now i'm onto the great fun of the devils' council.

yeay

so that went well. i'm now going on to scene 4 of chapter 13. most of ch 13 is wonderfully exciting. actually, all the rest of the book is wonderfully exciting. i have a feeling there will be some difficult dialogue scenes ahead, but irshemesh is about to enter stage front + i can't wait to have fun writing him. this morning i was thinking about him and it struck me that he is a little like zakath from david eddings' books. i always loved zakath. he was so infinitely cool. him and his cat. only irshemesh dosn't have the angst. yeay.

so yea. things are good. i totally can't wait for shivering isles to come out. i'll only have a month to play it when it does. and it's been said that the main quest is quite long, so i have worries that i won't get it finished. though it only took me about a month to do the oblivion main quest (and that was with a whole heap of side-tracking to go collecting flowers and kill people and steal things). so yea. i'll be buying that the day it comes out :)

more on writing - yes it is my life

do you want to know something funny? page 111 of my novel is home to scene 1 of chapter 11, i just thought that was a bit mad! and yes - i have divided my novel into scenes, just to make the writing less of a struggle, cause i can aim for 2 scenes a day as opposed to a certain number of words or pages or whatever.

i really havn't much else to say. i have a craving to play oblivion, cause i think i've found a fix to my game (my main save is a bit broken - one of the essential characters is missing).

i'm also quite looking forward to a game (an mmorpg - shock horror) called aion. it looks really beautiful and is about angels and demons. though i'll probably not buy it, because i really can't afford monthly subscription fees. oh, yes. and the fact that i will probably be in new zealand when it comes out. there are so many good games due out this year and i'm going to miss them all - waaaaaaa.

writing news

buh - writing is going badly today. i've gotten to this bit where Zachery's "mother" (she's not his real mother) is having a crisis of conscience and i don't know how to get this across, especially when writing from Zachery's point of view. so yea. i may just sum up the action and move on. i really have to move on. i have this tight schedule that, if i manage to stick to it, has me finishing the novel by the middle of february. i really don't want to be stuck at it for much longer than that.

as an aside - i am on 74,542 words (of an estimated 124,000) and 106 pages. go me! buh - i'm never going to be finished by the middle of feb.

101 pages

see that title? yea? good. that is now the length of my novel, of which the working title is beginning to stick and i am considering calling "The Fall". perhaps that is a bit ambiguous, though. random young person (i say young because it's the kind of thing that used happen to me when i was younger) goes into a book shop and thinks "'The Fall' wow, cool book about autumn, let me look at it. awh, wait. this isn't about autumn, it's just some crummy fantasy about a stupid angel. god, who wants to read that crud." yea, so then they go and say to their friends "that ria one, the one with the fall book, is a total sell out. i mean, angels. god. who'd buy that?"

heh heh. i am currently laughing at myself. better than a minute ago. some random person called to the door and rang the chimes for about 10 minutes. i huddled in my room hoping for a) daddy to realize someone was at the door and go open it b)mammy to wake up and check it out c) the person to go away. number c happened, but not for ages and in that time i was deeply considering turning off my lights and hiding in my bed. i'm such a weirdo. i'm scared of people at the door. god, like. i really just hate people who bang on the door for ages, though - and those really persistent ones who then get their car keys and tap at the windows. whuuuu :shudder: those people drive me under the table for ages and ages.

heh - yea. enough ranting. i got to 101 pages today. i was so happy. and the part i'm on is so exciting too. it's all downhill for poor zachery from today + this makes me incredibly happy for some sadistic reason. i just love when misfortune befalls my characters. it's when you really get to see what they are made of - in zachery's case, hatred and anger. wooo!! whey for evilness! yeay. i wonder will "my great public" have a problem reading about the bad guy? well, he's not really bad - just very much a product of the events in his life and quite misguided about they way his life is turning out.

i can't wait to go to asia. we are going to have so much fun. i find myself dreaming about india these nights. in other random news - i'm listening to "saturday night wrist", "so divided" and "the eraser" these days and really enjoying them. it sorta makes me hopeful for good music for 2007 and beyond.

yes.

i'm going to go now. bye.

my life as it stands right now

wow - this is a bit wierd, isn't it? ahhh - gak. the fon't isn't clunky courier anymore. noooo - bring it back, bring it back - i can't write in ariel. i hates it. (pagan / trickster moment there)

i have stopped writing. i am re-plotting. i have come to the bit i stopped writing at in my original plot and i am stuck again. this bit has some kind of internal flaw but i'll be damned if i know what it is.

i downloaded the prince of persia two thrones soundtrack yesterday. it's really good. i had most of it already on the trilogy ST, but i now have the music from the lower tower, which (in my opinion) is the most meloncholy, lonely, futile, disillusioned but persevering 'cause you have nothing else left to you, dramatic, weak / strong music ever. it is really cool in the game. Farah has been kidnapped by Cervan and you have to get to the tower to stop him - the dark prince has almost taken you over and nothing is going well. so you go on, because you love farah even if she thinks you are helplessly evil. yea - its good. damn, those games are so good.

i'm still playing thief: deadly shadows too. garrett as invaded my dreams. how does he manage to do that? i start playing thief and within a few days i'm dreaming of garrett. no other character features so strongly in my dreams - even all the hours i put into the elder scrolls games or prince of persia. none of my writing characters have been in my dreams, so what is it about garrett? hmmm - oh well.

indeed. that is all i have to say right now. bye.

i finished the nanowrimo on sunday or whatever and since then i've written about 500 words. but this is ok. i realized some time ago that my world was not working out at all and i've been overhauling it: giving the angels a realistic background, making up a history for zachery - a proper one. but that has been sideline stuff. i'm painting a pic of zachery and azrynn at the moment (of the scene i'm at in the novel) and zachery is seeming really vampire-like. the new history of archangels has them start off as normal people on altara (the world of the angels) and they die and are reborn as archangels - hence the pale skin and not needing to eat or sleep. and before anyone asks - no, they don't need blood to survive - they need magic, and no - they don't take it from angels.

so, yea. i'll be getting back to writing on monday, probably. i want to get this pic finished. it will hopefully be good - it has an elabourate background, but the characters are looking a bit wierd + i don't know what's wrong with them. oh well. i also realized that i can't do fabric to save my life. its eluding me - i think it has for a while... no - wait, zel's jumper looked quite cool. i was really dissappointed with the finished piece of that. the background ruined it, i think. oh well. now - back to art!

how goes the novel?

ooh, livejournal is being wierd. i got a wierd message when i opened the site:
[Error: Database handle unavailable at /home/lj/cgi-bin/LJ/User.pm line 370. @ w112]
oh well.

the nanowrimo group met today. me, claire and kate were there.
did i mention that i have reached "the middle" of my novel and have come to a standstill because i've realized that the archangels are acting like children and my demons are clisched and nothing really makes much sence. my major serious stall at the moment is that zachery really has no reason to hang around with azrynn.
and i still have a serious problem with people not reacting properly. ooh, look our world is about to be destroyed, ok, but we'd prefer to comment on your hair! wooo woooo. yes, so much work is required.

and that is really my news.

4,000 words part III

ok, some time has passed (in which time i watched the transporter). i can write again.

for the record:
the way to write 4,000 words in one day is to start early - before 12 and set yourself a goal to do 4 pages. by the time that 4 are done you will be somewhere near 2,000 words. you will feel like giving up. so the cure is to do sprints, 15 minute ones. (i got 560 on one and 400 on another.) then you're almost at 3,000. then it's the most massive struggle to get the last 1,000. but you just type each word, forcing it from your brain and not caring how it lands on the page. this will be nine or ten hours after you started, so be sure you have the time.
and why do you do this? to get to the top of your regional, genre leaderboard and have some hope of staying there. ooh yes, competitiveness is fun.

4,000 words part II

i did it. i wrote 4,051 words today. i have nothing left in me.

4,000 words

i've set myself a mini-goal to write 4,000 words in one day and it is really difficult. i started it yesteray and got 1,994. today i'm just over 2,000 (but i have time to write still. even if i am getting tired). it is seriously hard. i don't know how some people are at 100,000 words already. (yes - i have seen one person at this count). even the people at 50,000 are doing well. buh - i just don't know how they did it.
well today - i think i should make 3,000 at least. if i can coax another 1,000 words from my brain. that would be cool. that would cover the last scene of chapter 4 and then i'd be onto chapter 5 + that is when everything starts to get really good.

apart from that i havn't much to say.


i had a cold-sore last week and its at that point of healed where its a cut on my lip. i woke up this morning and there was this lump of caked-on, dried-in, black blood where the cut is. it took a while to wash off. then this evening i was having a chicken in bread thing for dinner and on the first bite the cut ripped open and i had blood flavoured dinner for a bit afterward.
yes this is really gross - but its my journal and i can write about this stuff if i want. at least i had the deceancy to put it under a cut (heh heh - pun!! wheeee)



oh god - hyperness. i've been writing too long. buh.

i had the strangest dream last night. in it, i was a person (as you are) and i was in this hotel lobby kind of place. it seemed like some kind of airport hotel cause there were loads of travelling-seeming people there. (and something about a bus parked out the front??). anyway. there was a guy sitting at a coffee table thing to the right of the door, facing a large window. it was bright. he had a pen + it had writing on it (some company name, or his name or something. well - his name was paul but there was something different on the pen - which suggested he was not who he claimed to be). then something wierd happened and he squirted something from the pen into my mouth or in some other way got something from the pen into me.
the next bit i remember is me, hanging onto a pillar, with my hands reaching behind me and my feet hunched up and gripping the pillar - my front was facing the room. then i dove into the lobby and around a corner to a table to the left of the door. it was darker over here - there were no windows. there was a guy there talking to me about the way i felt or something. i felt strong and powerful. he was saying i could feel this way all the time + i just wanted to trust him, but something seemed sleazy about him. like a charm or something. or maybe he was nice and i was paranoid or something. but anyway: it was one of those beautiful dream feelings where you just feel totally secure and safe and nothing can touch you - that's they way his words made me feel.
i wish i could remember it a bit more clearly. there was way more at the start, involving houses and trains and having to be in the south and not knowing how to get there and stuff. and there was something about my mothers family and a walking house - that was eventually how i got where i was going. oddness.

633 words wasted on this post. blah. i feel bad. (643 now).