25 More Days!

I'm still really tired from work. No matter how many times I do it, and no matter what time I got to bed, I'll never get used to waking up at five in the morning for an opening shift. But hey, money! I also think I might have gotten a pay raise for some reason. My last pay cheque I was paid fifty cents more per hour.

On another note, my birthday is coming up in just under a month! I'll be turning twenty, and now that it's coming closer, it kind of feels surreal. All my friends were talking about how they didn't feel like they should be turning twenty, and I'm only just beginning to get that feeling too. I know it's still fairly young, but it still makes me feel old. But to counteract that old feeling, my friend and I are combining our birthdays (I'm on the 13th, she's on the 15th) and going out to laser tag, then dinner. It'll be a lot of fun, maybe I'll even take some pictures (because you know how good I am at that.)

And I think I'll need to put some money into getting my laptop cleaned soon. The down button has been broken for months now, and the backspace button is getting sticky, making it a little hard to type, as my sentences may now be full of spelling errors (thank god for Chome's spell check) It'll also be nice to get the internal computer cleaned and hopefully make it run faster.

Anyway, just a quick update. By Friday I might be more awake and willing to come up with something fun.

Fall 2013

As most people know, school started a couple weeks ago. I'm only taking one class so I can get my associates, and that class happens to fall on a Monday. That means that my first class was cancelled because of Labour Day, and I didn't have my next one until the next week. I'm loving it so far. The one class a week part, that is.

The actually class is a little slow. I'm taking a class on the First Nations of Canada. I took a first nations class in high school, so I figured it would be fairly easy. Then again, the class in high school required a lot of drawing, diagram making and other creative aspects. So far it looks like this class will be a lot of note taking, movie watching and essay writing. So a typical college class... I miss high school.

But on another note, I'm really tired. I have to open at work tomorrow and Wednesday, so I woke up early today (okay, I woke up at 8 and hit the snooze button...) Either way, I'm really tired and my brain probably won't be functioning for the next few days. Maybe I'll come up with something interesting to write by Wednesday.

Happy List Part 2

I did one of these lists a while ago as part of a small writing exercise, and I'm going to make another one. Because if you think about what makes you happy, then you will be happy, right?

-Being told you're doing a good job while by yourself during a busy time at work
-Any sort of cold beverage when you're really thirsty
-That moment when your nose unclogs during a bad cold (especially after a sneeze)
-Getting into a hot shower when you wake up sick
-Walking into an air conditioned building when it's hot outside
-That sudden drop on a roller coaster when you become air born and the only thing keeping you in the seat is a small seat belt
-Playing a new video game for the first time (and not being terrible at it)
-When you walk into a book store and just feel like you belong (or any store that strikes your fancy)
-When that book (or movie/CD) that you've been waiting ages for finally comes out
-Finding something that suits you perfectly and instantly falling in love with it
-Finding out that that thing you fell in love with is reasonably priced.
-Seeing your name published in a book
-That feeling of excitement before a big trip, when you can't sleep despite having to wake up early the next morning
-When you're left home by yourself for more than two days, and realizing you're more responsible than you originally thought.
-When your parents come home after a week of vacation and you don't have to be so responsible any more (and the dog stops howling and whining at two in the morning)
-When you get a day off work, and more than one friend also happens to have that same day off
-Finding someone who shares to same love of an author/book series/movie
-When you favourite author gets and award for a book, and for some reason you feel honoured just because you've read that same book

Vacation Part 3

After three days in Disneyland, we spent a day shopping, then a day at Knotts Berry Farm. Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures, so you're going to have to read my rambling instead of looking at it.

I'm a pretty frugal person (except when I see I got a huge pay cheque and get a little too excited), so I really didn't spend much other than on food and drinks. For our shopping day, I bought a really nice red blazer that has a kind of ruffle at the bottom, five pairs of underwear, two of which didn't fit (can't try underwear on), a new Sims 3 game (It has dragons!), a loose red tube top (it actually fits without falling down!) an inexpensive plain black sweater, two pairs of shoes (black pair of sneakers for comfort and a light brown pair of slips ons), and a box of taffy. Note that pretty much everything I bought was under twenty dollars... So yeah, a lot of my money went toward food and drinks.

By the time we went to Knotts Berry farm, I was beginning to feel a little sick. My throat was sore and my head hurt, but I ignored it for the first few hours. The roller coasters there are amazing! Unfortunately, they're the roughest rides I've ever been on. The wooden roller coaster would have been a lot of fun, but I felt like I got whip lash. It was easily the bumpiest ride I've ever been on. There was one coaster that was closed down the majority of the time we were there. Vanessa and I managed to get on it right after it opened, and about five minutes after we got off, it closed down again. Close to the end of the day my knee pretty much gave out, and I was feeling grumpy. My toe on my left food really hurt and my knee on my right leg wasn't bending anymore, so I probably looked like a penguin waddling along to try and keep the pain to a minimum. At least I got a nice souvenir cup that I refilled for free about five times. The final time I just had ice cold water in it to keep on my knee...

When we got home, I took my shoes and socks off to find a massive blister on my big toe, right between it and the next toe. It made for some awkward walking when I tried not to pop it. And since I've barely had a day off of work or school since I got back, my knee is still sore. I really need to rest it up for a few days, but we're really short on staff at work. At school on Monday, it nearly gave out twice while walking.

And of course, my cold got worse. By the time we left California, I could barely talk, and my voice was even worse at work the next day. I still have an annoying cough, which is causing my throat to hurt again, and my nose is only just starting to clear up. Some morning I wake up with a head ache, but it normally goes away after breakfast or a shower.

So there we are, my vacation summer up pretty well. Maybe for Friday I'll try to post some pictures of what I got, I'm just too lazy right now.

Vacation Part 2

Before I forget, today is my first day back at school. I'm only taking one class, so I'm working most of the time. I'll post on Wednesday with a quick update on how my class is.

But back to my vacation! I rarely post pictures on my blog, so I think I'll overload this post with pictures. I'm also feeling a little lazy, and I'm still sick with a cold.

As we were leaving Disneyland to go home for lunch, we ran into Cinderella near the park entrance. The line was a little long, and we were pretty much the only people over five that wanted a picture with her. This was before we actually posed. I had said something funny, and the person taking the picture managed to capture this moment. I think it looks amazing.

Merida! She's my favourite Disney princess, so I was really happy that she was there.

Aladdin and Jasmine were the first characters that we got a picture with (sorry, these aren't in order...) When I was standing next to them, Aladdin made a comment about my Deku Tree shirt. Aladdin plays Zelda!

Unfortunately Sianna got cut off in this picture, but it made me laugh, so I had to include it. 

I was very tempted to buy this hat, but it was fifteen dollars, and I had no where to wear it other than Disneyland, so it would have been a waste of money.

Buying a plastic Merida bow and arrows wasn't a waste though! This thing kept me entertained for a long time. The window at the hotel looks like it was attacked by an octopus or something, because of all the suction cup marks. For the record, I know this is not how you're supposed to stand when shooting an arrow. My right arm is too high, my left arm needs to be fully extended and I'm not putting equal weight on each foot. but I'm standing straight!

There you are, a simple picture post for today. There was more, I might add in a few details later.

The Gilded Chain Review

I'm going to interrupt my story about my vacation so that I can review a book I finished. I just don't want to forget anything about it.

I finished reading The Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan near the end of my trip. It took me forever to read because the writing was terrible. The plot was interesting though, and that's the only reason I continued to read it.

The very base of the book is the idea that specially trained soldiers can be connected to someone by having a sword driven through their heart, therefore making them unconditionally loyal to this person. If their ward dies, especially if it's violently, they'll pretty much go insane. They're able to be released, or retired though, if they're knighted.

Sounds pretty interesting, right? It'll be easier to just make a lit of everything I found wrong...

1) The narrative was bad. It was written as if the main character was speaking, but the book was in third person. if Duncan had written it in first person, it would have been amazing, or if he had not included the thoughts of the main character in the narrative.

2) It went way too fast. I understand skipping several years while someone was growing up, then skipping a few uneventful years later on. However, Duncan skipped two years while the main character went on a journey, and later mentioned things such as shipwrecks, pirates and sickness, all of which would have been fascinating to read about.

3) He uses multiple names for characters. Even the main character has two names; Durendal and another that I can't remember at the moment. When it's the main character, you learn to remember the multiple names, but Duncan would on occasion use nicknames or pet names for other characters, making it hard to follow.

4) It kind of feels like he was writing the whole book with a thesaurus open next to him. It's a fine line between sounded smart and sounding fake when it comes to using large and fancy words. Personally, I don't think it fits when it comes to speculative fiction. Keep it for literature and non-fiction, because most people who read speculative fiction are doing it as a escape, and don't want to have to keep looking up words.

Now of course there were some good aspects about the book, or else I would never have continued with it.

1) The descriptions were very good, especially of the people. It was very easy to envision everyone, except for the main character. This is probably due to the fact that the narrative is almost written in his voice, and would have sounded even more unnatural.

2) The plot. As I mentioned before, the plot is very good. I love how it runs along a timeline, rather than a few days or weeks with flashbacks and complicated twists. This means it's strictly linear and easy to follow, even with several time skips. It's also kind of broken up, so that once one plot twist ends, another begins.

And that's all for this book. It's a good read if you can get over the poor writing. I should also mentioned that this book is about fifteen years old, so there has been lots of time for potential improvement. I have another book by Dave Duncan that I'll try reading later. Unfortunately, it happens to be the third in a series (I bought it at a library book sale), so it might take me a while to get the first book.

I'm Back!

Oh my, I have so much to blog about now. I think I'll cut my vacation into sections to conserve all this material.

So the first day of my vacation we woke up at four in the morning, then realized we could have slept for another forty minutes or so. Either way, we stayed awake, and made it to the airport by about six-ish. I think I'm finally getting the hang of flying and travelling. It's not as complicated as I originally thought. It also really helped that my friend's mom kind of walked us through everything...

One boring plane ride later, we arrive in Los Angeles. Our hotel was really nice, though it was more like an apartment, as we had our own kitchen. While buying our food, I found out that Vons is a part of Safeway, and I was able to use my Club card, which meant I saved us fourteen dollars. I then proceeded to waste those savings by calling a taxi without a long distance plan, because my friend's phone, which does have a plan, wasn't working. Yay for Virgin and their amazing reception! Ends up all my friend had to do was turn her phone off and on...

We spent a bit of time in the pool and hot tub, then watched Wreck-It Ralph. We turned in fairly early, as we were going to be up early for Disneyland, and we were all tired from our early morning.

Anyway, my injury count for that day was one sunburn on my chest and a blister on my toe, along with some sore feet from inappropriate shoes.