planting procrastination

procrastination post. yeay. i haven't done one of these in ages.

i defrosted the freezer last night. it was kinda fun - going with the hair dryer, watching the ice melt away and fall into the little collecty bucket at the bottom. the freezer has significantly more space now, and you can actually see the metal bits that conduct the cold around. all the compartments open properly now. it was so bad, actually, that the ice had shoved some of the shelves off their rails. but they are fixed now, too.

the little pepper plant is still alive. the fern is also still alive. the dracaena got put out in the corner of the balcony reserved for dead plants. we can call it the plant graveyard. i put them out there in the hopes that the weather outside will bring them back to life. i suppose it's kind of a silly viewpoint, but it's always what used happen to dead plants at home. none of them ever came back to life either.
i think the bonsai might be making it way out there soon. poor plant just keeps on loosing its leaves, and when they grow back they are yellow and weedy. i took the dead bits off the other dracaena. it's looking good again. all green.
all this planty goodness has me wanting to plant the seeds from a cherry tomato. and we have black kale too. i could have a whole little garden happening on the window sill in here. it's a weeny (meaning small) windowsill, but it's the only one in the whole apartment that gets sunlight.

right so. i don't have much other news.

just to note - dinner is on (yes, before 10:30am). and all the windows and doors in the apartment are open in an effort to cool the place down. it was way too hot last night.

kerry

go visit three corner square, my website. It has two posts now, one containing some advice about writing different drafts for a novel. i must write a new post soon. i'm thinking of doing something on making the editing process more efficient, but those kinds of articles are rather prevalent on the net already.

on to the regular news.

i have spent the last 5 days in the wonderful company of ms penelope_stone and liam. we went for walks on the beach, flew super-powerful kites, wandered in the forest, watched glastonbury coverage.

in between that, i attended the beach wedding of mytholder and emopod. it was pretty amazing. the weather was perfect, the sky was the lightest shade of blue, the sea was the deepest shade of turquoise.

the weather stayed pretty good for the whole time. we had a barbecue last night and the only bit of heavy rain in the whole week fell as we were lighting it. ah well - it stopped as we were cooking and we got to eat outside. the sun even came out again near the end.

not much else happening. i'm heading home tomorrow. i'd love to just stay here for a month. but it will be fun to go home to borderlands. i'm sort of worried about what kind of state the apartment will be in, though. ah well. i'll be taking a pepper plant home with me, and a renewed vigour to treat my plants with care and kindness.

june

Right so. I've been ordered by penelope_stone to update, so I am updating. However, I don't really have anything interesting to say. I'm half way through draft 3. It's going quite well. I get kind of caught up in the story and forget to edit, and then I have to go back over what I just read and I find loads of mistakes. It's kind of funny.

Speaking of funny, I am realising that writing humour to lighten tension is exceptionally hard. I've tried to find places in my novel to add in humour and I have failed. I might make a blog post about it at some stage.

I guess it's time I mentioned that I ported my website to wordpress. Wordpress is a great tool, and so easy to use if you have a little knowledge of HTML and PHP. The website isn't 100% done yet. There are a few quirks to work out and I don't have any proper posts yet (working on that - should have one this evening, maybe).

I'm playing Borderlands on PC at the moment. It is such a good game. This is my third full playthrough, and my sixth partial playthrough. lordkilljoy also got Fallout3 and Burnout Paradise on PC, so I've been messing around with them too.

I'm reading Retribution Falls at the moment. I'm really enjoying it. Non-stereotypical adventure fantasy is so hard to come by these days. In novels, anyway. Or maybe I just can't find it.

Yea. So that's been my life for the last month.

weekend joys

the weekend was great. i got to meet more cousins i've not seen in about 10 years. everyone was in great form.
then on sunday my whole family came over to the apartment and stayed until today. it was cool.

we went into town yesterday and i bought some plugs for my ear. it's at 6mm now - has been at that for the last few years. i always figured i'd put in the effort to get it to 8, but i was just never bothered. so it's staying at 6 forever. i bought three really cute plugs - i have photos.





yea. they are the motivation behind this post.

i spent today (after everyone left - that really feels like yesterday, or last week or something) editing draft 3. chapter 1 is considerably different now. a little more action packed. penelope_stone tells me the book is too action packed as it is, but i'll sort all that out when i get to it. for now, the start needs more action.

hmmmm, yea. i got a bit sunburned over the weekend. lordkilljoy is off in australia and we are getting better weather here. it's mad. but good. nothing like a bit of warm sunlight.

deadlines

oh my god, i hate tight deadlines. always in college i'd get stuff done a week or a few days before the deadline so there was never last minute stress.
i just finished an assignment and was editing up to the last 10 minutes. i got it uploaded with 8 minutes to spare on the deadline. phew! what a rush. and not really in a good way. it wouldn't really do to miss a deadline on my second assignment.
ah well, it's done now. all i can do now is wait for feedback on stuff i got wrong. hopefully not that much. i spent ages going over it to make sure it was ok.

i kinda feel like i have loads to do and no time in which to do it. hmmm. i should make out a list. that will definitely help to de-abstractise things. :giggle: i just made up a word. it's amazing how this still entertains me :)

Yea. i think i'm tried. i get to the end of a paragraph and my brain just goes: stop, no thoughts here.

yea. i'm going to go now.

washing randomness

i put two white sheets into the wash today. one came out light blue, the other came out a dull sort of purple. (yes, i do just chuck everything into the same wash regardless of colour, because the only non-coloureds we have are sheets, and it's not worth putting on a whole wash just for them.)
and i wouldn't even mind, but it's not like we don't have colour catcher sheets. and they do work. oh well. that's what i get for assuming / hoping stuff won't run. the blue sheet looks kinda good, though. it died very evenly. i even had to ask myself if we'd actually been sleeping on a blue sheet. but no, we hadn't. the other sheet is pretty evenly died (a little darker in the corners) but it's not a very nice colour. it can be the spare room's spare sheet.

so yea. they are now drying in the sitting room. they don't really fit on the clothes horse and now that lordkilljoy is gone away, i can put the clothes where ever i like.

i've been listening to deftones' new album, diamond eyes. i'm enjoying it. beauty school is my favourite so far, followed by the title track. it's very deftones. but i love their sound, so i'm good with that.

i went to see robin hood yesterday. it was an engaging 2 hour 20 minute diversion. but that's all it was, really. a fun thing to watch to pass the time.

afterwards, i went out to dalkey quarry, and ran up the hill to the top (there are stairs). it was good. the views from up there are spectacular - you can see way out into the irish sea on one side, and over dublin on the other.
then me, penelope_stone and liam went to nandos. yum. and then we went home and watched gladiator (skipping over all the boring bits). heh. i could call it a ridley scott afternoon.

typing myself into oblivion

news, news, news.

i did my first assignment over the week. i ended up typing over 10,000 words in 8 hours. my hands were a bit sore afterwards. typing up voices takes an incredible amount of time. and i don't really think it matters how fast you are, because you get to a bit where you can't hear and you spend about 20 minutes just trying to decipher it. anyway - i had fun doing it. people speak really weirdly when you actually listen to them.

penelope_stone is coming up this weekend. that will be fun. i was going to go to carlow, but that's not happening now.

i'm back playing oblivion again. :scratch head: yea. i didn't think that would happen either, but i decided to play it on the xbox - just a quick run through of the main quest (and possibly the thieves' guild quest line, because i never finished it) and i got hooked. i'm going thieves, mages, main and deadra quests (and some random stuff). and once i get better at killing stuff, i'm going to join the dark brotherhood. hmmmm. i was only going to play for a week or something... oh well. (oh yea, my character is kind of pretty too. not as pretty as her in my icon, but pretty enough.)

i'm messing around with wordpress at the moment too. it's incredibly flexible with designs and layouts and stuff. you can design it any way you want. it's brilliant.

lordkilljoy is in singapore at the moment. i had an awful dream last night about being at home on my own, and all these men got into the house and were chasing me around the place. i tried to hide in the bathroom, but they broke down the door. it was awful.

crickets, crickets everywhere

lots of news. going to sum up the main bits, and go into detail on the kerfuffle in the kitchen today.

right - since i last posted, i got a job. i'm doing freelance transcription, which is great. i get to write (even if i don't get to create), i don't have to worry about getting into dublin for 9 in the morning, and i can go make tea whenever i want (it's work-from-home, if you hadn't guessed). fantastic.

saturday was my cousin, audrey's, confirmation. i went over to their house with denise. their house is beautiful, and so big. the day was good, got to meet aunts and uncles, and granny again. and i get to do it all again this weekend, because it's my cousin, conor's, confirmation. i'm looking forward to it - i'll get to see even more people.

i've started draft 3 of my novel. lots more changes in this draft, but not quite as drastic as the changes between drafts 1 and 2. i'm tackling the first chapter this week. i'm giving myself a week on ch1 and then a day for the rest of the chapters. until ch 14 (or whatever - the one that used be chapter 6) then i have to devote some time to making large changes again.

so today, or more accurately this evening: it seemed like a normal evening, had dinner, watched doctor who. and then i decided to water yoshi's tank and clean out his pool. normal enough tasks. but while i was at it, i decided to clean his little waterfall / fountain thing. i lifted off the top "rock" and in the pool of water underneath was a little floating island of critters. or critter larvae. all swimming around like bacteria under a microscope. awful. anyway i dumped them down the sink and washed out the waterfall and all was well.

but the god of tricks wasn't done with me yet. thirsty after my exertion, i got a drink. as i closed the glasses press, the smoothie maker fell from the shelf above it. but it didn't just fall onto the ground (no - that would have been too easy). it fell onto the tub of crickets (yoshi's food) and crickets, cricket poo, porrige and shed skins went everywhere. well the last three fell on the ground and on the counter and stayed put. the crickets fell on the counter and on the ground and immediately scurried for the closest dark space.

they ran under the dishwasher, under the washing machine, behind the cooker, under the microwave - even into the cracks in the tile grouting. we picked up as many as we could find, but i know for a fact there are at least three still loose in the kitchen. gooo. i'll be seeing them scurry across the floor for the next month - if not more.

jobs and less formal news

right, since my last post, i've had two interviews and a writing test. the first interview (admin in a recruitment agency) went well, but i didn't get the job. the second (supervisor in a language school) went well and i'm on to the second phase - a technical interview. so we'll see how that goes. the writing test was fun, and i'm waiting to get some feedback on that as well. it will probably be tuesday.

yea... this supervisor job, though. i'm just not sure. it's part-time (2 hours a day, five days a week) and pays just over minimum wage. so, i would waste 3 hours getting there and back for two hours of work. and the pay barely covers travel expenses and bills. but it would be another notch in my CV, and some experience.

i'd like it if this writing thing came through. working from home saves so much money. no travel, lunch costs about 70c, all the time i'm not working i can spend writing. but we'll see.

i went to see "how to train a dragon" today. bit late, i know, but still. i got to see it and i'm so glad i did. i could watch a whole movie that involved a winged creature soaring through the air, pulling mad stunts, a backdrop of exhilarating music. yea... it was good.

Did i mention i was playing splinter cell: conviction? I finished it the other night. really enjoyed it. now i have to get lordkilljoy to play co-op with me.

i finished joe abercrombie's trilogy too. i didn't like the end at all. the first book was ok, the second better, but the third was such a let-down. i have best served cold, and i'll probably read it because people said it was better, but it will be a while.
i'm starting the painted man today. can't wait to read it.

i am the strangeness

i'm completely insane.
and i meant that in the best possible way.

i was getting nothing done earlier, and so (with much sighing and reluctance) i went out for a cycle. normal enough - nice weather, good cycle, i think i'm getting less fit - but anyway.
since i cam home i've been laughing away to myself to really silly things. i mean, it doesn't help that claire alerted me to the presence of this silly website, but then davidnarby was talking to me on google and i was just chuckling away to myself. hmmmm.
i mean, it's good. it's just odd. but a good odd.

typing speed

wow - i can do audio typing at 60wmp, not very accurately, but i can do it. so now, i am applying for a job as an audio transcriber. 60wpm is their minimum. i tried 80wmp but fell behind, and my accuracy was even worse.
So anyway - i can now officially say i can type 60wmp, even though i don't. i type about 40, because anything faster is just stressful.

yea... i don't really have anything much to say.

and the sun pours down like honey

i got my space adventure finished. i'm debating posting it on the absolute write forums for critique. i'm so paranoid, and doubly so because i want to submit to an ezine. i got davidnarby and penelope_stone to read it and they liked it. i did some more edits to it today, and i think it's as good as i'm going to get it without critique from someone who has better writing skills than me. and because it's going for submission, i can't just post it on the web. oh well.

in other news: i played hard rain for a bit. my verdict - it would be better if it was a movie. it lacks the essential ingredient that makes a game a game; fun. it's not fun at all.
i'm playing splinter cell conviction at the moment, and really enjoying it. but i think their writer got a bit carried away with them-self. half the dialogue is too wordy / badly structured to follow. i found myself zoning out and at the end of the scene going "i have no idea what they just said." but that's a minor thing. i love sneaking around (even if i'm really bad at it) and getting sneaky kills on guys (even if i feel bad for it - i'd like to have the patience to play the whole game without killing anyone.)

emmm. i'm still looking for a job. i applied for a computer room tech job in a language school. i would absolutely love if they called me for interview and offered me the job. i always wanted to be a tech. i'd see the ones in CIT doing their jobs and i was like: i could do their job better than they are doing it. but sure. we'll wait and see.

so, i think that's all my news.

the sun should shine and i should go for a cycle everyday

about an hour and a half ago, i decided to go for a cycle. i'd had enough of staring at the sky wishing i could jump into it, and swim around in its smooth blueness, and decided i should enjoy it some other way than just in my imagination. so i filled up my water bottle, put on my helmet and went out on my bike.
and i didn't want to come home. i did my usual 12km route, then continued on along the canal because the day and the sunshine and the warm air were just too much of a delight. and to stall going home even longer, i sat under the brand-new, spring-green leaves of a chestnut tree. pure bliss.

and now i'm sitting here, with both the windows open (a little paranoid that a wasp will fly in) and dream of being outside again.

of rayguns and space aliens

i feel like i haven't updated in ages. i've been looking for a job and drafting a query letter. both are very slow processes.

i went home for the weekend. it was good - got to hang out with my parents and go to taleweavers. and the weather was beautiful. i went from wearing 4 layers on thursday to wearing one on sunday. i'm wearing a t-shirt now (and jeans, obviously) with the window open and it's so warm. it helps that the sun is almost full on me - ahh delightful sun-heat.

in writing news, i'm drafting a short story for crossed genres (an e-zine). i'm really excited about it. it's a sci-fi. i love writing sci-fi short stories. it involves a girl and a ship (obviously - i couldn't possibly write a sci-fi if it didn't involve a girl and a ship). i should have draft one done by tomorrow or the next day. it's only going to be 1 or 2,000 words - i should be able to write it in a day, but i'm a little out of writing practice - i've been editing for so long.

ooh - while i was at home, the shed was open and i was rummaging around in it - just looking at all the random bits of things that are broken or gathering dust. and i saw this cool thing that looked like a ray-gun. it was the body from a power washer. but with a little paint it will make a cool space laser-gun. :) i was so excited when i saw it. i took the hose off the end of it and ran around the house pulling the trigger and making pew-pew noises. i can't wait to show it to lordkilljoy. i can't wait to paint it. it's going to be hyperion yellow (anyone who has played borderlands will understand) with black trim and red and silver innards. and maybe a bit of electric blue somewhere to be a little laser-y. and then i'm going to dress as a space-fighter-pilot at every fancy-dress occasion. and if lordkilljoy ever runs a star wars game i'm going to play a roguish captain and have my trusty blaster bedside me. :)
this laser-gun and me: we're going to have some adventures together. :)

can you tell the sun is shining?

more random postings

do you think applying for just one job a day is a little lazy? that's five applications a week and 20 a month. maybe if i applied for 2 jobs a day i'd have a better chance. that would be 10 jobs a week and 40 a month. hmmm. perhaps i should do it that way.
maybe i'll stick with 5.

i'm so silly. as soon as i send off an application my heart starts pounding and a litany starts up in my head: please don't let them call me, please don't let them call me.

right.
ow, ow - my neck just cramped up. that really hurts.
ok - i'm going now.

good news

lordkilljoy often says how he would like to own a cleaver. my response was always: we don't need a cleaver and we have no space for it.
well, today i could have done with a cleaver. i got to hack chicken wings in half and it was so much fun. i got the biggest knife we had, pulled the wing open then whacked the knife down on it :) cut clean through the skin and bone.
great fun. my aim was off a few times, but over all i was quite proud of my butchery.
now the wings are cooking in the slow cooker with a fiery hot sauce on them.

in other brilliant news, davidnarby read my novel and loved it. wooooo :) i was so happy to hear that. it wasn't boring or slow or badly written. he said once the setting was established he was engaged the whole way. i'm so happy.

right, back to fiddling around with my cv. i've been at this three days, and i'm still not happy with it.
yea, you can tell i'm not completely focused because i've started updating my Lj on a regular basis again.

i'm a little hungry

more procrastination today. i spent the whole morning caring for our pets. i cleaned out nymph's tank: got rid of the bit of algae that had started to grow, cleared the debris from the stones at the bottom of the tank, gave him bloodworms to eat (not so sure he likes them as much as crickets) and cleaned off all the ornaments. yea - might take a bit for most of the bacteria to come back, but i kept most of the old water.
then i fed yoshi. he's such a scardy-head. he flinches away from me when i give him some food. silly lizard-boy.

in job-hunt news: i discovered why i never get called for an interview. i have gaps where i didn't work and then whem i did get work it was always short term. i never even considered that prospective employers would see that as a bad thing - they automatically assume that those two things mean you are unreliable and a bad worker. isn't that absolutely horrific? they blame you straight away and don't consider that there may have been no jobs or that your managers were so bad you had to leave. :sigh:
it makes me remember how petty the working world can be. and how much i can't stand shallow people.

yea.

life moves on

i finished draft 2 on friday (at about 1pm). i printed it out and brought it down to cork and there it waits for someone to read it.

so my new task is to find a job so that i can beef up my bank account. and guess what i'm doing right now? (if you guessed procrastinating, have a gold star.) yea. i'll just check Lj and google reader and then i'll get to looking for a job.
and i have to do up my cv and write coverletters. god - there is nothing worse than this. well, except maybe the working itself. but i don't think so.

firefox updated recently and now its red wavy underlines (for wrong spelling) are very obvious.
can you tell i'm struggling for something to say, just so i can pass another few minutes?

yea.
i'll go.

life today

i suppose i should update.

i'm this close (index finger and thumb about a centimetre apart) to the end of draft 2. i finished the whole thing about a week ago and have been reading over it, sorting out bits that i'd skipped over the first run through. so that's kind of cool. i can't wait to get some feedback on this.
it's kinda funny, because when i started on the final bit of editing, i had to sort out the chapters (i'd had 13,000 word chapters - way too long) and now i'm thinking the number of chapters is going to double. i'm half way through and heading to ch. 15 and the original story ended on ch. 16. so yea. i guess 30 isn't a bad number of chapters. (this paragraph comes to you thanks to the word "chapters.")

apart from that, i really don't have a lot of news.

oh wait. i do.
we went to see star wars in concert on sunday. it was cool. my descriptive brain has failed me and all i want to say is: the guy on the tympanum looks like he's having a brilliant time. i want to play the tympanum. actually - i just watched the percussion section for most of it, because you can actually see what they are doing.
and it kinda made me want to watch the first three movies again. they are so pretty. i could fast forward all the bits with anikin in them and just skip on to the next pretty scene. anyway.

yea. i'll go now.

meme

From woodooferret, because i said i would in my answer.

++ If you're on my friends list, I want to know 35 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine.

++ Comment here with your answers and repost the questionnaire on your own journal.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favourite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favourite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What colour eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
26) What's your favourite place to hang out?
27) Do you believe in ghosts?
28) Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
29) Do you swear a lot?
30) Biggest pet peeve?
31) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
32) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
33) Favourite and least favourite food?
34) Do you believe in God?
35) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?