A Bittersweet Fountain

Meeting Other Writers

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

It's possible I'm the only writer in the world like this. It's possible that I'm just judgmental, cynical, and socially awkward, and therefore, the only writer in the world who experiences this. But it's also possible I'm not alone, and others among you have the same weird thought processes that I do.

So on Saturday, I went to a Murder Mystery Dinner. The dinner was being hosted by a friend of a friend, and I wasn't an original invitee, since I didn't know these people. But at the last moment, another girl backed out and they needed a girl to replace her. So my friend was like, "I know someone who would love to come!" and thus I got to go to a Murder Mystery Dinner where I knew one couple out of seven people.

Anyway, when I got there I was introduced to one of the other attendees with the following, "Bittersweet, this is Other Writer. Other Writer writes novels. Other Writer, this is Bittersweet. She writes novels, too."

So I shook her hand, but I was thinking, "I wish he hadn't said that." Because I don't like being introduced as a writer or talking to other writers. Because you never know when someone is a real writer or not.

I don't mean a published writer, because that's easy to check. I mean someone who takes writing seriously, who works on it like a craft to be honed but also works on it because not doing so is literally impossible. A lot of people call themselves writers, but I would say only a small portion of them are real writers.

So yes, basically when introduced to other writers, I think "I'm a real writer. Is this person a real writer? Or are they a fake writer?"

I would rather not have that conversation at all, and my first plan of action is to always evade. Change the subject. Do anything else but have them reveal that they got impatient with the publication system to they epublished. (Which isn't to say that there aren't real, good writers going the epublishing route. It's just that, a lot of people e-publish because they don't care to take all the time to hone their craft and are impatient with the fact that writing is a craft, an art, that you must work hard at to become good at).

But I couldn't evade, I was asked point blank what I was working on, so I answered that I was working on the first revision of the book I had just finished. When then caused the girl's husband who was listening to say "oh, you just finished" a little mockingly, as if by saying that I was being high and mighty. In my mind, that was a warning flag that she wasn't a real writer. Which isn't fair. Some writers write one really good novel and that's enough. They spend their entire lives working on it. That's one way to do things. But I would like to make a living as a writer one day, so that's not the way I choose to operate.

The girl I was talking to then said she had been working on the same novel for the past seven years, which then put off another warning flag in my head. Another unfair one, since if you actually count how long I've had the story of Descent in my head, it's been TEN years (though I wrote the first draft just this past year in ten months). And technically, I've been working on Spirit Riddled drafts/revisions on and off for the past six years.

See? I'm being totally unfair. When I meet a writer, I judge them against this measuring stick that even I can't meet. It's ridiculous. Why did this happen? How have I become so judgmental against my own kind?

Turns out this woman is really rather nice. I think I could be friends with her. I don't know where she is in her writing career, but it's unfair of me to judge her so harshly without having read anything she's written.

So yes, I guess the moral of the story is I am judgmental, cynical, and socially awkward. But what I would like to know is if I'm the only writer who has this problem? Am I the only one wary of meeting "my own kind"? The only one who sometimes thinks I'm the only real writer in a world full of phonies? Have any of you dear readers had similar experiences?

Farscape First Watch: I, E.T.

2012-01-27T08:00:00.001-05:00

This episode opens with an alarm going off inside the ship. (The ship is apparently named Moya. I thought it was Moira, but wikipedia corrected me). Considering that at the end of the last episode, everyone was on edge and hating each other, I was surprised that something that's merely annoying like an alarm sort of brings everyone together. I would have expected a lot more suspicion--especially suspicion of Aeryn. (I totally got in this episode that her name was something like "Erin" but had to look up the spelling).

Turns out there is a peacekeeper device on the ship that is signaling their position to the peacekeeper forces. And since Moya is alive, removing it will cause her extreme pain and could even kill her. (Which would be bad for the occupants of the ship to say the least.)

Pilot, the pilot of the ship, explains that there is a substance that would dampen Moya's pain, but its a forbidden cargo for her type of ship because it can mess with their functions. But they need it if they're going to get rid of the device.

They head to a nearby planet where John suggests they land--to the surprise of everyone else. Pilot admits it is possible and Moya thinks they can do it, so the ship lands. But the planet is basically Dagobah (seriously, this was my immediate thought), and like Luke's X-Wing, the ship sinks into the muck.

John, Aeryn, and our Klingon friend--who is named Ka D'Argo according to wikipedia--head out of the ship to find the substance they need. (I think its called clorium). John and Aeryn have a discussion where John compares the planet to Louisiana and Dagobah. (Can I just say it's excellent when a show makes me think of something and then the writers acknowledge it should have made me think of that!) John explains that Dagobah is where Yoda lives, and Aeryn is like who is that? John answers that he's a green alien who trains warriors, and Aeryn accepts that as if its real and serious. I love that!

While they're out and about, some inhabitants of the planet show up (though our crew is hidden) and start a manhunt because an alien spaceship just landed on their planet. The crew seem surprised the planet is inhabited. One would think they could have scanned the planet for lifeforms, or at least signs of civilization, but apparently Moya doesn't have that kind of capability.

Aeryn and Ka D'Argo distract the manhunt group, sending John to find the clorium (which he can find because he has a tricorder). John follows the tricorder reading to a barn where he is essentially caught by a little kid. The little kid gets his mom (like any sane kid would) but before his mom can get there he basically tasers John, because he's scared.

Turns out the kid's mom is essentially a SETI employee. She's one of the people on her planet looking for alien life. So she's both excited and scared to meet John.

John convinces her he's a peaceful scientist with a broken ship whose trying to find his way home. All technically true. The kid can't believe that an alien would be lost, but we viewers are used to that idea; hence the name of the episode. John is E.T.

The mom makes dinner for them, and John's tricorder goes crazy. Turns out the seasoning she's using for the meal is actually the clorium John needs. (Also, I loved the mom's little spiel when she was offering John the meal. She basically says she doesn't know if he can eat, needs to eat, or what she's offering will be toxic to him, but it seems impolite to do otherwise).

John is really excited because he found the clorium; however, his plans are foiled when the military shows up. John has to hide in the kid's room.

Aeryn and Ka D'Argo are both wondering where John is at this point. Ka D'Argo sends Aeryn backs to the ship and he goes to find John. When Aeryn gets back to the ship, she finds that they've already started trying to get rid of the device, without the painkiller. The priestess is trying to take away some of the ship's pain but she can only take so much. And the little dude on the flying chair is the one crawling around cutting away the device.

Back in the house, the mom is able to set up a radio/video chat device for John to contact his ship. She says it's broadcasting on a lot of frequencies which leads me to wonder why the military doesn't pick up the conversation. Anyway, Pilot updates John, and the mom is amazed because Pilot is so alien looking.

Then Ka D'Argo shows up at the farmhouse and tries to fight the military. They capture him, and mom sees this as a chance for John to escape. John, though, refuses to leave Ka D'Argo behind.

Mom expresses surprises that Ka D'Argo is so violent when John claimed to be a scientist, and John fesses up to the whole escaped prisoners thing. Really, John? I mean I know its good to tell the truth, but this is a scenario where I wouldn't have. Because why should mom help escaped prisoners? I would have said something like "even scientists need bodyguards." Seems plausible to me.

Anyway, Mom devises a plan. She shows the head military guy the video of Pilot's half of his conversation with John and then lies to the general about where the video originated from, thus sending him off on a goose chase. John then overtakes the last two guards left and sets Ka D'Argo free.

The kid is really excited and shakes Ka D'Argo's hand, which is really cute. John then says goodbye to mom by kissing her on the cheek, which is completely surprising to her and she's like "This is how you say goodbye?" I liked it.

John and Ka D'Argo get back to the ship. The priestess has passed out from all the pain, the little guy in the chair was disconnected the device, and Moya is in all sorts of pain. But they sprinkle the clorium around and make Moya feel better.

Strangely, despite the earlier concerns that clorium is a forbidden cargo because its bad for the operation of ships like Moya, they are able to take off from the planet.

Mom and kid watch the ship take off from their porch. Well, the kid fell asleep and Mom watches with a smile knowing she helped John get off the planet.

All in all, I really liked this episode. It was cute, and John played the lost alien trying to get home perfectly. Every SF show has this kind of episode, and I think Farscape pulled it off nicely. So the second episode of Farscape gets two thumbs up from me. Though I'm still having trouble with the character names.

Eve: A Desire for Knowledge

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Eve is the most notorious woman in the Bible. Think about it for a moment. The centuries that women have been labelled as "temptresses" or poor decision makers aren't because of the prostitutes of the Bible or the few non-intelligent women of the Bible. No, it's because of Eve and her disastrous mistake.

Because you know us woman. We're all sultry temptresses with no desire other than to bring down the men around us. (*rolls eyes*)

So let's take a closer look at Eve's story and see if she deserves this label she's been given.

In my New American Standard Version of the Bible the versus about Eve's temptation read as follows (the break up between the versus is my own):

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not east from any tree of the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"

The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (Gensis 3: 1-7)

Now, looking at these versus there are a couple of things that stand out to me, but let's just focus on one for the sake of brevity. How did the serpent tempt Eve?

What did he say that he knew would push her over the edge to disobey God? Was it things that might be viewed as stereotypical of a woman? No. He didn't say, "Look how pretty the tree is." Or "the fruit will make you thin and beautiful" or "the fruit will make Adam like you better."

Eve was a woman in her purist, most innocent form--the ultimate woman--and what did the snake offer her that put her over the edge? Look at it again. He says "your eyes will be opened" and "you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The snake offered her to be like God, and the aspect of God he harped on was his knowledge.

He offered woman knowledge, and that was the temptation that put her over the edge. Eve wanted knowledge.

A desire to learn, a desire for knowledge is not considered a stereotype of women. Women have, if anything, been considered stupid and without a desire or a need to learn for the past several centuries. In past centuries, people have uttered phrases like "it's useless to educate women" or "women have no use for education." But the temptation that led Eve to disobey God was not beauty or music or pleasing someone. It was a desire for knowledge.

I think this is fascinating. I think this says something about women. I'm not condoning Eve's disobedience of God at all. She should not have taken the apple. But I think its a fascinating story that the first woman ever created desired knowledge so much that she disobeyed God.

I must say the desire to know is something that definitely drives me. I'm an engineer, and you don't become an engineer without a desire to know how things work, how they operate. The world has always tried to make me feel that this is a weird desire for a girl to have, but here in the very first story in the Bible about a woman I learn otherwise. If anything, it seems to be a woman's most basic desire.

And I think there is a lesson in this. We cannot let our desire to know to overcome our faith, our following of God. We don't always need to know why He tells us to do the things he does. We must trust. We must understand that our desire to know needs to take a backseat to what God desires. We must obey him.

But we also shouldn't let people tell us it's not womanly to know or learn, that knowledge is someone not a part of who we are. Clearly it is. We just need to learn to harness it for the good side of the Force, for God's will.

Are you a woman reading this? What do you think?

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T12:07:00.007-05:00

So today is the Chinese New Year and its the Year of the Dragon!!!!!

Why is that important you ask? Well, maybe its not, but its appropriate, since the last Wheel of Time book comes out this year.

If you've been reading this blog long, you know I love the Wheel of Time. My fictional crush is a character from the Wheel of Time series, and my favorite living writing is finishing the series. I've been reading it since I was eleven, so all of the characters are like old friends.

Wow, I've been reading the Wheel of Time since I was eleven. In less than a month, I turn twenty-five. I've been reading the Wheel of Time for over half of my life, and this is the year it ends.

So this is a year of excitement and trepidation, because something that's been so much a part of me will be over.

I can still remember being eleven, and my dad coming home with The Path of the Dagger, and saying this looked like a book I would like. I remember looking at the cover and thinking, "Wow, this is so cool!" And I remember sitting on the floor in the living room in the really crappy house we lived in at the time, as my mother sat on the couch and read the prologue of The Eye of the World to me out loud. (She insisted on reading the series before I could, to make sure it wasn't "too adult". But she was so impressed by the prologue, she just had to read it to me right then.)

Unlike the untold thousands of others, I will not reread the Wheel of Time this year. I reread it recently, right before The Gathering Storm came out. I'll probably only reread The Gathering Storm and then Towers of Midnight. Then once I read the final book, then I plan on rereading the series, so I can read the entire thing in light of the ending. This is basically what I did with Harry Potter and I found it extremely enlightening to reread the entire series when I already knew the end.

If you've never read the Wheel of Time before, I implore you to start now. If you start reading now, you can be done with the series in time for the last book to come out. And you should really read the Wheel of Time. It's fantastic. I love love love love this series.

It's the year of the Dragon! "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time!"

Farscape First Watch: Premiere

2012-01-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

Today is our first Friday in the Farscape First Watch! Woohoo!! Unsure what this is? Check out this post. But basically, I've never seen Farscape before, so I'm chronicling my first watch of the show. Basically, I'm going to summarize the episode with my feelings and reactions!

We start out with Commander John Crichton, who is an "IASA" astronaut. What IASA stands for, I had to google. It's apparently the "International Aeronautics and Space Agency." Is this a rename of NASA because for some reason they didn't want to use the name of a well known oft used government agency? Possibly. Is this the future and NASA has morphed into a true international organization? I doubt it, because John's father who we meet shortly was an astronaut who walked on the moon and knew Yuri Gagarin, so his father was in his prime in the 60's. My parents weren't even in double digits of age in the 60's and it's 2012, so I doubt this is the future considering how old John's father looked. Another possibility is that it's an alternate Earth: same time we're in now, things just developed differently. This is possible. However, we didn't really spend enough time in this Earth to really determine the truth.

Anyway, John is getting ready for his third time in the shuttle (another reason why it's not the future, they're still using such outdated technology). Strangely, a mission control guy helping him out is a friend from childhood. Why? I have no idea. This adds absolutely nothing to the story, since the emotional connection of a friend can't compare with the emotional connection with his father who works there also and is there to see him off. So, yeah, pointless, not to mention unrealistic friend. (No way to childhood friends would end up as an astronaut and a mission control guy. No way. Trust me on this. I worked at Kennedy Space Center.)

John takes off in the shuttle and when we get to space it is revealed that his experiment is a spacecraft he designed. As if ONE SINGLE person could design a spacecraft. Right. Because John Crichton is an expert in propulsion, structures, avionics, computer engineering, electrical engineering, and every other subset that goes into designing a spacecraft.

While John is in his specially designed vehicle so he can prove a theory--a theory I couldn't quite understand. Is he just slingshot around the planet? Was that a cutting edge theory when this show was created? Because now that's pretty much how every satellite going out to the boonies of the solar system gets where its going. If there was something particular about his theory, I couldn't figure it out.

His friend down in mission control sees a strange electromagnetic wave heading towards John's craft as he's trying to do his maneuver. (Another faux pas. Once launch is over, control of a space mission is given over to Houston. It doesn't stay at Kennedy. But that's besides the point. Let's also forget that every wave is in the electromagnetic spectrum, so...yeah. Mysterious EM wave? What part of the spectrum?) This strange occurrence throws him into what is obviously a wormhole and John finds himself in the middle of a space battle, without Earth in view. So he's definitely traveled some distance away from the Earth, and knowing wormholes in sci-fi he could also be in the future. Though I suppose its also possible that he's in a future where the Earth is merely destroyed, hence it's lack in the field of view of the craft.

Anyway, one of the small fighters hits John's craft, which is doing nothing at the moment, and gets thrown off course and into a nearby asteroid--blowing up. At the time this seemed unimportant. Just another fighter dead in this weird space battle.

The small fighters are attacking a much larger ship, which for some reason attaches a tractor beam to John's ship and pulls him in. And yet no one is there to greet him when he arrives except for a strange little roomba looking thing. John follows the roomba to the bridge where he meets several non-humans. They apparently brought him aboard because his ship is strange and they wondered if it could help them. (Seems a sketchy reason to me. Not to mention, since this is a group of people who live in an obviously spacefaring society, you would think his craft would seem retro or just wrong, not advanced and special).

The attack ends and the fighters leave, though I'm not sure why. Something about a device attached to the outside of the ship. Before all the fighters can leave, the crew of the ship John is on captures one of the fighters.

John is knocked unconscious. The most humunoid aliens hold a conversation from which I took two facts: (1) the Klingon-esque guy is young but doesn't feel like it because he's a warrior and (2) the blue chic is some kind of priestess.

When John wakes up he's naked and in the brig. The small alien who floats on a platform like Yoda's in Episode 1 talks to him and John realizes he's not alone in the brig. A heavily armored person is also there. Turns out its a woman who is a "peacekeeper", the people who were attacking them, who look human but apparently don't recognize the word when John says that's what he is. She's apparently brainwashed into being a peacekeeper, firmly believing everything the peacekeepers stand for.

The aliens on the ship are apparently escaped prisoners. They head towards a nearby planet where a colony lives, and it seems EVERYONE heads down to the planet, leaving the prisoners alone on the ship. (Except possibly the engineer, who we never see except in communications with the main crew). So of course, alone, John and the peacekeeper girl escape. Using a fork. Such fancy technology these spacefaring people have.

They take her ship down to the planet, because she's intent on recapturing the prisoners and she told him the peacekeepers might help him get home. The aliens realize the humans have escaped. The priest alien heads back up to the ship with the Yoda-flying seat alien leaving the Klingon-like alien behind. He then jumps the humans, but then the peacekeepers show up. Turns out the guy that died when he hit John's ship was the brother of the head peacekeeper.

And for some reason peacekeepers who brainwashed Claudia Black (who's fictional name I don't know) didn't brainwash the head peacekeeper enough to not make him take obviously stupid revenge on something that couldn't have been stopped. John's ship was obviously not attacking anyone. His brother obviously accidentally hit it.

The Klingon, Claudia, and John are taken captive by the peacekeepers. Turns out because Claudia spent so much time with John she's been irreversibly contaminated, which is something that makes a lot of sense. If the peacekeepers rely on brainwashing to keep people like Claudia around then over exposure to people who could make her realize she's been brainwashed would be a bad thing for the peacekeepers. I really liked that touch.

John is able to overtake his two guards and get a gun and the keys. He sets the other two three and convinces them all to head back to the ship of the escaped prisoners (our main aliens). Claudia is hesitant, but John and the Klingon make her realize if she stays she's dead. The Klingon doesn't want to take her, but John convinces him to. So all three go back to the ship.

The priest is glad to see them all. The Klingon threatens John. The Yoda-chair dude tries to steal John's stuff. And of course Claudia is still mostly brainwashed. So basically we're given the impression that John is completely alone on this ship.

John makes a recording for his father, promising he'll try to find a way back home, while fixing one of the ship's roombas. The episode ends.

I really wish that end had contained a better sense of John's loneliness. He's in a strange land, all alone, with no real hope of getting home. I don't expect him to be broken (yet), but I do expect him to be really really sad. I expected a little break down and I think the ending would have been more satisfying, made him seem more realistic. I get he's a determined astronaut, but still! He's in a ship with escaped alien prisoners and a peacekeeper who thinks they should all go back to jail. No one has heard of Earth though the peacekeepers look human. Heck, no one has heard of humans. This is ALIEN. And that should be scary and frightening, even for an astronaut.

Anyway, I did like this first episode, though the names of none of the characters (aside from John) stuck with me. I hope they do a better job of getting the names across in the next episode.

The New Schedule!

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

So I've been thinking about what the schedule should be for a few weeks now. I've had several ideas for different series of posts but was unsure which series could be long term for the schedule. And then a couple of things hit me. So without further ado, here it is:

Monday: Writerly Thoughts

This is the day where I'll discuss topics that relate to my writing, writing in general, and books. This should be a familiar series to anyone who has read this blog for a while. Check out other posts labeled writing or writer to know what I mean.

Wednesday: Women of the Bible

We all know one of my New Year's Resolutions is to have a steady quiet time. I really suck at this sort of thing. I've had this women of the Bible book for a really long time. It's a devotional that focuses on a different woman of the Bible each week. So in order to create an accountability for myself, I will post about the woman of the week every Wednesday, my thoughts about her story like how it relates to my life or things I struggle with or more esoteric aspect of the story.

Fridays: Farscape First Watch
So tor.com has several show re-watches running, where someone watches The X-Files or Star Trek: The Next Generation and analyzes the episodes with knowledge of the entire series and society as it is now. These re-watches are fantastic--I've read the entire Star Trek one--and I would eventually like to do something like that for Stargate: SG-1, my favorite show of all time. However, I am also trying to meet a New Year's resolution of getting in shape (so I can survive the zombie apocalypse). The only time I managed to work out regularly was when I told myself I could only watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if I worked out while watching it. This was my first watch of Buffy, so the episodes where brand new and surprising--and able to completely distract me from the fact that I'm working out.

Sometimes I like to think I've seen every Science Fiction TV show out there, but the truth is that simply isn't true. Whether its because I didn't get the channel or because I was too young for the content of the show, there are several SF shows I haven't seen, one of which is Farscape. So I've decided that is to be the show I'll watch while I work out.

I know absolutely nothing about Farscape other than the actors who play Valla and Cameron Mitchell from the later seasons of Stargate: SG-1 are the stars of the show. Because I'm coming from such a blank slate on the show, I think there is something to be said to chronicle my initial reactions and thoughts, whether they be first impressions or exclamations at how the plot unfolds.

If I only post Farscape episodes on Friday it will take us a long time to get through the entire series. However, for now it will only be Friday because I have no idea how I'll like the show and I don't want this to become the rant against Farscape blog. As I get into a blogging routine, I hope to one day expand to blogging every day of the week, except Sunday, and then I'll probably post two Farscape episodes a week. But for now, it's once a week.

So that's the new schedule! I hope you guys enjoy it! First Farscape post will be Friday, but otherwise things will start up on Monday!

Egad!

2012-01-12T13:55:00.002-05:00

Second week back and I've already missed a blogging day? Egad. Sometimes I'm really terrible at this, aren't I?

My only excuse is that I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. After so long without blogging, it's hard to remember it sometimes.

And being done with school means I've been reading books again, and when I get sucked into a book it's like the rest of the world fails to exist.

So forgive me for not posting yesterday, and I will do my best to post on schedule (which currently means Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

What Should This Blog Be When It Grows Up?

2012-01-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

My poor little blog here has suffered a lot through my years at school. It has experienced summers where I have blogged literally every day, and semesters where I've let it languish in oblivion. So I suppose it's no wonder I only have a handful of few faithful followers.

Granted, I don't expect to have hundreds or even dozens of followers. What I suppose I really want is a community, people who comment with opinions and perspective that I don't necessarily have, challenging me to think in different ways. Of course, to get that I have to write posts that in turn challenge the readers with my views. In other words, the number one rule of blog writing. To get good readers, you first have to write good posts.

In the past I really haven't paid much attention to this blog, but now I have time. I have a life. (Or hope to have one very soon). I am a real person (finally!).

I have so many ideas for this blog but I do wonder if I actually have the time to execute them. Would dedicating time to this blog take away from writing in my novels? Plenty of writers blog, right?

And honestly, I would love for this blog to have more detailed reviews of books and movies, since I read a lot of books and watch a ton of movies. But is it safe for someone who wishes to be published to give their honest opinion of a book, even if it's bad? On the other hand, isn't that why this blog is anonymous?

Of course, there is the question, why do I want to write this blog at all? Am I merely seeking a readership? I think that's not true, as my faithful (though sometimes sporadic) posting to this blog has always been to get my thoughts and opinions down and the lack of response or few readers has never really been something that has disturbed me.

So what should this blog be when it grows up? What do I want this blog to be? Really, I would like this blog to eventually become a website of multiple blogs. I plan on reviving Rocket Science Revealed, where I delve into the basics and the complexities of science and engineering. I plan on keeping this blog, where I am free to be sort of my goofy self, expressing every thought and opinion that comes across my head. And I would like a blog dedicated to reviews of SF/F books and movies, where anyone can come and get my honest opinion—but I also hope the opinions of others. I have friends I would love to pull into the project of a review site: friends who specialize in cinematography, friends who read different books than I generally do, a few friends who only occasionally read SF/F and can bring interesting dialogue to the table.

Oh the ambitions I have! But I don't want any of these blogs to languish as this one has done in the past, and I want them to all be connected.

For now, I think I will dedicate myself to reviving this blog and Rocket Science Revealed. I think my plan is to wait to open the review blog until I have friends who are dedicated to writing in it with me and I have already written quite a few reviews (so I have a backlog).

But those are my ideas, my ambitions. Do you guys have any thoughts on what you hope to get out of this blog or any others I might have in the coming year?

2012 New Year’s Goals

2012-01-06T10:35:00.002-05:00

Another new year brings another blank slate of possibilities. What will happen in 2012? Part of me has no idea, because 2012 is a year of scary new possibilities. But I still have goals, and at the beginning of this fresh shiny New Year, I like to write them out and post them. That way I'm held accountable.

So once again I'm going to break up my goals into three categories: Engineer Goals, Writer Goals, and Christian/Personal Goals.

Engineering Goals:

Do well at my job.
We actually have a ton of goals at my job, but it's not necessary or appropriate to hash them all out here. We're hoping to make a lot of changes in how we run and do things in the 2012 year. But my goal, as an engineer, is just to do well. This is my first long term, real job. And I want to do well at it. So during my work hours I plan to do a better job of not being distracted, of devoting myself to my work, and at excelling at what I do.

Writer Goals:

Make the FINAL revision on Spirit Riddled.
This is a goal that has rolled over from 2011. I really want to get Spirit Riddled done, to stop ignoring it, and to get in a shiny, beautiful final draft that I can be proud of and hopefully query.
Revise The Descent of Chris Chappell.
I've actually already started working on this. I revised the first chapter and let me tell you—it completely changed. I basically threw out the original first chapter and rewrote the entire thing from scratch. And I think it's much stronger. I have no delusions that this revision will be the final revision. This is Descent's first revision. (Unlike Spirit Riddled which is on revision number six I think). But I don't want this WIP to just languish. I want to continue to work on it and make it better.
Start querying.
Considering Spirit Riddled is in revision six and Descent is on revision one, you would think I could rewrite this as "start querying Spirit Riddled." But as improbable as it may seem, it's quite possible that in my new life as a non-student, I'll be able to get through several good revisions of Descent this year and bring it up to a querying par. And considering I'm in the middle of my Descent mojo, I may put off Spirit Riddled for a long while. So I think I'll be satisfied as long as I start querying something this year.
Not be a slacker critique.
I actually think I'm off to a good start on this one. I critiqued someone's first two chapters in a timely and orderly manner over Christmas break. So yay!
Not be a slacker blogger.
Since I'm not a student anymore, I have no excuse to let this blog die middle of the semester. Hopefully, it'll be like the summers have been in the past, where I blog nearly every day. But we'll discuss this more next week when I discuss the future of this blog.

Christian/Personal Goals:

Actually have a regular quiet time.
This is another goal that has rolled over from last year, but I'm confident that now that I'm not a student I can actually have a normal schedule in my life. The kind of schedule that doesn't involved people calling me at 9:00 PM to ask me if I've started the Orbital Homework and if I would like to come over and work on it with them. I just need to find a time and stick to it. Though, I think I'll be a bad Christian and not do it first thing in the morning. All I want to do first thing in the morning is take a shower, eat breakfast, and get to work. So it'll probably be an evening quiet time.
Be fit enough to survive a zombie apocalypse.
This goal is all about getting in shape. Now that I'm not a student, I can actually work out without feeling guilty. I would like to lose weight as well, but that's such a superficial goal, I feel like. I don't want to just lose weight. I want to be healthy. If the zombie apocalypse happens, I want to be able to outrun a zombie. I want to survive.
Start cooking real meals, weekly.
Seriously, for the past six years I have survived off of microwave dinners. It's kind of disturbing. This sort of fits into my previous goal of wanting to be healthier, but I didn't want to cram it into that goal. This goal is its own thing. It's not just about being healthy. It's about learning to cook delicious things that I'll want to eat. I'm sort of a picky eater and I would like to find recipes I love and love to eat.

So those are my goals! And I guess another goal is I would like to beat my 50% rate of meeting goals that I got last year.

Anyone else out there have some big goals for the New Year?

Why I’m Terrified and Excited about Being Done With School

2012-01-04T11:07:00.001-05:00

For the past twenty years of my life, I have been in school. Now, suddenly I'm done.

This is incredibly exciting, especially considering how terrible and rigorous college was. It's possible some of my readers out there are long removed from college, have never been to college, or majored in partying at college, so let me explain.

I love engineering. I wanted to learn engineering and don't regret the six years I spent at Georgia Tech earning two degrees. But undergrad sucked, and the two years I spent getting my Master's Degree were the two most terrible year of my life. Seriously. They trumped elementary school.

I have never felt more stupid, more out of my depth, and more overwhelmed than I did in grad school. It was like I was drowning. But even putting that aside, putting aside that grad school utterly sucked, looking at the past six years of undergrad and grad school, there is one feeling that constantly plagued me.

Guilt.

That might come as a surprise, but stay with me.

Every moment of every day for the past six years that I did something fun, something for me, I felt guilty. I shouldn't be watching TV. I should be doing homework. I shouldn't be getting a pedicure. I should be doing homework. I shouldn't waste an hour trying to cook a real meal when a microwave meal takes five and then I can spend those 55 minutes I saved doing homework. Work out? What? I should be doing homework!

I did fun things in college, but while I did them, I felt constantly guilty, because I constantly had work or studying I should be doing. There was always a homework assignment, always research, always some studying I should be doing. Even when I took summers "off" to work at a real job, I knew I should be spending my evenings after the job working on my research, not having fun.

Now that guilt is technically gone. I can watch TV. I can work out. I can cook dinner. I can go shopping (well, mainly because I have money now, but free time plays a factor in that too). And I can do it all without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else, something less fun. This is an incredibly exciting prospect, one that I can barely begin to imagine.

And that's why it's so terrifying. For the past six years "free time" has been Friday night and Saturday morning—and that's pretty much it. For the past semester, free time has been unimaginable. I worked all day, came home and did school work, and then spent the weekends doing school work.

What will I become with free time? What will I do with myself? Write I hope. Read. Work out. Cook. Hang out with friends. All the things I did guiltily before, I suppose, but it's strange.

Being a student has defined me for the past twenty years, and now I'm no longer a student.

I'm a real person.

I have no idea where my life will go from here, how I will spend my hours, or what I might do. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Essentially, it's an adventure. I don't know if I'm ready for it, but it's here. So I guess there is only one thing I can say:

Allons-y!

2011 In Review (aka: Did I meet my New Year’s Goals?)

2012-01-03T15:42:00.002-05:00

At the beginning of 2011, I posted about my goals for 2011. It seems every year people make goals, but do we ever complete them? Well, in order to figure it out, I'm looking at each of my goals here to see if I met it or some part of it.

I split up my goals into three categories: Engineer, Writer, and Christian. Let's look at them again, shall we?

Engineer Goals:

Graduate in December 2011.
This one is a technical no but a reality yes. That may not make sense, so let me explain. On December 16, 2011, I finished every bit of work I need to do for my Master's Degree. The following Tuesday I received my grades that let me know I would pass and get said Master's Degree. So done right? Sort of. Because I moved to Albuquerque this year, I had to finish that last semester of school via Distance Learning, and Georgia Tech's Distance Learning office has this really weird rule: a Distance Learning student cannot graduate until the semester after she finishes all her course work. So though I finished everything this past Fall semester, I'm not allowed to graduate until next May. It's very strange. So I'm going to say I completed this goal, though on a technicality I didn't.
Get a job at JPL.
That's a no. I did not get a job at JPL. However, I did get a job, a job I love, and I started it in June 2011. That's why I moved to Albuquerque, NM. So though this is a no, the heart of goal was still met. I got a job, a great job that I love, a job that enables me to work on satellites. What more could a girl ask for?
Complete my design of R3's ADCS.
This is a pass. I'm done with my thesis. *does a happy dance*

Writer Goals:

Make the FINAL revision on Spirit Riddled.
This is a fail. I did not even get through a single revision of Spirit Riddled this year. Working a full time job and trying to finish up a Master's Degree is really time consuming, and so is revising a novel. So this goal is going to have to slip to 2012.
Start querying Spirit Riddled.
Do I really need to say it? Without that final revision, I couldn't query Spirit Riddled, so this is a fail. But next year. Oh, 2012 is going to be a good year.
Finish a first draft of ANY other book.
Pass with flying colors! I actually didn't think this would happen at all. But this is the very blog where I posted my sudden inspiration about The Descent of Chris Chappell. Though I had a good start on it, I thought that trying to do the dual school and work thing would make this slip to 2012. But it turns out, writing a first draft is the exact sort of de-stresser I needed while writing my thesis. So to my complete shock, I finished the novel in November. Sure, it's only a first draft. It needs revision. But it's done! I met this goal!
Not be a slacker critiquer.
I'm going to say this is a fail. I only committed to critiquing for one person this year, a friend of mine who writes SF, but once again, my crazy life got in the way. But now that I have free time (I know, mind boggling) I'm foreseeing that this will be a goal I can meet in 2012. Woohoo!

Christian/Personal Goals:

Be a nicer person.
I have no idea. It's really hard to judge. But two of my friends asked me to be in their weddings, so that means some people like me? Right? And I moved to a new state where my new coworkers all took to me really well, so I seem to be doing ok. And I got in no major fights over Christmas, though that was due to more of a "keep your head down" policy than niceness. But let's just call this a pass, ok?
Actually have a regular quiet time.
Fail. I suck at this. I'm going to do better though. This is going to continue into 2012. It's going to happen. I am going to develop good habits!!

In Summary:

I think we can say I met 5 out of my 10 goals. Sure if this was a class, that would be fail, but it's not a class. It's life. I think 50% is pretty good. But we'll aim for better in 2012. We could say that's a New Year's Goal.

So how about you? Did anyone out there meet any of their New Year's Goals?

Haitus Over (Starting Next Week)

2011-12-28T14:12:00.002-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen! Friends, Romans, Countrymen! Blog readers! I'm back!

I am unofficially officially done with my Master's Degree. Yes, a little confusing, but I have finished all the course work and thesis work necessary for my degree. Everything has been accepted and approved. The only pesky thing keeping me from officially claiming I have a Master's Degree is a silly rule Georgia Tech has. Essentially Distance Learning students (like myself) are not allowed to graduate in the semester where they finish everything. They have to wait an extra semester. So even though I'm done, I don't officially graduate until May. It's weird.

But for all intents and purposes, I am done! Which means I can start blogging again!

Actually, it means a great many things which essentially boils down to one thing: After twenty years of school, I'M DONE!

I could start blogging regularly this week, but I decided to not post until next week, so my new life as a real person (aka not a student) would start in the New Year. Look forward to posts that discuss the direction of this blog, what sort of posting schedule you can expect, discussions about whether I met last year's New Year's resolutions, and a discussion of my resolutions for this year.

I'm really excited to actually be able to put time into this blog, time where I don't feel guilty because I know I should actually be doing work. So be excited! I certainly am!

Rest In Peace Anne McCaffrey

2011-11-22T22:48:00.002-05:00

I've come out of my blog hiatus because Anne McCaffrey has passed away.

I learned about her death this afternoon from a facebook update by Brandon Sanderson. At the time I was sad and horrified, but as the day has gone on and the reality has set in, I've realized how truly sad I am.

It's not just that a legend has died. It's not just that a woman who changed how women were viewed in Science Fiction died. It's that someone who personally affected my life has died. I can't think of middle school without thinking of going to the library and checking out a Pern book.

I can't express how those books have affected me. I tried to express it somewhat in this post. But I don't think that post does it justice. I don't think anything can.

Anne McCaffrey taught me that women can be strong and that they can succeed in a society in men. Not by being bullies or purposefully defying them, but by just being awesome. Menolly didn't have to overthrow Harper Hall to become great. She just did her best and strove to be great.

It was from Anne McCaffrey that I first learned that often the biggest fight being a woman in a man's world is not with men, but with women. Most of the male apprentices accepted Menolly, but the female singers shunned her for thinking she could be a harper, for thinking she was better than them.

I'm not sure this post is making any sense. Maybe its because I've spent the entire day staring at my computer. Maybe its because I kind of just want to cry that a woman who has been like a mentor to me, even though I've never met her, has died.

Anne McCaffrey shaped how I view women, and how I view my place in the world as a woman. I am a woman in a man's world--the man's world of engineering--but I know I can succeed because Anne McCaffrey taught me about the sorts of barriers I will come up against and the appropriate ways to handle them.

So thank you, Anne McCaffrey. You will be missed. I will miss you.

And now I'm going to curl up with "The Smallest Dragonboy" and remember the woman who has shaped the woman I am today.

Haitus

2011-11-01T10:38:00.002-04:00

It's official. This blog is going on a hiatus.

While November is often known as "NaNoWriMo" or National Novel Writing Month, this November shall be known to me as "MaProWriMo" or Master's Project Writing Month. My Master's Project (which is like a thesis just minus the defense) is due on Dec. 16th, and until I turn it in, that is all I will be doing.

Seriously, I keep waking up in the middle of the night writing down ideas for how to improve my project.

My stress level has skyrocketed and I'm currently in a state of emotional instability because of it. When I accidentally locked myself out of my computer at work yesterday, I burst into tears. At my desk. At work. Yeah, that sort of thing happens when you're stressed to level I am.

So, please excuse me for the not posting and just keep in mind that once this time of famine for the blog passes, I will be free. FREE! No more school. Ever.

I can see the promised land.

If you could keep me in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it.

Using Tropes

2011-10-18T14:36:00.001-04:00

I was going to write this post about breaking rules. Not real rules, like the law or physics or grammar, but the sort of rules you find when you start stalking following agents. For example: don't ever have your main character wake up at the beginning of a novel. Sure Kafka pulled it off (note: he also turned his MC into a bug on that first page, so yeah) but nowadays you should just avoid this. As soon as an agent sees your character waking up in that first page, she's rolling her eyes and saying, "Good Lord! Not again!"

This past weekend I re-read The Maze Runner, in preparation for The Death Cure (which I also read and it was great). And afterwards, I thought "hmm, didn't James Dashner just break a rule by opening with an amnesiac?"

But as I thought about it, I couldn't actually remember an agent ever saying, "Don't open your story with someone who has lost their memory!" For some reason, my mind has it defined as a common trope but I can't remember any examples of a book opening this way, except for The Maze Runner. Sure TV uses amnesia all the time, but books? I can't think of a one.

Well, I can, but it's The Lost Hero, and I don't think it counts since it's equally new and wouldn't have created this trope.

But I'm fairly certain amnesia is something that is considered as a trope. So what makes The Maze Runner or for that matter The Lost Hero compelling despite the fact it begins with a classic trope that might cause agents to roll their eyes?

For The Lost Hero, I think it gets the benefit of a doubt because it's a follow up to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, but I also think it's because there is no obvious (non god related) reason why this kid Jason should not have his memory. He's sitting on a school bus. His best friend and girlfriend have been with him the entire time—no time for him to stumble off and hit his head without him knowing. Somehow, just sitting on a bus, this kid lost his memory. Or else something else is going on. And that's what keeps you reading. What else could be going on? Or how could a kid just suddenly lose his memory?

But The Maze Runner I think just takes this trope and makes it new. How? Why? Well, let's dissect it.

"He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air."

New life? What new life? And does the fact he faced this new life, started it, standing up, facing it, taking it like a man—does that tell us something about this mysterious character? And why would a new life begin in such a cold stale dusty place???? These are the thoughts that would pull me in if I read this first sentence.

The next three paragraphs show us that this person (we don't know if he's a kid or adult yet) is in an elevator, and Dashner's descriptions are vivid. You can hear the grind of metal against metal and feel the shudder of the room. Why is this guy beginning his new life in an elevator? What does it mean?

It's not until the fifth paragraph and on that you realize this guy has no better idea than you where is or why he is there. Somehow this boy (for we do learn he is a teenager) lost his memory and he lost it STANDING UP.

Think about that for a moment. Usually if you experience head trauma that's bad enough to cause memory loss, you're probably going to be disoriented and lose your sense of balance. But our main character, Thomas, was standing up when we met him. Somehow, while standing up, he lost his memory.

I mean doesn't that just make you want to know what happened? How it could happen?

If that's not enough, the fear and confusion Dashner conveys about being in this awful, dank elevator also kept me going, but ultimately what won me, was what Thomas meets when he gets out of the elevator.

A community of boys who all arrived to this strange place via the same elevator and who all have no memory of any life before living in this community.

This isn't just an isolated, stereotypical amnesia. This amnesia is caused by something—some higher organization within the novel that is plotting something. That wants a group of boys who have no idea where they are or how they got there, other than an elevator.

Something is going on. And it's ultimately the question "What's going on?" that keeps me reading.

So think about that, the next time you want to write a trope. It can be done. It can be done well. But you have to do it in a way that keeps the reader wondering what's going to happen next and "What's going on?"

Next couple of months

2011-10-14T13:48:00.003-04:00

I know I promised every Tuesday and Thursday, but its not happening. It's just not happening.

Balancing school, work, and some semi-semblance of a life are just too difficult.

I spend my week working, as in a real job. My workday is 7:30 am - 4:30 pm. If I need to run any errands, I need to do it after work. And I have to take care of my dog. And by the time six thirty hits, I'm wiped and all I want to do is watch TV. But I can't because my apartment is a wreck and I need to clean it. Or I need to cook something so I can eat regular food at work tomorrow instead of eating fast food for lunch.

Why don't I do errands and chores on the weekend, you ask? Easy. Because I spend my weekends:

watching lectures for my final class
doing problems/tests for said final class
trying to create the required Matlab code for my Master's Project which I have to finish by December
trying to write said Master's project

Seriously, last weekend, I watched two 1.5 hour lectures for my class, took a seven question test that took me an entire day, outlined and planned out the actual writing of my Master's Project, and reworked some Matlab code to try to make it actually work, realized that wouldn't work, banged my head for two hours trying to figure out what would work, tried to implement said new work around, and realized this new work around required even more work than I anticipated.

So basically my life sucks. I don't have time to try to branch out and join groups to meet people so I can make friends in Albuquerque, where I've only been living for a few months. My only friends are my friends from work, and I can't even commit to a game of Settlers of Catan with them because I'm all "That will take hours!!!"

Seriously, one of my work friends invited me over to a movie night on a Friday night and I said, "Only if we're done by ten, because I'm getting up at seven on Saturday to work on my Master's Project."

Not exactly a conducive attitude to making friends. But a great attitude for getting work done.

But I have hope, because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Mid-December the trials and tribulations of grad school will end. Then I won't have to spend my weekends on school stuff. Instead I can spend them making friends. I'll have time during the week to work out and then I can be in shape again. Life will be good.

Of course that hope is partnered by fear, because OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO BE DONE WITH MY MASTER'S PROJECT BY DECEMBER. I actually have to have a finished project. *pass out*

So thinking about my new shiny life on the horizon immediately leads to panic, which leads to me not doing my chores during the week, but instead banging my head against Matlab in an attempt to get something done, so my chores build up until it reaches a point of over boiling and I have to waste a weekend I should have been using to work on my project to clean house which then leads to more panic because OH MY GOSH I'M SO BEHIND!

Basically I'm a positive feedback system of panic and stress. (Positive feedback, for those who don't know, is bad. It's what causes that squeal that microphones make when they get too close to each other or speakers.)

So you'll have to forgive me if I don't post as regularly as I claim. I try, because writing these posts relieves stress. It doesn't relieve the amount of work I have to do, but it brings down my panic level. And a high panic level is not conducive to good work.

Please don't give up on me if the next three months on this blog are rough and not posted regularly. I promise I'll come back in January, full swing. Maybe even blogging everyday.

Because come January my life is summer all the time.

No more school. I can't even imagine how glorious it will be.

*panics*

Smell the Pumpkin in the Air!

2011-10-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

My friends, it's that time of year again! The time of year when normal people decorate their houses with ghosts and witches. When pumpkins are carved and become jack o'lanterns. And when Starbucks puts out pumpkin bread. Can you smell the scent of pumpkin in the air? It's Halloween time!

I've posted before on my love of Halloween. But I feel it needs to be revisited. Because I really do love Halloween.

So I'm going to try to discuss different aspects of Halloween at least once a week. I want to discuss my favorite horror movies, whether not I believe in ghosts, how much I love costumes, and just in general how awesome Halloween is.

Today's aspect of Halloween to discuss is the food.

Pumpkin is undoubtedly my favorite vegetable. Hands down. I like it in bread and muffins. I like it in pie. And I like just its seeds when they've been baked. Yum. And yet, despite this squash's awesomeness, it only comes out once a year. Why? Why do pumpkins only reign from October to Thanksgiving. Come December, Starbucks will put away its pumpkin bread. Einstein's will hide away the recipe for pumpkin bagels. And good luck finding a pumpkin in a grocery store! I mean, I get that fruits and vegetables have their appropriate seasons, but modern technology means that most are able to be grown all year long. Why not pumpkins?

And speaking of pumpkins, does anyone else out there love those pumpkins that are made out of similar stuff as candy corn? You usually find them with the candy corn, and both are delicious.

After all, what is Halloween without the candy? I never buy straight up candy during the rest of the year. I'll buy ice cream and cookies, but candy? It's too dangerous to keep in the house. I would eat it all the time. But at Halloween, I buy bags of it. I have a bowl at home full of candy and one at my office. And let me tell you, the one at my office, I have to refill daily. So clearly I'm not the only one with a lack of self control when it comes to candy.

Oh, Halloween. How you bring out the best sweets and treats!

Anyone else out there have a love of Halloween food? Does anyone have unusual Halloween traditions when it comes to food and candy?

I've Gone Insane

2011-09-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

I have a terrible track record of not blogging consistently. I mean just look at my archives and its obvious. So clearly I must have gone insane. Or my eyes are bigger than my mouth or ambitions higher than my reach or something like that.

Why?

Because I just started a new blog.

And not a blog that replaces this one. Oh no, a blog to write in addition to this one.

Because as I was thinking about this blog, I've realized its come to be mainly about my life, writing, and my beliefs. Which are great things and things I love discussing. But somewhere along the way, the engineering and science part got lost. And I have a lot to say on those topics, more than a randomly assigned day of the week can make up for. So I've decided to start a new blog solely devoted to science and engineering.

You can check it out here.

So let's see how this adventure goes. And please pop over there and check out Tuesday's post as well as today's post.

This blog, my bittersweet fountain one, will still contain all my anecdotes about being an engineer. All the funny, quirky little stories about my life that are caused because I'm an engineer and live on the socially awkward side of the social spectrum. My new blog, Rocket Science Revealed, is going to focus on the hard science facts and explaining them to you, my reader, in terms a layman can understand.

So come by and check it out. Who knows? Maybe you'll learn something.

And if you have engineering questions, ask them. Because I'm here to answer your questions.

Don't let your science fiction lack facts! Don't let fear of science stand in your way from learning. It's not that hard. And I promise not to drop any differential equations on you. :)

Dragon*Con and Amanda Tapping

2011-09-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

I know I promised pictures from Dragon*Con, but alas, I do not have them. I took pictures, but with my dad's camera. And I don't currently have anyway to transfer those pictures from my dad's camera to my computer. I need to go to Best Buy and buy an SD card reader, but I haven't been able to fit that into my schedule. So it's still going to have to wait.

But I can tell you about Dragon*Con and its sheer awesomeness.

Dragon*Con was far more crowded than I ever remember it being. I heard rumors of their being 50,000 people. If you've never been to an event like it, it's hard to fathom what this means. Basically imagine crowds that you can't fight. It's like being in an ocean or river, caught by the current. You don't know where you're going or why you're going there, only you can't fight the river of people. And suddenly you find yourself at an escalator that goes down--and you want to go up--but you have no choice but to go down because you CAN'T FIGHT THE CURRENT!

Despite that chaos, it was awesome, and this year I got to meet one of the women who brought to life one of my personal heroes. I met Amanda Tapping, who plays Samantha Carter in my favorite TV show of all time--Stargate SG-1.

I was really excited. I stood in line to get her signature, but the pressure of the line to move quickly meant I didn't get much time to talk to her. Alas. But the next day there was a Stargate Panel that she was attending, so I went to that.

This panel turned out to by awesome. Amanda Tapping and two other actors were present (both of the others were from Atlantis). Usually at Dragon*Con, if you want to ask a question you line up behind a microphone, and the people answer from on stage--where they sit at a table facing you. But this time, the two other actors grabbed wireless mics and ran around the audience, coming to the people who had questions. So people brave enough to ask questions were reworded with getting to talk with, stand near, and shake hands with a Stargate actor.

So being an engineer, I had a question. I asked, "As an engineer, I find myself often saying things then pausing and thinking, 'I can't believe I just said that and its real.' Did you guys ever have moments like that?" Well, Amanda Tapping didn't really answer that question exactly, but her answer was even more awesome.

She explained that one time she was reading the script and there as an equation written in it. She was supposed to write it on a board or something in the episode. At this point she had been playing Samantha Carter--astrophysicist extraordinaire--for quite some time. Looking at the equation, she just had a gut instinct that it was wrong. So she spent a day working it out, trying to figure out the accuracy of this equation. And by the end of the day she realized not only was it wrong but found the correct solution!

She then took it to the writer, all excited, and was like "Dude, this equation is wrong!" The writer then just looked at her and said, "Whatever, Amanda, just fix it."

On one hand, it makes me frustrated that the writer didn't care to double check their accuracy. But on the other hand, it made me really excited that one of the characters who inspired me towards my career path and engineering, actually inspired the actress who played her to look into science. How awesome is that!

So Amanda Tapping is going down in my book as being legit and awesome. Sure she's not actually an astrophysicist, but after hearing her talk I could tell she realized her character's impact on girl's like me and took it seriously. And that's amazing.

sigh

2011-09-16T10:27:00.003-04:00

I know. I've dropped off the face of the planet since Dragon*Con. But this whole balancing a full time job, taking a class, finishing my thesis, revising a novel, writing a novel, and blogging thing isn't easy.

But I promise I'll be back next week. Promise promise promise. Cross my heart.

I really don't want to cut blogging out of my schedule for a variety of reasons. (1) I love blogging. It gives me an outlet to express a lot of my feelings in an essay-esque form, and I have a lot of things I like to express. (2) Some of my friends back in Atlanta read it, and it helps them keep in contact with me. (3) It makes me feel like a part of a community, the crazy, writer-wanna-be community. But I love being a part of that community.

So I will be back. And I will manage to do all the other things I need to do this semester.

And next semester will be peaches and creme. No more classes. No more thesis. Just work and novel writing. Yay!!

Dragon*Con Prep

2011-09-01T15:48:00.003-04:00

I know. I haven't posted at all since I said I was changing the schedule. Bad me. I know. But in my defense classes did just start, my super awesome best friend Alisha did just get married, and Dragon*Con is this weekend.

So I spent last week trying to figure out how distance learning works and writing a speech for Alisha's wedding (since I was maid of honor). And I had to fly back to Atlanta for the wedding and there was craziness.

And this weekend I have to fly back to Atlanta again for a different sort of craziness.

I've been prepping for Dragon*Con all month, mainly trying to get my costume together. "WHAT?" you ask. "YOU'RE DRESSING UP! You nerd." Why yes. I am a nerd. I am also a geek. And as such, I have this quote to counter your judgement of my nerdiness and geekiness:

"Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-can't-control yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is "You like stuff." Which is not a good insult at all. Like "You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of the human consciousness." ~John Green

Hah. So there. Don't judge me for enthusiasm and excitement.

(I would argue that every use of the word nerd should be replaced with geek, but that's just my personal definition of those words.)

Anyway, I've been getting my costume together and one of them is a steampunk costume. People keep asking me what that is so let me post this video as the answer to that question:

(Note: I am not, nor have I ever been, a Goth--not a judgement of those who are/were, just a statement of fact--but I do love Steampunk)

I think the Sci-Fi janitor videos are one of my favorite parts of Dragon*Con. dc*tv in general is awesome, but the Sci-Fi janitors were a pure stroke of genius. I mean how can you not watch this video without laughing:

So yeah. I should be back on Tuesday with my new regular blogging schedule and a Dragon*Con recap. See you then!

Fall Semester Schedule

2011-08-22T12:37:00.000-04:00

It’s a vast understatement to say that this summer did not turn out as I expected it to. If you had asked me last April what I thought I would be doing this summer, I would have told you going to Florida for my co-op, reading a lot of books, and blogging regularly. Turns out none of that was true. I got offered a full time job in Albuquerque, I only read about 10 books, and well, you can be the judge of whether I blogged regularly or not.

Despite my full time job, I’m not actually done with school. I have one more class and my master’s project left to complete. Which means this next semester is going to be crazy. Not only is my work going to be busy, but I have to take a class and complete my research for school. Essentially, if I survive this semester without pulling my hair out, it will be because of the grace of God.

So blogging isn’t going to be exactly high on the priority list (though I love doing it as a stress reliever and stress relief is pretty high on the priority list). Therefore, the attempted daily blogging schedule is going to be erased. We will be going back to a Tuesday/Thursday blogging schedule.

Because I’m only having two blogging days, they will have no theme. I will post about whatever I want to (and whatever you request).

So I just wanted to let you guys know what’s up.

Wish me luck in the following semester.

Killing your...uh...very much loved things

2011-08-17T19:28:00.002-04:00

(I know its Wednesday, which means I should post something Western themed, but since I didn't post on Monday I decided to post on Writing today instead.)

I was going to entitle this "Killing Your Babies", but I thought non writers might not get it. They might think I was actually talking about killing your children. Which I absolutely am not talking about or anyway condoning.

I am, of course, talking about your manuscript.

That first shiny idea for a manuscript is very near and dear to your heart. And your manuscript is in many ways like a child, your baby that you've created that you love more than anything. You don't see its warts and wrongs. You think its perfect and wonderful because its yours.

But sometimes, your kid is a punk. Sometimes your kid is spoiled rotten. And sometimes, your manuscript needs to be completely changed.

So Spirit Riddled, my completed MG novel, has undergone many changes at this point, but its still not the manuscript it needs to be. And last year I got a lot of really good feedback, but some of that feedback involved things that pretty much surmounted to completely changing the story, to killing my baby.

This is something I've been dwelling on for a while. Which feedback is legitimate and will make the story better and which feedback is simply because the critiquer doesn't understand my story like I do? It's a fine line, a very fine line.

So last night I called one of my friends and we talked for two hours, mainly about my story, and which changes we thought were actually necessary to the story. We also talked about my vision for the story (the story arc that will hopefully cross multiple books) and how I can condense that so it can actually be sold. (No one is going to sign me for an a million book series, lol).

I think the solution we settled on is still true to the vision of my story but addresses many of the concerns of the critiquer.

But as I mentioned before its still a fine line. An author has to balance their true vision with something that can actually sell. Where is the balance? At what point are you giving up your artistry to be sale-able?

Any opinions, any thoughts?

Engineering Conferences

2011-08-16T21:40:00.004-04:00

I attended my very first engineering conference last week. Though I went to two years of grad school and numerous reviews and workshops, I had never had the chance to go to an honest for goodness engineering conference.

This past week I attended the Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah.

And it was awesome.

Imagine 500 engineers, ages high school to 90 years old, all in one place. All talking about something their incredibly passionate about.

Essentially, imagine DragonCon, but instead of people going all fangirl over Brandon Sanderson, they're going fangirl over James Wertz, the editor of Satellite Mission Analysis and Design. Seriously, I haven't seen that much excitement over the new release of a book since Harry Potter Seven. And this book weighs four pounds. Literally, everyone I knew at the conference bought one.

Personally, I went from booth to booth, trying to find vendors of reaction wheels. And when I came across the reaction wheels for CubeSats my mind was blown. CubeSats are satellites that are 10 cm by 10 cm by 10 cm. So basically their reaction wheels are the size of quarters.

Mind blowing.

It's amazing how technology adapts and changes. How people can find solutions for the impossible. And that's the great thing about conferences. You get to discover what everyone else in your field is doing: the work that has been actually accomplished and the work that is cutting edge theory. I sat through four days of lectures and I only fell asleep in a handful of them.

And the falling asleep is inevitable, because engineers love to party.

Granted its not always what you imagine a party to be, since a lot of engineers tend to be socially awkward, but its our version of partying. I saw three movies (Cowboys and Aliens, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Captain America). I went bowling four times (won two of those games). And went to two "socials" (officially approved events by the conference). But the "real" party-ers spent all their time at "The White Owl", Logan's only bar. (It's not exactly a big city). I don't drink and think movies and bowling are MUCH more fun, but apparently its like the whole conference shows up there every night.

So that's what engineering conferences are like. Anyone else out there every been to an engineering conference? Any great stories? I have plans to go to several more this year (now that I'm a real person and all), so I imagine I'll have many great stories.

Especially since I don't plan on getting sick for multiple days the next time. (Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I hate being sick on travel.)

Traveling, Again

2011-08-10T19:36:00.002-04:00

I know, I failed to post last week and this week! But its because I'm traveling. I do that a lot with my new job, plus all my friends decided to get married this year so I have three weddings this August. So last week I had to prepare for a wedding, the Small Satellite Conference, and the Preliminary Design Review of the University Nanosat Project. All in all, it's a week and a half of events which I managed to pack for using only carry-ons. I call that a success. :)

As for the blog schedule, I can't say it will resume with the posted schedule next week because SCHOOL STARTS next week. And even though I have a nice shiny new job, I still have to finish my Master's Degree. Which means I'll be working, taking one class, and finishing my thesis. But the good news is that come December, I'll be done with school forever. And then daily (minus weekends) blogging can resume for life.

So next week we'll talk about the School Year blogging schedule. It'll probably go back down to Tuesday/Thursday. So the daily themes will probably go away. But I'm going to dwell on that some more this week and if you have any thoughts or comments, please leave them below.

I hope you're all having a good week and having as much fun as I'm having at the Small Satellite conference. I just saw a presentation about Star Trackers that are the size of a two euro piece. (The guy presenting was German, hence the European money). So I'm really excited. And I bought a copy of the New SMAD--which is also really exciting.

Yes, I'm a nerd. I know. I know.

So regular schedule to resume next week. Look forward to next Tuesday's post being about the Small Satellite conference in all its fun and glory.

Wanting to Slap a Minion

2011-08-02T17:00:00.001-04:00

If you’ve ever worked with engineers, you’ve probably experienced this. And it doesn’t necessarily happen with only minions (aka people much lower down on the totem pole than you), but you get the feeling most strongly with minions.

A scenario will play out like this:

A professor, who has a doctorate in the field plus 15 years of industry experience plus a book written with his name on it, will be explaining something to the class. It will be something extremely well studied that was discovered a long time ago, probably by Bernoulli, and a student will challenge him. The student will argue with him for ten minutes about something not pertinent to passing the class which is basically saying, “I know you have all these degrees and experience and I’m a 19-year-old boy, but I’ve thought of something NO ONE else has, and basically, I’m smarter than you.”

Unfortunately for that student, most professors aren’t afraid to embarrass you in front of the entire class. Depending on the professor there can be several responses: 1) handing the marker to the student and asking him to teach the class if he’s so smart, 2) just verbally smacking him down by listing your accomplishments versus his (I’ve got five degrees and a Nobel Prize. And you’ve…graduated from high school), 3) telling the student to get out of the class and not come back until he’s ready to learn, and really the possibilities here are endless. Professors are creative people.

But this doesn’t just happen to professors. At my new shiny, real job, I have an intern who makes me want to slap him daily. A scenario will play out like this:

Melody: The type A bolts go here. (pointing to a series of holes)

Intern: You’re wrong.

Said intern couldn’t even see where Melody was pointing. He just assumed that she, a woman with a college degree (which he doesn’t have) and two years of working experience (which he also doesn’t have) is wrong. He then proceeded to give us the “right” answer by pointing exactly where Melody just pointed.

About this time I have an overwhelming desire to slap him upside the head.

He does this a lot and he’s not alone. Many engineers have this “I’m always right and you’re always wrong” mindset. Which absolutely makes no sense to me.

I always assume my superiors at work and school are correct and if there is something where I really feel they’re wrong, I just don’t state “You’re wrong.” I’ll usually say, “Should we double check that?” or “I seem to remember being taught such-and-such (which is the opposite of what you are saying) in class. Is that wrong?”—thereby forcing the person to think about what they said and explain themselves.

Basically there are nicer ways to say things without making your superior want to slap you or just stare at you and say, “I have three degrees. Who do you think you are, Mr. I’m-about-to-be-a-third-year-in-college?”

Currently, we’ve ignored this interns “you’re wrong, I’m right” tendencies. He’s leaving in two weeks. It’s not a big deal. But I’m not sure what the appropriate way to deal with this behavior is. (Slapping is, unfortunately, not an option). Has anyone out there dealt with this attitude? Anyone out there ever wanted to slap a minion? What have you done instead? How have you dealt with it?

Elementary School Sucked

2011-08-01T22:18:00.006-04:00

Last week we talked about how I was a weird teenager and a few teenage stereotypes that I really hate. This week I want to talk about another stereotype. This one doesn't just afflict teenage characters, but children of all ages.

Namely its the stereotype of how wonderful/awful different levels of school are. Elementary school is a time of unicorns and butterflies, utter perfection, and everyone getting along. Middle school is a time of confusion and horror. And high school? High school is utter hell.

I contend that this stereotype is grossly inaccurate.

Elementary school was probably the second worst time of my life. (Second, of course, to grad school, which is, was, and forever will be the most miserable, horrible, awful time in my life. It would take an awful lot to top wanting to cry under my desk almost everyday. And I'm not exaggerating. I cried more during grad school than I did as an infant.)

Stereotypes would have us believe that in elementary school, kids are too young to see differences. That they are pure and innocent and all get along without any problem. But in elementary school, I was an outcast. In third grade, no one in my class talked to me--but at least I had friends who had the same recess period as me. Fourth grade? Don't even get me started. I literally did not have a single friend in my school in the fourth grade. In fifth grade, my two best friends hated each other and made my life absolutely miserable.

All through elementary school I was the weird one. I was the girl who liked to read--heck, for a long time I was resented for being the girl who COULD read. I was reading middle grade novels in the third grade when some of my classmates couldn't sound out words. I was the girl who wasn't interested in boys. I'm fairly certain the girls weren't actually interested in boys. They just thought they were supposed to be. But because I didn't, because I saw boys as friends and classmates instead of boyfriends (whatever that means in elementary school), I was weird.

In elementary school I was stuck in a class of thirty other people that didn't change, except maybe (if I was lucky) at recess. (Note: my fourth grade school didn't have recess. Just PE everyday, so you were stuck with your class during that as well).

Then middle school came. We changed classes. Not just rooms, but we changed classmates. You were not guaranteed to have the same thirty people with you. The classes shifted, exposing me to more kids. And something miraculous happened.

I discovered I wasn't alone.

There were other girls like me. Other girls who liked Star Wars. Girls who liked writing and using their imagination. Girls who were still willing to play games of make believe even though we were "too old". Girls who didn't think I was weird. Girls who liked me.

Finally I had friends.

Middle school still wasn't easy, because I do believe that middle school is a time of transition. Things hurts more in middle school, because you're not entirely sure how you should react to them. You're trying to be grown up and a kid at the same time. Its hard. And there were difficult times. But it was SO MUCH BETTER than elementary school. I can't begin to describe how much better it was.

And it only got better. High school? High school was freakin' amazing. Want to talk about finding people like you? Meet the 300 person band. Meet the other thirty kids who think Latin is cool. Meet a school that offers every club for every interest: Aviation Club, Latin Club, Science Olympiad, Quiz Bowl, Honor Societies, and so much more.

And by high school, I knew who I was. I was (am) a nerd. And I had friends who were nerds. And despite popular stereotypical belief, I was respected for my nerdiness. As I've said before, teenagers aren't stupid. They realize the value of intelligence. And they realize that meanness gets you nothing. But if your nice to the nerd. If you genuinely like the nerd. If you get behind the nerd? Well then, maybe on the rare occasion when she thinks an assignment is grossly unfair she'll do the assignment and then send her homework out to the entire class*. Maybe she'll actually let you copy her Latin homework**. But only if your nice. Only if you respect her. Only if you realize that what she's doing for you is a favor. Not that the nerd is mean. She just requires human decency.

And I believe I mentioned before that I was on Prom Court. (Which before that goes to anyone's head, was only second string popularity at my school because if you were on Homecoming Court you weren't allowed to be on Prom Court (and yes, that's me in that picture right there. Not too pretty. Not too thin. Way too much hair on my head)). Being Woodwind Captain of the Marching Band, President of the Latin Club, Captain of the Quiz Bowl Team, Treasurer of the Aviation Club, and President and Founder of the Science National Honor Society may have made me a nerd, but it also meant I was pretty well known. In a school of 3,500 getting the votes of a measly 400 band nerds and general nerds actually goes a long way. And my friend AJ (Brass Captain) made his entire English Class vote for me to spite me. But heck, I got to go to Prom for free so I came to terms with it.

But pretty much everyone on Prom Court was in AP classes and other "nerdy" endeavors.

High school was awesome. I had a ton of friends. I had a ton of activities. I was always busy. I never felt like anyone was out to get me (except possibly my one friend, but she was going through some real emotional trauma, so we forgave her for being crazy). (And before anyone contends I must not have been that much of a nerd, below is an image of me and my friends playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. We were huge nerds. And yes that's me with the awful triangle shaped head. I cut off all my hair after that prom photo).

I thought it was just me. I thought I was the only one who suffered through elementary school and found rest and acceptance in high school. But its not true. After talking to several friends, I've found I'm not alone and this stereotype is simply false.

In elementary school you're forced to be with all these other kids. In middle school and high school? You can find your people. And among your people, you find acceptance.

So lets get rid of this tired old stereotype and write characters who have friends. Who don't care about stereotypical popularity. Kids who are odd but liked.

*I actually did this once. My senior English teacher assigned a totally unfair assignment, where she kept changing what was actually required everyday. The assignment was ridiculous and at least ten pages of work and she expected us to do it practically over night. So I sent it out to my entire class (via email). And yes, the teacher did realize what was happened. She pulled me aside in class the day we turned it in and asked, "Mandy, did you help people with this assignment?" To which I responded to the affirmative. She gave me extra credit. Go figure. But I would like to note that no one coerced me into doing this. There was no bullying. Heck, no one even asked. But I saw an injustice. I saw unfairness. And I was sort of a superhero when it came to brains in high school, so I swooped in and saved the day.

**I only did this in AP Latin when we had a crazy teacher who refused to teach us other than saying "Go home and translate that", but never actually teaching us how to properly translate it--the tricks of the trade. It was stupid. So every morning before class, the kids in my AP Latin class would meet in the band hall (there was only four of us) and they would copy the homework from me. Occasionally, when I was busy, I made the others do the work instead. Was this cheating? Possibly. But helping my classmates like this, cheating if you will, was my revenge on the teacher for being awful. She spent our class planning her wedding instead of teaching us and made me teach the Latin III kids we shared a class with on several occasions. Another injustice. Another superhero action on my part. I'm positive the teacher knew it was happening, because on most occasions, if I didn't do the homework that meant no one did the homework. So when she walked in and asked the four of us if we did the homework and I said no she would postpone it to the next day.

How Star Wars Saved My Love of Reading

2011-07-29T13:09:00.001-04:00

I don’t know if I’ve ever done my love of Star Wars justice on this website. I’ve alluded to it. I’ve listed it as my most favorite SF thing ever. But I don’t know if I’ve ever really explained how much I really, truly love Star Wars.

There is so much to love about Star Wars. The original trilogy is a classic tale. A struggle of good versus evil. A story of redemption. A story of wizards in space. What’s not to love?

But I think the reason why I love Star Wars so much is because Star Wars saved my love of reading.

When I was in the 5th grade, I had read every book in my school’s library. So I branched out to the public library, following authors I trusted and loved. But this was not a good move. Why? Because I was in the fifth grade, and just because an author writes a couple of 9 year old appropriate books, that doesn’t mean all their books are appropriate. Hence I read my first sex scene at the age of 9.

I had no idea it was coming. And thinking back, it probably wasn’t that graphic. But it traumatized me. I didn’t want to read anything like that ever again. I didn’t like it. I wanted nothing to do with it. So what could I read? Books aren’t rated and I had long sense outread anything my parents and older siblings read when they were my age. And it’s not like we had the internet to look up books I could read. And this was pre-Harry Potter, so the middle grade section of the book store was not the over abundance of books it is now.

I was such a good reader that I had outread all of my possibilities. I was stuck. My love of reading had crashed into a wall. What was I to do? Where was I to go?

Thus my uncle loaned me The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn.

Luke, Han, Leia—they were all back in full force, plus new amazing characters like Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn. Had someone just made me like and sympathize with Imperials? Yes, yes they had.

Suddenly there was a section of the bookstore that was safe for me. Star Wars is and always has been rated no more than PG-13. And PG-13 I could handle. But not R.

And the Extended Universe (aka Star Wars books) was huge. So many books to catch up on! So many books to read. So many possibilities. Thus began weekly trips to the bookstore. My mom would take my brother, little sister, and me to the mall every Saturday. We’d get Chic-Fil-A for lunch and then go across the hall to the Waldens. I still remember where the Star Wars section was. Straight back in the dead center, a whole section of just Star Wars books. I would pick out two I hadn’t read every Saturday and by the next Saturday I finished reading them. I did this for two years. Star Wars was all I read in fifth and sixth grade. And then, of course, Harry Potter came out and everything changed.

Without Star Wars, I wouldn’t have survived to Harry Potter revolutionizing my world. I would have stopped reading in the fifth grade and found other pastimes. No one else in my family reads as much as I do, so I would have found something to replace reading. And reading probably would have been replaced. A person doesn’t just stop reading for two years and survive as the same avid reader she had once been.

So in middle school when everyone else was obsessed with boy bands, I was obsessed with Rogue Squadron. When everyone else was getting into makeup, I was figuring out how to build a lightsaber (in theory, not practice). Does this make me a geek? Yes, yes it does. But to this day I still read two books a week (if not more sometimes), and most of my other friends only read maybe a book a month.

I still have my geek card and my avid reader status. And I thank Star Wars for them both.

Using Logic in Life Decisions

2011-07-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

This past semester the project manager of my research project was a senior who was graduating. He was a little lost in what he was supposed to do with life. Since I was a graduate student he had been working closely with—and theoretically respected—he came to me for advice on what he should do. Like any graduating senior he was faced with a choice: do I go out and get a job or do I go to grad school? And to add extra complication for him the grad school question broke down further: do I work in the Center for Space Systems or do I work in the ASDL? (Since he had offers from both). He was feeling quite lost and didn’t know what to do. So he asked me a lot of questions like “why did you chose to go to grad school?” and “why did you pick CSS over another group?”, etc.

So one day we were discussing this as we were walking somewhere (I have no idea where we were coming from or where we were going). I made the comment that for me, staying at Georgia Tech was an extremely hard decision. It went against all my emotions and gut instincts. I had been at Georgia Tech for four and a half years and the nomad in me could not allow for living somewhere that long. This was actually a huge deal for me.

So he asked, “Then why did you decide to stay at Georgia Tech, if you had such a strong feeling to the opposite?” I responded that I had made a pros and cons list and the pros of staying at Georgia Tech far outweighed the cons. The nomadic feeling was honestly my only con. And I recognized that this feeling was my messed up nomad brain trying to freak me out and make me run, when I should stay. The pros were just too great.

The boy looked at me with a completely stunned expression. He said, “You made a life decision using a pros and cons list? Using logic?”

I was baffled by his response and it took a lot of questioning to unwrap what he was actually saying. What was he saying? Well, we were both Christians and we both knew that. In his mind, God CAN NOT possibly speak to a person through logic. God speaks through feelings. So my feeling to run MUST have been from God. And the logical choice clearly wasn’t.

I could not believe I was hearing this from someone, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that many Christians think this is true. People expect conviction to be emotional, that God will bring you to tears. They expect people to be overcome with emotion and close their eyes while singing or dance to the music. They do not expect you to be sitting in your room studying your Bible and instead of being struck by sudden tear bringing conviction, saying “Huh. God seems to indicate in His Word that I shouldn’t do this. I should probably change my ways.”

How did this happen? How did we so disconnect God from logic? I’ll admit that God’s logic is not always our human logic, but God gave us brains for a reason. He gave me the ability reason. He gave me the ability to make decisions. And if I’m not hearing a voice from the heavens or seeing handwriting on the wall, I’m probably going to trust logic over my feelings when it comes to life decisions.

Because that nomad feeling? The feeling that I need to run and find a new place to live? That definitely wasn’t a God feeling. That was my brain. And I’m a logical enough person to realize where that feeling came from. It came from years of never living anywhere longer than four year. It came from frustration of not knowing how to maintain friendships past four years. It came from anger at the person I’d been labeled as—the person people saw me as—instead of the person I saw myself as.

And the logic? It made complete sense. And if I had not chosen to stay at Georgia Tech I would not be in this awesome job that was perfectly made for me. A job that I fit into like a hand in a glove. A job that I’m very certain God wants me to be in.

So please, do not disregard logic because you don’t believe God can use logic as easily as He uses emotions. God is all powerful. He can do anything. He can work through logic or emotion, pros and cons lists or strong feelings.

It’s sort of like being a Jedi (yes, I’m going geek on you here). Remember in the middle of the Empire Strikes Back? When Luke had that overwhelming feeling he should run off and save his friends? And Yoda was the voice of reason saying “Don’t do it!” Sometimes a Jedi is supposed to trust their feelings—just like a Christian—but this was a scenario where Luke should have listened to Yoda’s logic. Where logic would have yielded the response the Force (God in this metaphor) wanted.

So trust your feelings, Padawan. But remember that some emotions lead to the Dark Side.

What does that mean?

2011-07-27T10:38:00.003-04:00

(Sorry about not posting an engineering Tuesday yesterday. These things happen. But I hope you enjoy today's Western Wednesday.)

I recognize that there are regional dialect differences in America. My dad is from New York, and my mom is from Georgia--so I was aware of this from a very early age. But for the most part, I thought regional dialects just meant different people said words differently or had unique regional sayings.

For example, the word "crayon." My dad says "cran", as many Northerners do. My mom says "cray-on". My sister and I, as their confused offspring, say "crown" and always have. I always make sure I say a "coloring crown" so people don't think I mean the regal headgear of kings.

I spent most of my life in the South so I say "mirra" instead of "mirror" and "I'm fixin' to do something" instead of "I'm about to do this". However, because of my Northern dad, I do not say "ya'll". I have nothing against the word. My friends use it all the time. But I say "you guys", like many Northerners do.

So strange pronunciations and sayings I always knew existed. But I never really realized before that its not just pronounciations and sayings. Different regions call objects different things.

Take the above picture. It shows the top of a stove, which consists of four round objects on which you generally place pots to heat them up. Bring water to a boil, cook some soup, make an egg, whatever--that's what you do here.

What do you call those round things?

I thought everyone in the world called them what I did. I thought that these objects had a universally recognized name in the American version of English. And I thought it was "eye". As in: "don't touch that hot eye!", "Put the pot on the eye", etc.

But recently a Western writer friend of mine was reading my story. And when my narrator described something as feeling like "a hot eye on a stove", my reader said: "What? What's an eye? Does that maybe mean the center of the coil?"

To which my response was: "Uh...coil? Like a helicoil? What are we talking about here?"

Turns out not everyone calls these round heating elements the same thing. That my Western writer friend calls them "coils". Since my story takes place in the South, I'm not planning on changing it. My narrator would think of it as an eye.

Another word my reader commented on was "lanai". She said she thought people only called patios lanai's in Hawaii. Well in Florida me and all my friends had covered pool areas that were called lanais. I think a lanai is different from a patio, which is different from a porch. When I think lanai I think concrete/stucco ground in which their is a pool, and its all screened it. When I think patio.....honestly, I don't know what I think when I think patio. Seems like if its not a lanai its a porch. At least we call my grandmother's covered, un-airconditioned, astro turf back area a "porch" and not a patio. I can't actually recall using the word "patio" in everyday language. "Go out to the back patio" just doesn't have the same ring as "go out to the back porch". But this might also be a southern thing.

Have any of you ever run across regional differences like this? Objects that are called completely different words from what you're used to calling it?

Teenage Stereotypes that I Despise

2011-07-25T08:00:00.002-04:00

My current WIP is a young adult novel, which for those of you who aren't up on writer talk, means its a teen book. In many ways, writing a teen book is much harder for me than writing an adult book. Heck, writing a teen book was hard for me when I was a teen. When I was younger, all of my books were "adult" books. Those were the sorts of books I read and the sorts of books I wanted to write.

Middle grade I understand. Adult I comprehend. Teen? Umm...not so much. And there is one very good reason for this.

I was an unusually strange teenager.

How? Well, let's take one small fact that made me hugely different from the supposedly average American teen. When I was a teenager I believed my parents had my best interests at heart, that they were more experienced and wiser than me, and that I should listen to them. I could have been called many things as a teen but disobedient was not one of them.

And strangely enough, most of my friends were the same. Perhaps they weren't as obedient to the extreme that I was (if I recall correctly, one of my friends did lie about going to that concert that one time and pulled a classic "I'm spending the night at so-and-so's house" trick. But that's really the only example of disobedience I can think of).

However, since I was so obedient, I can't recall a single time my parents said no to me when I asked to do something. I had no curfew because I so rarely went out, and when I did go out if the event required that I couldn't be back until three in the morning my parents understood. I was trustworthy. I wasn't going to get into trouble.

Because you can get into sooo much trouble at a LOTR movie marathon.

So when some people read my WIP they respond, "Teenagers don't behave this way." To which my response is always, "Uh, I was a teenager four years ago....", followed by, "Do you believe that because that's what TV tells you how a teenager should behave or because you know teenagers who behave that way?"

I suppose because of my strangeness there are a couple of teenagers stereotypes that really really frustrate me, because I've seen no evidence of these stereotypes in my life.

1. Every fifteen-year-old girl is fretting about her first kiss--because it has to happen by the time you're sixteen. Umm...yeah. I didn't date in high school. Out of a friend group of around eight girls, only two dated in high school. I have friends who are college graduates who still haven't dated. So yeah. I'm fairly certain this isn't as big a deal as books/movies make it out to be. And please, please, please do not "update" this by saying every high schooler is worried about their "first time" having sex. Because this is absolutely not true. Some are, sure, but NO ONE I was friends with was. It's hard to worry about sex when you've never even held a boy's hand, and we were all highly logical. The risks did not outweigh the benefits.

2. Teenage boys are incapable of rational/logical thought when confronted with a hot girl. I never once saw this. Ever. My teenage guy friends were highly logical. My favorite example is that one of my friends was offered by his girlfriend, sex as a way to celebrate their six month anniversary. Not only did my male friend turn her down, he broke up with her. He recognized that sex in high school is not always the most wise decision. He was thinking with his brain...and not so much other body parts.

3. Algebra sucks. Please. Can we move past this? Algebra is EASY. And before you "update" this to make it "calculus sucks", can we please recall that Calculus is in fact EASIER than Algebra? If you want to complain about matrix multiplication, be my guest. You want to complain about all those stupid trig tricks you have to memorize? Go ahead. But calculus? Algebra? Really? Really???? Can we move beyond 1980?

4. Popularity. Every belief you hold about popularity is wrong. A) Not everyone wants to be popular. B) If you went to a large school like I did "popularity" is literally impossible. The odds of seven thousand students all knowing the same five are ridiculous. C) Beautiful, mean, hot girls are not the popular ones. Ever. All the girls I know who got elected to popular things were in fact really nice. Beautiful, yes, still true, but definitely the nicest people ever. Meanness is a straight track to being hated. Teens aren't stupid. D) Being a nerd doesn't mean you can't be popular. I was Captain of the Woodwind Section, Captain of the Quiz Bowl Team, President of Latin Club, and Founder and President of our chapter of the Science National Honor Society. And I was elected to prom court. So yeah. Take that supposed social norms. Basically, all of this is to say that the '80s were a long time ago. The Breakfast Club is no longer true. Get over it.

So these are just a few of the stereotypes that bother me and that I didn't see reflected in my years of high school, oh so long ago (2001-2005). Anyone else out there have stereotypes that really annoy them? Anyone else realize that teens aren't just emotion driven creatures of hormone?

Travel

2011-07-21T19:59:00.001-04:00

Sorry guys! This week has been crazy. I'm traveling for work and for a bridal shower and that has added insanity to my life. But I promise I will be back in full force next week.

I solemnly swear (I'm up to no good).

Sorry, Harry Potter still isn't out of my system.

Mischief managed.

Geek out???

2011-07-16T00:59:00.001-04:00

I know I didn't post anything today. One of my friends from high school came to visit me and we had a grand time. I saw the seventh Harry Potter movie again (I got the privilege of seeing it at a pre-screening on Tuesday) and then when we went to the adult night at the local children's science museum.

Yes, a bunch of engineers running around the science museum playing with everything. It was awesome.

So you'll have to forgive my lack of post. But you can look back at yesterday's post on Harry Potter, which was sort of a geek out. :)

Harry Potter

2011-07-14T19:41:00.005-04:00

(Another late post. Forgive me. I'm not trying to make this a habit. It doesn't help that I live in Mountain Time now either.)

I've written about Harry Potter three times before on this website. Once, I reviewed the sixth movie. Another time I spoke about The Harry Potter Generation--how the books brought my family together and made me friends I never had before. Then I talked about how Harry Potter introduced me to even greater books--how it literally changed my life.

And today is the day it all ends. The end of an era.

But today is also Thursday, so I'm supposed to talk about my faith. But I can get away with talking about Harry Potter today, because Harry Potter has been one of the most controversial Christian topics in recent history. (You know that and gay marriage. Somehow, I feel like Harry Potter should be a more trivial concern, but that's just me).

So how do I as a Christian rationalize reading Harry Potter? Well it's actually really easy.

Harry Potter isn't real. Can I say that again? Do you get that? HE'S NOT REAL. I may have been 11 when I started reading Harry Potter, but I wasn't stupid. Kids aren't stupid. We get it. Harry Potter is not real.

Yet somehow parents, who spend years convincing their children that there is a man in a red suit who sneaks into their house once a year to give them presents, condemn something that everyone accepts as not real.

Some people argue that Harry Potter is a gateway into witchcraft, which is clearly denounced in the Bible. However, I think there is a definition difference here. Witchcraft in the Bible seems to be calling upon spirits and using dark powers to do something. Wizardry (and witchcraft) in Harry Potter is not the same.

Even if at 11, had I thought Harry Potter was real, I would never have "tried to become a witch". Why? Because it's more like being a Jedi. You can't become a wizard. You're born a wizard. I received no letter at the age of 11 asking me to come to a magical school, so obviously I'm not a wizard by the definitions of Harry Potter.

As for Harry Potter not being a "Christian book" in general, if my parents had limited me to only "Christian books", I fear for what my reading level would have been. I love God. I love Jesus. I love my beliefs and my faith. But I do not love Christian literature. Most of it is poorly written and it patronizes the reader--even the adult ones.

So if I'm allowed to read The Sweet Valley Twins and The Boxcar Children, which aren't Christian books--where is the line?

As for the argument that Harry Potter is a bad role model because he disregards the rules and has no respect for teachers--I challenge that someone who makes this argument ever read this book. Harry respects the teachers who deserve his respect. He does not respect Snape because Snape treats him so poorly and unfairly. I would not respect a teacher like that either. Yet despite his disrespect for Snape, he rarely directly challenges him. And in the end, (slight spoiler! Skip to the next paragraph if you haven't read the books or seen the movie) Harry learns that not only was Snape worthy of respect, but he was the bravest man he ever knew.

Also, I would challenge the person making such an argument to find a middle grade fiction book where the protagonists actually obeys his elders. It doesn't exist.

I am 24 years old, and I have read Harry Potter for over half of my life. And I love my God with an undying devotion, and I uphold the teachings of the Bible higher than anything else. Clearly, Harry Potter has not scarred me for life. If anything, I believe Harry Potter has made me a better person and has made me a better Christian.

You have the right to believe whatever you wish, but I believe in God. And I don't think God is upset with me for having read and enjoying Harry Potter. I think He used it as a tool to teach me about friendship, good, evil, snap judgements, and how to socialize with my peers. He could have done it without Harry Potter, but I am grateful that He chose to use Harry Potter to teach me these things.

A Navy Girl in an Air Force Town

2011-07-13T21:17:00.002-04:00

(I know my post is late! But better late than never! Here is a Western Wednesday.)

My father was in the Navy, so in many ways I was "raised in the Navy." I know a lot of the weird Navy quirks and traditions. However, Albuquerque is an Air Force town, thanks to Kirtland Air Force Base, and aerospace engineering is in many ways an Air Force business. So I've had recent encounters with Air Force members.

I have two friends in the Air Force who I see regularly. They're my age and my friends, so there is no need for me to call them by their rank. But as my friends know, I often like to call people by their Jane Austin names. Not out of any love of Jane Austin, but because I feel there are some occasions that call for a little bit of formality. For example, if I'm a little bit angry at my friend I'll call him "Mr. Last Name". Or if I'm just in a formal feeling mood.

So on two occasions I called one of my Air Force friends "Mr. Last Name" within hearing of my other Air Force friend. The one I called Mister didn't seem to mind, but both times the other friend corrected me. "Captain Last Name" she said.

I was completely miffed by this. I mean, not because of the title. I get titles. I would never call my boss "Mr. Last Name" even if I was angry at him, because he's a PhD. I would call him "Dr. Last Name." However, I was fairly certain that for junior officers, which a captain in the Air Force is, Mister was a perfectly acceptable form of address. If this was a mistake, it was a mistake I'd been making all my life with Naval officers.

So I asked my dad. And thus struck my Navy upbringing.

Mister is a perfectly acceptable form of address for a junior officer in the Navy, he told me, but not the Air Force.

So you can call an Ensign Mister--like they do in Star Trek. But you can't call a Lieutenant Mister. Even though they're basically the same thing, just different branches.

It's not a big deal. From now on, when feeling formal or upset, I'll call my friend "Captain Last Name". But it’s just another example of culture shock--not necessarily a Southern culture to a Western one, but a Navy culture to an Air Force one*.

I had never before really thought about how being raised Navy affected my culture, but there it is--it does. It'll probably take a couple of corrections until I remember that. I'd never call a high ranking officer "Mister". You don't do that in the Navy either. So at least I shouldn't be making any big errors in this Air Force town. At least, I hope not. Hopefully, there aren't a lot of other Navy tendencies I've learned that will get me in trouble.

*Not to be confused with THE "Air Force One". :)

RANdom capiTALIzation SyNDrome

2011-07-12T08:22:00.000-04:00

If you're not an engineer, it's possible you've never experienced this. And its possible that if you're not an engineer who is in the aerospace industry or ever worked for or with the government you've never experienced this. But for those of us who are aerospace engineers, whose lives revolve around government organizations like NASA, we tend to have this syndrome quite badly.

You see the government is a world made of abbreviations and acronyms. I have received entire emails written in acronyms and abbreviations. It's really insane. There are possibly good reasons for this, like its basically writing in code so if anyone intercepts your email they can't understand it. But sometimes its just crazy.

But if you work in the aerospace industry or for the government, no matter how crazy you think it is, at some point you will find yourself uttering a sentence that sounds like this "Hey, I'm going to the VAB to work on the MLE with my LDE. Don't forget tomorrow I have RDO and my LT has PT, so we'll be MIA."

Utter nonsense.

Then if you continue working in the aerospace industry or the government, something nefarious will start to happen to your brain. You will start thinking that things that aren't acronyms actually are. You'll forget which words require capitalization and which don't. And to be on the safe side, you'll start capitalizing everything.

For myself personally, I see this most often with the word "CubeSat." A CubeSat, for those who don't know, is a little 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm satellite. Basically "CubeSat" is an abbreviation of "Cubical Satellite"; hence, only the C and S need to be capitalized to show the beginning of each word. Yet for some reason, I want to call it a CubeSAT. As if SAT is an acronym for something. Of course, it is in other worlds. The SAT is a huge test. But that doesn't apply here.

The other day I was writing down some instructions when I paused. Is the word MOSFET all capitalized or not? I want to say it is, but I don't know. And Cornell's Violet mission. Is it Violet or is it VIOLET?

I realized at that point, I had full blown Random Capitalization Syndrome, or RCS.

There is no cure for RCS. Even if you leave the aerospace industry--or the government--you will find you do this for years after. You will have relapses when the news reports NASA's latest findings. There is no escape, no cure, no hope.

And the worst thing is, you can never even get your acronyms and abbreviations straight. All the different branches of the government use the same acronyms to mean different things. What some people call a 9/80 schedule, others call RDO. While VAB might stand for the "Vehicle Assembly Building" in can also stand for "Virginia Associations of Broadcasters." And one satellite might just be a word, like Violet. But another satellite will be an acronym, like MESSENGER. (Heck, if you want to see a perfect case of RCS, MESSENGER is it: MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER). Methinks, someone was trying a little too hard to find an acronym).

The truth is that you can never be sure in this business what something stands for or if it should be capitalized. So every year RCS gets worse and worse. Essentially, we're doomed.

Plotting

2011-07-11T08:00:00.001-04:00

When it comes to writing, I've always considered myself a "pantser" or a "gardener". For the uninitiated, let me explain.

All writers essentially fall into one of two camps. They are either pantser/ gardeners or plotter/architects. Pantser/Gardeners tend to write by the seat of their pants, or in the secondary metaphor, by having an idea and the nurturing it without being entirely sure what its going to grow up into. Plotter/Architects like to plot everything out before hand and plan everything out.

Though I sometimes make crazy excel charts that relate to my stories, they're rarely plot related. Usually they keep track of characters and their histories. My excel charts might "plot" out the lives of my characters that led them up to the story, but I never actually plan out what the story might be. I generally have a point A and a point B. I know where to start and where I want to end, but what goes on inbetween is up for grabs.

Well, yesterday, that all changed.

For the past week I've been working hard on my story "The Descent of Chris Chappell." You might have noticed that the word count on my Works In Progress page has increased by 10,000 words. I did not "plot" out per say this first 36,000 words; however, I did write it in a different fashion then I normally do. When it comes to chapters, usually I just sit down and write and then break where it feels right. But this time when writing, I know what event I wanted to reach by the end of each chapter. It was strange.

So yesterday, I reached "the event" that I had been working towards with this 36,000 words, the event I decided was a huge change/twist in the plot and would therefore mark the end of the "first part" of the story. I then sent out the story to my critiquers. I don't want to go much further until I have feedback, in case I need to make huge changes.

However, I was feeling restless. I wanted to know what was going to happen next in my story. I knew where I wanted my story to end, but I had no idea how I was going to get the characters from the end of Part 1 to the climax of my story. There were things that needed to happen and the characters needed to change and develop for those things to happen. And I couldn't see it.

But I did have some ideas. So I thought "heck, why don't I write my few ideas down?" So I broke out some index cards and colored markers. I assigned each character a color, even non-main characters, and started writing down my ideas on each notecard. As I wrote my ideas down, more ideas came. But I had to keep track of them all, when my ideas would happen in the plot. So I started laying the notecards out chronologically. But I had too many cards for my desk! So I started taping them to the wall.

And suddenly we got the monstrosity you see in the picture above. My entire novel plotted on notecards.

It's insane. It's crazy! I've never done anything like this. But it feels good. Now when I next sit down to write, I know exactly what I should write.

Granted, these cards don't cover everything that will happen. If I had written out everything that was going to happen, I would have written the novel. But they cover all the big plot points that essentially each chapter should be working towards. And I completely discovered how the climax is going to work. It's crazy how some things clicked together. Crazy how things I "just made up" because they seemed to fit clicked together to make the climax work at the end. I mean that's how a story is supposed to work, but it's still amazing.

I don't know if I'm going to forever change my ways and become a plotter/architect, but for this story, I think it has definitely helped me see the way forward. Who knows! Maybe this is the start of a new era in my writing.

If you're a writer reading this, are you a panters or a plotter? Have you ever tried writing using the other method?

The Movie Channel Conspiracy

2011-07-08T19:34:00.003-04:00

I think movie channels are purposefully working with my favorite SF/F things to keep me out of the loop. I don't know why. Maybe my geek status has ratcheted to such heights that they feel the need to knock me down a few. Maybe they just hate me. I don't know, but I would like it to stop.

When "A Game of Thrones" premiered on HBO, I let it slide. A Song of Ice and Fire is not my favorite fantasy series. I'm pretty sure it scarred me for life by exposing me to sexual acts I never wanted to know about. It might be a good series, but lets all be honest with ourselves. It's rated at least NC-17. (Wait, is that a rating, or the number on the Enterprise? I can never remember and I'm constantly getting them confused.) I would have liked to have given the show a try, but I understand. I have no expectations that George R.R. Martin would try to appease me, since I'm not a huge fan.

But Torchwood? Really? Come on! How can they lock me out of the Whoniverse? I need to see this. "Children of Men" left me with nightmares and questions. I can't leave it like that. I need my Captain Jack Harkness. I need to know how he can get on with his life after what he did. I need to know if Gwen and her husband are going to stick it out. I need to know how the universe can go on.

Just thinking about how I can't watch it in another two and a half hours, when it comes on, is making me sad. Why did they have to put it on Starz? I mean, I understand they can have more gratuitous sex by putting it on a movie channel, but Torchwood did fine on regular cable before, or at least BBCA. Just put it on the Syfy channel and show it late at night so kids don't stumble upon it. Pleeeease. *sad puppy dog eyes*

Please don't separate me from my Captain Jack Harkness. The real Captain Jack. The only Captain Jack. Johnny Depp doesn't hold a candle to him.

So if anyone out there knows where to go to watch Torchwood online, I would really really appreciate it. I'm counting on you geek community.

Faith Thursdays

2011-07-07T19:23:00.004-04:00

I know in the past, I never had a scheduled day of the week to discuss my faith, or God, or anything like that. This was for a very good reason. I didn't want to become fake or rote, or feel like I had to write something because of a schedule. It's sort of like when you close your eyes while singing. Sometimes you do it because you really feel it, and sometimes you do it because you want people to think you really feel it. I never want to be that second scenario. It's so easy to become fake, to know the Sunday School answer and so just write about it. Therefore, I never scheduled a day of the week. I only wrote about things when they came to mind.

This summer is different. Why? Well, there are a lot of things on my mind and heart. A lot of issues I'm struggling with. Well, maybe struggling isn't the right word. I feel like that conveys I'm having a hard time believing something. I'm not struggling with my faith. I'm struggling with what I've always been told to believe about issues in my faith. I'm struggling with things that people don't like to talk about. And I struggle with the role of adviser that so many of my friends give me. As someone other people respect, I have a responsibility to know what I'm really talking about, to know it and really believe it.

So this summer I plan to do some research on certain topics, research it and sort of write essays here on what I think. I'm no C.S. Lewis, but I do take the Bible seriously, and I think too often as Christians we let our American culture infect what we think we should believe. So here are a few topics on my heart that I'm going to explore:

--The American Dream: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
--The Responsibility of the Wealthy
--Divorce and Remarriage
--Marriage and the Wife
--Marriage and True Love
--Singleness

You'll notice there seems to be a theme here, and there is. A lot of my friends have gotten/are getting married this year. From February to December of 2011, there are eight weddings. Eight. It's crazy. It really is. And essentially all my best friends now have either gotten married or are getting married. And as I think about marriage, the Bible, and American culture, I have some thoughts and questions.

And these thoughts and questions have led me to other thoughts that mainly directly correlate to happiness. I have a lot of questions about happiness and what sort of goal it should be in our lives. Clearly, American culture says its should be pretty high, but lets just say, I'm not so sure.

However, in addition to these topics, I will also write about other things I've promised in the past to write one: namely, I'll finish my evolution series, which I started and never finished due to the chaos that occurred in my life at the end of the last semester. (You know, getting a new job, moving to Albuquerque, etc). But there were be other little topics, but I'll leave those for a surprise.

And just so we're on the same page, the reason I'm doing this is not so I can show off my flashy Christian knowledge. I'm partly doing this because I have friends who ask me questions about these beliefs a lot and so it would be nice to have an essay I could direct them to do. I'm also doing it because these are topics I want to/need to study, and by mandating that I will post my results here, I'm giving myself deadlines and accountability. I really need that sort of thing sometimes. That's what happens when you've been in school all your life. You need someone to say "this is do then". And if no one gives you a deadline, you don't do it.

I also just need to organize my thoughts, and as a writer and engineer, if I don't write my thoughts down they're not organized.

So I hope you'll all bare with me as I stumble through the Bible and try to figure things out. And if you have any topics you would like to suggest, I'm open. I intend to use the topics as a study guide through my Bible study, so extra direction is always appreciated.

Prairie Dogs

2011-07-06T19:03:00.005-04:00

(Sorry about not posting yesterday. I had a post planned, but as it was the day after the fourth of July, things were crazy. You see my dog absolutely hates fireworks. It was a late night and an early morning. Bleh. Anyway, on to a new Western Wednesdays.)

Being from the South I'm used to squirrels. Crazy, crazy, attack squirrels. Squirrels that have absolutely no fear and will come right up to you and eye you like crazed animals. Anyway, being used to said squirrels, I don't usually see any other small rodents. Chipmunks? Never saw one until I visited Boston. We don't need them in the South. We have squirrels, which not only fill an evolutionary nitch but scare all the other creatures of that sort away.

Here in New Mexico we don't have squirrels or mere chipmunks. No, no, we have prairie dogs.

Next to my apartment complex lives a whole colony of prairie dogs. (I'm not sure if they're called colonies but go with it). They kind of act like merekats, which I've seen on the Lion King and at Disney's Animal Kingdom. They live in burrows in the ground and occasionally you see one stand up on its back legs and just stare into the distance, as if on lookout for predators. They also run between the holes in the earth and occasionally wrestle with each other. I think they're incredibly cute. Apparently native New Mexicans think of them as pests.

I mentioned them to a New Mexican coworker. I expected her to react like we might react at the mention of squirrels in Atlanta. They look cute from afar but be aware. Those squirrels are vicious and they're not going anywhere. Instead she reacted as if I might have mentioned rats. In her mind they're pests that need to be gotten rid of.

It's weird. They don't seem like pests to me. They just stay in their little colony; they don't infest my apartment. It's possible they carry diseases. But it seems that if I just stay out of their little colony and don't bother them, they won't bother me.

Anyone out there know about Prairie Dogs? Or have local crazy rodents?

Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T11:23:00.002-04:00

Happy 4th of July! To celebrate this, here is the greatest speech ever given by the greatest American President.

My Science Fiction Hierarchy

2011-07-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

I believe I've been pretty clear that I'm quite the geek. I love science fiction and fantasy. But my friends often confuse what aspects of science fiction and fantasy I love the most. This is especially true when it comes to science fiction. I have had a number of friends come up to me and say, "Such and such said such and such about Star Trek, but I don't think that's right and you're such a Trekkie..."

At which point I interrupt them and say, "What? I'm a Trekkie?"

They sort of pause and stare at me sideways, and then say, "Aren't you? Don't you love Star Trek?"

Me: "I like Star Trek but love might be too strong of a word. I definitely prefer Star Wars more." At this point my friends' heads usually explode in surprise. For some reason, being a geek seems to automatically translate to Trekkie in most people's minds. And I do like Star Trek. Star Trek has played a huge role in my life. But to be honest, Star Trek doesn't even make it into my top three favorite science fiction things.

So what is the order in which I love Science Fiction? I'm glad you asked! Here is my top five.

Star War - Star Wars will always hold a number one place in my heart. When I was young, my family only owned Episode IV, and it was a version we taped off the TV. Whenever we watched it, it was a huge deal. We would have to go down to Blockbuster and rent the other two. It would be an all day affair, involving popcorn and icecream. I loved it. Then when I was in the 5th grade, my uncle loaned me the Thrawn Trilogy. It was like a whole world opened up to me. While most girls my age spent the next three years obsessing over boy bands, I spent them obsessing over Luke, Han, and most importantly Wedge Antilles. I love Star Wars. I always will. Not even the new movies could destroy that.
Terminator - Most people see this as a curve ball in my list, and especially that its so high on the list. This is because I don't talk about my love of Terminator much with my friends. But ask my family, they know. I can't remember the first time I watched Terminator 1 or 2. Terminator 3 was the first rated R movie I saw in theaters. My entire life I've known the name John Connor, and that he will save the world from robots. My family loves discussing these movies and the time travel paradoxes. I love the ideas. I watched the short lived television show avidly and still lament its end. I wish Terminator had an extended universe like Star Wars. I want to know what happens. I need to know if humanity wins!
Stargate - Most people who know me expect this one. When I was little, every time the movie Stargate came on TV, I would drop everything and watch it, glued to the screen. Stargate SG-1 is the one show my little sister and I could enjoy together, the archaeologist and the engineer both enjoying a show. Colonel O'Neill is one of my favorite characters, and I would be lying if I didn't say Stargate SG-1 directly affected where I am working today. I own all 10 seasons and can identify an episode by any ten seconds within the episode. I also enjoyed Stargate Atlantis. But don't get me started on Stargate Universe. It was an abomination.
Planet of the Apes - People don't usually expect this one either, but once again my family knows. My brother has purchased me five gifts in my entire life, and the best one he ever gave me was all five original Planet of the Apes movies on VHS. I own the book in English and the original French. Like Terminator, I enjoy the philosophical questions it brings up, the conundrums and paradoxes. I didn't much like the new movie, but when I saw the new X-Men movie recently, I saw an interesting trailer. As soon as they mentioned a smart monkey named Caesar, I thought to myself "If this isn't a remake of Rise of the Planet of the Apes then someone is certainly paying obvious homage to it." Turns out it is a remake. And despite the awful new movie, I have high hopes that James Franco will do my number four on the list justice.
Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation Universe - This is a book series, but there is no denying that I love Asimov. Daneel Olivaw is one of my favorite characters of all time, and Asimov is a genius. From short stories to novels to epic histories of the universe, the man was amazing. I reread Caves of Steel yearly. A science fiction murder mystery? Genius!

So that's my top five, which doesn't include Star Trek. Surprise, surprise, but true. So if you're a science fiction fan, what are your favorite shows/books/movies?

Church Hunting

2011-06-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

I really hate church hunting. Part of it is because I'm such a weird person. I like pipe organs, hymns, and Sunday School. Finding a church that has any of those three things can be difficult in our postmodern, contemporary age. Another reason why I hate it is because I feel so lost. You know how people talk about having a "church home" or making a church your home? Well, that means if you don't have a church your homeless. So right now I'm homeless.

Now I'm going to awkwardly segue to something that seems different, but stay with me, it relates. I don't get "homesick" or "miss people". That probably seems really strange and makes me seem like an awful person, but I'm a very out of sight, out of mind sort of person. I think I developed this as a reaction to moving so many times. My friends who read this, that doesn't mean I don't love you and don't want to talk to you. But I'm not pining. Which is good. I think.

So, I don't get homesick. And I've been puttering around Albuquerque, trying to find a church. We're all on the same page now.

So this past Sunday, I went to this one church. I won't name it, because that's not fair to them. They were a good church, just not the church for me. Anyway, I went to the 8:30 AM service because they advertised online that it was their "classic worship" service. In my mind that translated to hymns and organs. Perfect for me, right? Wrong.

Let me tell you, if that was their "classic" worship, I don't want to know what their non-classic worship was like. Sure they had a little string group, but we did not sing a single song that was written before the year 2005. (I looked, because churches always the credits on the song powerpoints, if you know where to look. Normally, I wouldn't do such a thing, but I was trying to see if I was crazy and maybe it was just a hymn I didn't recognize. No such luck.)

Anyway, halfway through the worship portion of the service, I just started crying. Not because I was so moved by the music or convicted by God, but because I missed my church.

I missed the organ that was loud enough to drown out my singing.

I missed having a hymnal in my hand and not having to awkwardly try to see over all the people in front of me in order to read the screen they post the words on.

I missed the awesome orchestra and choir that could sing so awesome they gave me goosebumps.

I missed sitting next to people who knew me and my weirdness and liked me anyway.

I missed being recognized and loved.

I missed my church home.

Luckily, no one noticed I was crying because the kept the church dark like a theater, except for the stage. There were also no windows to let in outside light. Come to think of it, it was a very strange sanctuary. Wait...do contemporary churches call them sanctuaries? Whatever. It was the room where the musical worship and preaching happened.

I'm praying that I will find a good church home. It doesn't have to meet my checklist of what I prefer exactly, but it has to be warm, comfortable, a home. This Sunday is pretty much useless from a church searching standpoint, you can't ever judge a church properly by their holiday Sundays, and July 3rd is going to be all about America. But soon, I hope, I'll be able to find one.

Anyone else out there searching for a church? Any crazy stories?

Chile

2011-06-29T08:42:00.002-04:00

When I mention the word "chile" what do you think of? Possibly you think of llamas and alpacas, but I don't mean the country. I mean what sort of food do you think of? I've spent most of my life living on the east coast and both of my parents are east coasters, so I immediately think of Texas Chile. You know, beef, kidney beans, basically meat soup. Well, here in New Mexico, that's not what people think of. I had a conversation the other day that went like this.

Woman: My daughter doesn't like Chile.
Me: I don't blame here, I don't either.
Woman: And my son will only eat green chile.
Me: Oh, you mean red or green chile. Sorry. I agree with your son. I
like red chile but not green chile, it's too chunky. I thought you
meant, you know, real chile. You know, meat soup. I don't like that.
Woman: Real chile? Honey, that's not real chile. That's Texas Chile.
Me: Oops. Sorry. *confused*

In my world, supposed "Texas" Chile is real chile. It's the only chile I had ever heard of until I moved here. For those of you who don't know about New Mexican food, red and green chile are essentially sauces that go on your New Mexican food. If you go to any New Mexican restaurant and order anything they'll ask you if you want red or green chile on that. Red chile is essentially a red sauce. Green chile is chunkier, with vegetables. But to me, these are sauces. Chile is a meal in itself. But red or green chile is not. It's like ketchup: good, but not by itself.

Now, if I was living in another country, I would expect weird things like this to happen. I just find it strange that small culture shock events like this can happen within the same country. Theoretically we all speak the same language and have the same culture, but that simply isn't true.

So that's the purpose of these Western Wednesday posts. I'm a southern girl living in a Western, New Mexican world. I've only been here a month and its already strange to discover how different New Mexico is. It's also strange to experience people's prejudices against the south. So on Wednesday, I'll share what I experience in this dry, desert, so different from my native humid forests.

Have any of you experienced culture shock in America? I would love to hear your stories!

"No Inorganic Metals"

2011-06-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I went on a business trip to Boulder, CO. (*Pause.* That's right. I just said I went on a business trip. I'm like a real person now! Woohoo! *Resume.*) While we were there, we were provided with locally bottled water. Now, in many ways this water was like any other bottled water: funny tasting and expensive. However, the label for this water made me do a double take. This bottle of water listed the reasons why this water was awesome:

100% Natural Glacier Fed Alpine Springwater
Naturally Highly Oxygenated
Neutral pH
Helps your body flush toxins
High in natural vitality
Aids absorption of nutrients within cells
No Inorganic Metals

Now, there are many things wrong with this label, but the one that immediately struck me was the last one. "No Inorganic Metals."

Wait? What?

No Inorganic Metals? What does that mean? What does that even begin to mean?

Some of you reading this may be confused. You're not engineers or chemists, and high school chemistry was a long time ago (or hasn't happened yet), so I understand that you might be baffled by why this statement baffles me. So let me provide the definition of inorganic as provided by dictionary.com:

1. not having the structure or organization characteristic of living bodies.
2. not characterized by vital processes
3. Chemistry. noting or pertaining to compound that are not hydrocarbons or their derivatives.

Let's treat those three definitions like a checklist. Are metals inorganic? Well do they have the structure or organization characteristic of living bodies? Umm, no, last I checked metals didn't. Because they're not alive. Are metals characterized by vital processes? Once again, no. They're not alive. Do metals involve hydrocarbons or their derivatives? Well, then they wouldn't be metals. So yes, metals are indeed inorganic.

Then what does it mean? Contains no inorganic metals? There is NO SUCH THING as an organic metal. Metals are by definition inorganic. Does that mean the bottle is simply saying it contains no metals? Because it can't mean anything else. Why not then just say it contains no metals? Why add all this confusion?

The answer to that is most people have no idea what the words inorganic and organic mean. That's why someone can say they just bought "organic milk." Listen to me, friends. There is no possible way to make milk inorganic. Even if you make it in a lab and a cow is not involved at all, it's still organic. It still contains hydrocarbons. Organic does not mean natural. Inorganic does not mean unnatural. Metals are very natural. And they're very inorganic.

But then again this water was also "high in natural vitality." Consider that vitality means:

1. exuberant physical strength or mental vigor
2. capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence
3. power to live or grow

I'm very concerned by this water. I don't ever want to drink water that is high in natural vitality. I'm pretty sure that means my water is alive.

So combining those two points alone, possibly means the water contains living metals.

Run away, humanity. Destroy this water whenever you can. I'm pretty sure its alien life that is going to take over the world. Living metals have to be extraterrestrial. They don't exist on earth. So basically, run*.

*Yes, that's a Doctor Who quote. I'm a nerd. I can't help myself. But if there are living metals in that water, then we need the Doctor to come help us. Humanity is in peril.

Voice

2011-06-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

Today is our first official writing Monday, so I'm going to talk about something that's been plaguing me, as a writer.

I'm working on this new story, The Descent of Chris Chappell. Well, it's a new old story. Remember? It's the one I had the sudden shock of inspiration for? The one I offered up for critique at Miss Snark's First Victim?

In summary of those two posts, there is this story that's been in my head for a long time. Then last March I suddenly changed the main character POV and wrote 10,000 words in one sitting. I submitted part of it for critique and got rave reviews. It was fantastic. But the story hasn't progressed much since then. It's stuck at 20,000 words and has been for a while.

Originally I was writing the story from a female character's POV, and for some reason I really struggled with this. When I switched to the male character's POV, everything was just easier. For some reason, I found Chris's voice, even though he is a crazy, slightly evil character. But Marilla? The girl who is like me in many ways? Her I just can't figure out.

Yes, I switched to a mainly Chris POV, but I need to keep Marilla's perspective as well, simply because a lot of the story happens from her perspective. There are plot points that Chris can't see. And it's a Marilla chapter I'm currently stuck in. I can't get past it.

I plan on taking Brandon Sanderson's sage advice and just plowing through it. I can't remember the post or tweet exactly, but Mr. Sanderson essentially advised to write even when you don't feel like writing. Sure, it might be complete crap, but you can go back and fix that, whether through a revision or a complete rewrite. So that's my plan. Starting today, I'm just going to hack through this awful chapter.

I have no idea why I find it so hard to write Marilla. I understand her completely. I know everything about her from her motivations to her future. Perhaps Marilla is too similar to me, perhaps that is what makes her hard to write. Strange that I can find a psychopath male's voice but not one that is similar to my own.

Anyone out there have advice for what you do when you're blocked? Or when you're really struggling with a character?

I know, I know

2011-06-26T21:10:00.003-04:00

I said I was back and then I didn't post anything. That's a heinous breach in protocol, I know. But I'm still getting adjusted to my new life. I'm sorry about that. This week I will post. I promise.

I'm back!

2011-06-19T18:59:00.002-04:00

Sorry for disappearing for like a month but that's what happens when you move and don't have internet. But I now have internet and a fancy new computer. Woohoo!

So posting in the pre-explained schedule shall begin tomorrow. :)

Degree Petitions

2011-05-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

I really hate paperwork. I don't mean writing reports on your work sort of paperwork, even though that's unpleasant. I mean the kind of pointless paperwork that can make our break your life despite all the work you've done. The perfect example of this is a degree petition.

Basically you've been working hard for years--years!!--and suddenly all your hard work comes down to this one little piece of paper. (Ok it's more like three, but whatever). You've done everything you need to do. Taken all the required classes, slaved doing research for your professor, but your entire life plan can be thwarted by this one little piece of paper.

Forget the deadline and you're doomed.

But even if you remember the deadline, even if you fill everything out appropriately, that's no guarantee that nothing will go wrong with this little piece of paper that holds future. Take my undergrad degree petition. I filled it out perfectly, turned it in to the right people in ADVANCE of the deadline, and thought I would be fine.

Then one day, I thought "Even though I did all that perfectly, I should check online for the checkmark to see it did go perfectly." (Because its too difficult for them to send you an email to say everything is fine or something is wrong, you actually have to find the random place online to check for it). So I go to the website, finally find the right path to the place where you check these things and it says "ADVISER SIGNATURE MISSING."

What the crap???? I did everything right! We were told directly by our undergrad adviser that all you do is turn it into her and she'll sign them all in one stack. All of my other friends did the exact same thing and their degree petitions are fine. Somehow its just mine that's messed up. So I had to call the office, find out what happened, and low and behold, it wasn't my fault at all. Somehow the adviser had skipped my petition in the stack. She fixed it, but still, that was a couple of days of sweating on my part. Because of her one little mistake, I might not have graduated on time.

So now that I'm not only trying to graduate, but trying to do it via distance learning, my paperwork stress level has gone up tenfold. I'm worried that somehow instead of being switched to distance learning, they'll accidentally drop my out of school. I'm trying to get a hold of the person in charge of degree petitions to see how being distance learning changes everything, but I can't find her. And of course, on top of all this, I somehow have to actually move to Albuquerque.

AHHHHHHH!

I really want to graduate. I know I've fulfilled all the requirements with the exception of my last semester, which will be in the fall. I just want everything to be approved and it all to work well so I can graduate. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently, yes. Stupid paperwork.

Born to Move

2011-05-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

I was born while my family was moving.

That's not an exaggeration or some sort of made up mythical story. For realz, dead serious, I was born while my family was moving.

My dad was in the Navy, and the Navy doctor approved us to move in mid February because he thought I was due in March. He refused to believe my mother that I would be coming in February because I was "too small". My mom is 5'4" and barely weights 100 lbs. She tried to explain to him that small people sometimes have small babies. Well, the doctor didn't believe her and thus my family found themselves moving from Corpus Christi, TX to Sunnyvale, CA in mid-February.

My mom went into labor on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14th), and they stopped in El Paso, TX and I was born.

To make matters even better, my older sister and brother had the chicken pox, so I was isolated from all the other newborns because they thought I might be carrying it. I wasn't, so after three days they let us go on in our move.

So yes, I was literally born while my family was moving. Since then I have moved over a dozen times, and that's just counting the moves between cities, not the moves within cities.

My family one time decided to move on a Friday and moved on the following Thursday. We packed up a family of six and moved to a new state in less than a week.

So you might say I'm an expert mover.

Therefore, when my friends who have maybe moved once counting their "move" to college try to give me moving advice, you might imagine that I want to laugh in their face. Or slap them. One or other.

This has happened multiple times since I've announced to my friends that I'm moving.

One of my friends and I were discussing that I'm moving, he mentioned that moving is difficult, that it's going to be more difficult than I'm foreseeing. I looked at him a little surprised and was like, "Dude, I've moved before."

His response was, "This is different. You're moving without your family." My immediate thought was "How on earth do you know? You've never moved in your life until you moved after college." I know why he's having a hard time adapting. He's never moved before.

My actual response was "I moved without my family when I came to college."

Boy: "That was different. College is different."

Ok, I recognize this is true. I know this is true. College is a unique atmosphere where everyone is the same age. But it's hard for me to take him seriously when he says this, because when he "moved to college" he moved thirty minutes away from home. When I "moved to college", I moved 5 hours away to a city where I knew no one. I didn't treat it differently from any other move.

It is harder to make friends when not in school. I know this because I faced this at my co-op. But I did make friends, not with fellow co-ops like you may think, but with the full time employees near my age. I went to the occasional dinner with them, barbecue, and movie. Even though I was single and they were married, I was their friend.

I know this is not going to be easy, but I'm not scared. For some reason this guy thought I should be.

Another one of my friends tried to give me advice on moving the other day. I was joking with his fiancee, that they should send their kids to me in the summers (one day, far from now, when they have kids). I then commented that they should send me their kids so I wouldn't feel so lonely. Now, I didn't mean the kind of loneliness that comes without having friends. I meant the kind of loneliness that comes from all your friends getting married this year, therefore, they'll most definitely have kids before you do, therefore, you're going to be single when they have entire families.

My friend thought I meant not having friends and he was like, "You'll make friends. It's all part of moving." I wanted to slap him. I don't think this boy has ever really moved. College was two hours away from his parents, so maybe we'll let that count. If he's moved before that, he was very young. I've moved over once every two years my entire life (when averaged). I have never had a problem making friends outside of elementary school (those were dark times). I know how to make friends. I know what moving is like.

Which is not to say I don't want comfort and support from my friends, it's just that when people, who have no idea what they're talking about, try to advise you, it's just sort of amusing and a little bit insulting.

And really, my friends who have tried to be supportive by "giving me advice", have really come across in the opposite way--because I'm incredibly optimistic, so it almost seems like they're trying to bring me down.

So moral of the story, I'm excited and not worried at all. My worries are more of a mundane, filling out paperwork in a timely manner type worries.

Moving

2011-05-23T13:15:00.002-04:00

First and foremost, I apologize for not posting regularly as I promised, but you see my life has been thrown into chaos. This Saturday, I am starting the process of moving to Albuquerque, NM. My dad and I are packing up the U-Haul and heading out.

Part of this process was that I canceled the cable in my apartment, which includes the internet. Hence, the lack of posting. And next week I'll spend most of the time on the road, so there will be another lack of posting. And I can't guarantee when I'll get internet at my apartment, so it'll probably be another week after that until I post again.

I'm not sure I've ever gone three weeks without a steady internet connection (well, since my family got internet 11 years ago). This very well may kill me. We'll see.

I'm going to try to write as many posts as I can today and schedule them to post over the next three weeks. I don't know how many that'll end up being, but at the very least I'm hoping for two a week.

More fruitful posts are too come; this one is really to just let you know what's going on with the blog. Wish me luck!

A nerd by any other name...

2011-05-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

People of my sort are often called names like "nerd", "geek", or "dork". I feel like my sort of people have long ago owned these words and made them a part of our identity. I am a nerd. To say otherwise is to insult me. Most people don't get that, because they don't understand what I mean by nerd.

My friends and I had a discussion about the meaning of these words the other day. As students at one of the most nerdy, geeky, and dorky schools in the nation, we feel we have a pretty good grasp of the sort of people who would use these words. So now, you're definitive guide.

Nerd: To be a nerd requires one thing and one thing only: intelligence. Generally, people think of nerds in terms of mathy subjects, but that's not entirely necessary. My little sister is a nerd and she is an archaeology student. A nerd is simply someone who is very smart. Thus, telling me I'm not a nerd is an insult.

Geek: I am a nerd, but I'm also a Star Wars geek. What do I mean by that? Well think about the phrase "geek out", as in "I discovered Jean-Francios has read most of the books in the Star Wars Extended Universe, and we geeked out over Star Wars for an hour." So by geek out I mean we discussed Star Wars as experts, as people who are obsessed with it. And to many that's what a geek is, someone who is obsessed with something. So though people generally think of Science Fiction and Fantasy as geeky things, a person can actually be a football geek. Granted, to be a football geek isn't enough to know team names and paint your chest. You've got to be an expert. You've got to know the stats and the like.

Dork: This is the word you use to describe someone who is on the socially awkward side of things. Someone sort of like Screech in Saved By the Bell or like the guys in the Big Bang Theory. So even though I'm a nerd and a geek, I'm not a dork. However, many nerds and geeks are dorks. Such is the way of things.

So those are my definitions. Do you guys disagree? Is there a type of person I'm missing that should be added on to this list? What do you think?

There is no sound in space

2011-05-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes people complain that science fiction is hard to write or create because engineers and scientists are too critical.

This is of course balderdash.

If I wrote a book or made a movie that was set in 1605, and a character appeared wearing a watch, people would think I was an idiot. They would probably mock me and criticize me for not doing my research into the time period. And yet, when some people (clearly not all) write science fiction books and movies, they think they have a free pass to ignore some of the most basic obvious facts--facts that anyone who has a slight interest in that area of science would be able to tell you.

Like the fact that there is absolutely no sound in space. So all those loud explosions you here? Not possible. Any first year physics student, heck anyone who has taken physics 1, should be able to tell a writer this. Sound waves can only travel through a medium because they are longitudinal waves of varying pressure. Since space is practically* a vacuum, there is no pressure to vary. Thus, no sound.

I feel like this should be common knowledge, and yet it's not. Or at least, writers continually ignore it--among other obvious engineering/scientific principles. Watching science fiction movies is sometimes painful. And often hilarious.

For example, in Tron Legacy "genetic algorithms" are mentioned. And yet they're mentioned in such a ridiculous way that when I went to see it in theaters, I burst into laughter in the middle of the movie. The people in the movie theater thought I was insane. Possibly I am insane, and yet when I watched the movie with my engineering friends, they burst into laughter at the exact same point.

I was reminded of how ridiculous science fiction could be when I was watching Armageddon. On many levels, Armageddon is a good movie, but from an engineering (especially an aerospace engineering) aspect, there are just so many things wrong with that movie. Things that could have been fixed if they had simply asked an engineer.

So my thought on these Engineering Tuesdays is that I could go over common movie errors or even dissect particular movies, so that future movies/books don't make the same error. What do you guys think? Any movies you would like to see discussed? Any movie scenes that you're unsure of the veracity? Let me know and I'll be sure to look into them. :)

*There are, of course, particles in space and space's pressure is not exactly zero. However, it is incredibly close, so for most purposes its treated as thus.

Summertime

2011-05-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

Summertime! Summertime! It's finally summertime! Woo!

And with summertime means daily postings (minus Sunday) here on my blog!

So I've been thinking a lot about what sort of schedule I want to have and the sort of things I want to talk about. This is the blog of a Christian, writer, and engineer, and I want my blog to cover all of those topics. But this is also going to be a summer of big change and I want to talk about that too.

Anyway, no need to continue babbling. My schedule is going to be like the following:

Writer Mondays: On Monday I will discuss things that relate to my writing or to this blog or odd things I think of about writing. So similar to Monday's last year.

Engineering Tuesdays: Like last summer as well, I will spend Tuesdays discussing engineering topics, whether it be past engineering feats, modern marvels, or future discoveries.

Western Wednesday: This has to do with the "big change" coming this summer. Let's just say I'm moving out west. Since my friends who read this blog will want to follow my exploits, this day will take care of that.

Faith Thursdays: As a writer and engineer, I sometimes have a somewhat interesting belief system, when compared to other believers. So this is the day where I'll continue our Evolution discussion as well as discuss any other aspects of my faith.

Geek out Fridays: I feel like I haven't used this blog to express my inner geek enough. Sure I get nerdy* with all my engineering talk, but I haven't used this blog to discuss all those wonderfully geeky things I love. If you read this blog you would think I'm a Wheel of Time geek and nothing else. That's simply not true. My heart will also belong to Star Wars and we can't forget Terminator, Stargate, and all the other wonders of my geekiness.

Book Review Saturday: When I have reviews to post, I'll post them on Saturday. This may mean seven posts might be posted on Saturday, but that's the way of life.

And there will be no post on Sunday so I can take a breath and use that time for whatever.

I think this summer is going to be an exciting time for this blog, and I hope you guys enjoy it!

*The first post this Friday will discuss what the difference is between "geek", "nerd", and "dork" (at least in my mind) so everyone is on the same page.

Finals! AHHH!

2011-05-02T16:09:00.003-04:00

There will be no posts this week due to that horrible thing called final exams. I just can't handle studying, having a life crisis, and writing a post.

But don't worry. I'll be back next week with book reviews, finish my discussion on evolution, as well as some BIG life changing (for me) news (that relate to above crisis. Though it's a good crisis, so don't worry).

If I could have all your prayers as I study and try to pass Statistics (which would be a miracle) I would greatly appreciate it.

Who knew that passing classes called things like "rocket propulsion" and "orbital mechanics" would be easier than passing an Introduction to Statistics class!

A Book Review: City of Fallen Angels

2011-04-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

Title: City of Fallen Angels
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 424

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

Read First: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, Clockwork Angel

Journey once more into the world of Jace, Clary, Simon, and the Shadowhunters. Despite my intense dislike of vampires, one of the aspects I liked about this book was Simon's POV. His POV came almost as often as Clary's, and it was definitely nice to have a completely different perspective, especially a perspective that isn't so enamored with Jace.

This book is considered technically a continuation of The Mortal Instruments but its more like the first book of a sequel trilogy (sort of like Sinner is to The Wayferer Redemption series). The big bad guy of the last set of books is dead (or so we hope, fingers crossed), but a bigger even badder guy comes forth for this book. We're introduced to some new characters and the story lines of our beloved characters continue. (I'm looking at you, Alec. If only he were straight so I could have a legitimate crush on him...err, as legitimate a crush you can have on a fictional character--and of course he still doesn't hold a candle to Mat Cauthon).

So basically read the first books, and if you like those, you'll love this book.

Content rating is still PG-13 though it was close to R. There are some pretty heavy sexual scenes that don't actually cross the line to sex but its getting there. There is also a brief discussion about sex, just fyi. The violence actually isn't that bad in this book, its glossed over, though there is a pretty intense vampire drinking a human scene. However, there are some creepy dead babies (but not zombies thank goodness) that are well...creepy...for lack of a better word.

A Book Review: Clockwork Angel

2011-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Title: Clockwork Angel
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Urban Fantasy with a Steampunk feel (YA)
Length: 476

Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13

Read First: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass

If you liked the Mortal Instruments, you'll like this book. If you like Steampunk, you may like this book, which is an Urban Fantasy that takes place in Victorian England. If you can't tell from the name, it has plenty of clockwork inventions and an inventor who definitely seems like he walked out of a steampunk novel.

So you may notice that I ranked this book as liking it slightly less than the Mortal Instruments. Why is that? Well, possibly its because I really wanted Jace, Clary, and Alec to be in the book and since its a prequel they weren't and that made me unhappy. I had to go about learning a whole new set of characters. However, its also possible because these characters felt very similar to the Mortal Instruments characters. Will seemed like a little more extreme Jace. Jem was like a straight and sickly Alec. Tessa, a non-Shadowhunter Clary. They were so close to the characters I wanted to read about but not quite them. I would have been happier with completely different characters.

Of course, I still got Magnus, and quite a different viewpoint of him. It was interesting to see him in the past, dating a vampire chic.

Plot wise the story is completely unique from the Mortal Instruments so definitely worth a read from that aspect. I did like this book immensely despite feeling that the characters were very similar to the characters of the Mortal Instruments. I'm hoping that's just a first book impression and that in the sequel they're more fully realized as unique individuals. I have great hope for these characters and this novel.

As for rating, these books are PG-13. No sex, plenty of violence, and some characters are killed. So just keep that in mind.

A Brief History of the British Royal Family

2011-04-26T20:16:00.008-04:00

I was going to post on Evolution today as part of my series, but it has come to my attention that far too many of my friends basically have no idea who the members of the British Royal Family are. When posed with the question, "Who is Prince William's parents?" I got the following responses:

1) I don't know.
2) The Queen of England.
3) Is Prince William the guy getting married this week?

People, this is atrocious. Not because I'm a huge fan of royalty or follow them or anything. Everything I know about British royalty I learned in history class or watching the news (which I rarely watch). The reason this is atrocious is because I believe its a symptom of many Americans not having any idea of what's going on outside of the world.

So to help everyone out, here is your crash course. Everything I know about British royalty in Timeline Form:

Ok, so I have no idea why its adding a billion spaces between my words and the table. I can't find an error in my html. So just scroll down.

1066	The Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror came from Normandy (France) and basically conquered England. So he's the first king of England. William I if you will.
1215	The Magna Carta. So Richard the Lionheart is king, goes out during the Crusades and leaves Prince John in charge. Because he wasn't the head honcho, he got pressured by nobles to hand them over more power via Magna Carta.
1400s	The War of the Roses. I'm really not sure what this is all about. There were different factions represented by different colors and they were fighting over the throne and killing each other and a lot of chaos happened.
early 1500s	Henry VIII. He really wanted a son, but his wife Catherine of Aragon only gave him a daughter (Mary). So he wanted to divorce her but she was like cousins with the pope so the pope was like "No way, Jose." So he broke away from the Catholic Church and created the Anglican Church, divorced her, and married Anne Boleyn. But she didn't give him a son either. All in all he went through six wives. Can't remember what happened to them? Just remember "Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived."
mid 1500s	Bloody Mary. After Henry VIII died his only son Edward ruled for a little while, but he was a sickly child. When he died the daughter of Catherine of Aragon was brought in to rule. But she had been raised by her mother in Spain, so she was Catholic and thought all the Anglicans were heretics. So she killed a whole lot of them off. Hence Mary I became known as Bloody Mary.
late 1500s to early 1600s	Elizabeth I. After Mary, her sister Elizabeth I was brought in. Her rule was basically considered a golden age. Shakespeare was around during her rule.
1588	The Spanish Armada. Spain thought they could overtake Britain while Elizabeth was queen, but they were sorely mistaken. The British defeated them with their lighter, quicker ships. This marks the end of Spanish as a big power in Europe.
post Elizabeth, pre-1688	The Cromwell Sandwich. Elizabeth had no kids, so when she died James I became king, James was the King of Scotland the son of Mary Queen of the Scots (not to be confused with Mary I). This brought Scotland in under British rule, so now Britain is made up of England, Ireland, and Scotland. After he died, his son Charles I took over. He had some problems as ruler and was beheaded by his people. Thus Oliver Cromwell (not a royal) came into control of England. He was basically dictator of England. But in the end, Charles II was called back to England to be king. When he died, James II was brought in to be king. Thus completing the "Cromwell Sandwich": James, Charles, Cromwell, Charles, James.
1688	The Glorious Revolution. So James II was Catholic, which caused all sorts of problems. But Parliament didn't want another Cromwell-esque fiasco. But James II had a daughter, Mary, who had married a guy named William of Orange. So Parliament sort of politely invited him to invade England. James II fled and William was made joint king with Mary as joint Queen: William III and Mary II. As far as I know this is the only case of a joint King/Queen situation in England. Despite common thought, marrying a king does not make you queen (or vice versa). It just makes you their spouse.
early 1700s	First Prime Minister. William and Mary died around 1700 and Anne became Queen. But she also died without a successor. And somehow the only viable member of the royal family left was a German. So George of Hanover (George I) was made king. Now, this could be all wrong, but my AP Euro teacher way back in the day gave me the impression that George I didn't speak English very well. So Robert Walpole, a powerful statesman, ended up with a lot of power. And he is generally recognized as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain.
1800s	Queen Victoria. I really have no idea what happened between Robert Walpole and Queen Victoria but I think Disraeli and Gladstone were involved (rivals in the British Parliament). And all I know about Queen Victoria was that she married a guy named Albert and not only had a lot of children but married them off extremely well. Which is why all the rulers involved in WWI were actually first cousins. They were all grandchildren of Queen Victoria.
WWI and WWII	I actually have no idea who was monarch. But I know a lot about the three different movements that almost destroyed Britain before WWI was declared (the suffragettes, the Irish Home Rule, and the workers unions). And about Churchill and WWII. Just not who was King/Queen.
1952	Queen Elizabeth II ascends the throne. She is the current Queen of England.

So now that we're all caught up to the current monarch, let me give a brief family tree.

Queen Elizabeth's heir is Prince Charles. Prince Charles married Princess Diana and they had two kids, William and Harry. William is second in line to the throne. Prince Charles and Princess Diana got divorced and then in 1997 Princess Diana was killed in a car crash.

Prince William is marrying Kate Middleton on Friday.

Are we all caught up? My friends, you no longer have an excuse about not knowing this stuff.

And I now feel an urge to look up who was monarch during WWI and WWII as well about all that Disraeli/Gladstone business.

A Book Review: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

2011-04-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

Title: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer
Author: Lish McBride
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 342

Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13

I picked up this book because it was about a necromancer. Necromancers are not the most common creatures in Urban Fantasy (or Fantasy in general). That honor of course goes to vampires, and since I am currently working on my own WIP that involves necromancers, I'm trying to read as much as I can the other books about them. Thus, this book. However, I was really hesitant to read it. While in the bookstore I read the first chapter and the voice just really didn't catch me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the fact that Sam struck me as a slacker (which he is sort of--with good reason), or maybe it was just the fact that it started pretty mundanely at a fast food restaurant. I don't know. But I avoided reading this book for a month after I bought it.

And then the chaos of the semester reached a lull. I met my research deadlines and finally had time to read. I didn't want to buy a new book until I had read this one, so I sat down and made myself read it....

...and finished it a few hours later.

That first impression? The one that said I wouldn't like this book? It was wrong. Dead wrong. This story was fantastic. Sam is a bit of a slacker, but for a reason! He's a complex young man (and though this is YA, Sam is a college-dropout, not a high schooler) and so are his friends. In fact, by the end of the book you still don't know his friends completely. They have their own secrets. The storyline was also surprisingly complex. Though Sam's perspective is written in first person, there are other POV characters (and their sections are written in third person).

A basic plot summary: Sam is a college-dropout who thinks he's ordinary. But he's actually a necromancer, and he's found out by the local head-honcho necromancer, who also happens to be evil. Head honcho has plans that are far bigger than Sam (whose really just a side plot to him) and yet Sam somehow ends up in the middle of it all. Add to it that Sam has no freakin' clue how to use his powers, which the head honcho assures him are minimal anyway, a best friend whose willing to do anything to secure Sam's safety, a girl who gets killed and brought back as a head, and a captured hybrid werewolf/faye hound princess, and you've got a story.

As for content rating, this book is PG-13. There is violence, but its not too descriptive. There is also sex, but once again, not descriptive. Perhaps the most disturbing thing is the talking head girl and the zombies and other aspects of necromancy but its not that bad. Definitely only PG-13.

Nerds are Hot

2011-04-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

That's probably not a normal title you would expect from a post by me--or you would expect it to be about something that has nothing to do with the title. But the hotness of the nerd population of America is exactly what we're going to talk about. And yes, I felt this was important enough to post on a Friday instead of waiting until after our Evolution vs. Creationism discussion.

Mainly, that's because I went to JordanCon this past weekend, which is what made me think of this topic and I wanted to talk about it before I forgot.

There seems to be this stereotype in the world that nerds fall into one of two categories when it comes to looks: 1) skinny, glasses, pimply, messy hair, socially awkward, works for a major CS firm like Google, Apple, or Microsoft or 2) overweight, bearded, socially awkward, still lives in Mom's basement. And even though I am a nerd (a female one so slightly outside of the stereotypes), I sometimes get the mistaken notion into my head that my male counterparts fall into these categories. And this past weekend, this stereotypical notion crept back into my head as I went to JordanCon, the Wheel of Time convention.

A Wheel of Time convention? I know. I'm a nerd. Did you forget my exploits at Dragon*Con and that one of the highs was that I bought a Great Serpent Ring? I am a nerd. I have no shame. And being a nerd is nothing to be ashamed of.

Anyway, I don't know why these stereotypes would pop in my head for JordanCon. You would think of all the areas of nerdom this would be the one where I wouldn't have the stereotypes. After all, all of my guy friends who read Wheel of Time are hot. (Yeah, yeah, stop blushing you guys who I know who read WoT. You're hot. Now get over it).

So I went to this con, expecting the awkward guys and instead met guys of all types: suave, charming, well dressed (err..costumed?), and just all around nice. (One stereotype that I love that is usually true. Nerd guys are nice). Seriously, if I hadn't been there with my mom AND if I was looking for a boyfriend right now, I would have been seriously putting my charm on (if I have any. Not a master of flirtation here, but I do love talking Wheel of Time, which in this setting might have sufficed).

I guess the moral of this post is we should all try to get past the Breakfast Club view of the nerd and embrace the Chuck Bartowski view. Chuck is awesome, nerdy, nice, and hot. And this should be the new stereotype because its often true. Or at least make it the third stereotype. The other two types of nerds do exist, but I would say the hot ones are in equal if not greater proportion.

Oh, and just in case I have a future husband* who is reading this blog post. I love Mat Cauthon. Yes, we've established this. So, if you're trying to meet me/impress me at a Con, please dress up as him. There were at least two Mat Cauthons at JordanCon and both had excellent costumes and I loved it. But please don't be Mat Cauthon in real life, because I'm pretty sure in real life our personalities would clash. So you can dress like Mat Cauthon but act like Chuck Bartowski. :)

*I want to get married one day, but I'm not 100% convinced its in God's plan for me, so its always "if I get married" never "when".

5 Billion Years, Seven Days, or Yesterday

2011-04-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday I talked about Galileo and why I never out of hand disregard a scientific discovery. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the craziness that is the Evolution versus Creationism debate.

There are a lot nuances to this debate that I don't think most people even consider, but I'm going to divide up our conversation into three topics: 1) Traditional Seven Day Creationism, 2) the Universe is 5 Billion Years Old, and 3) the World was Created Yesterday. In this post, I'm just going to talk about the first of those topics. The other topics will follow next week.

1) Traditional Seven Day Creationism
I do not disbelieve in the Seven Day creation. I think that's an important point to make. If I get to heaven and God says, "You know what Mandy? You were meant to take that very literally and the universe was actually created in seven 24 hour periods (give or take the little bit that adds up to leap year)", I won't be surprised. Now the scientists out there might cry out and say, "How can you possibly believe this is true? All scientific evidence points directly to the universe being much older!"

The apparent age of the universe is a good point that I feel like people don't discuss enough when it comes to this debate. Yes, the universe seems very old. The scientists are not lying when they say measurements point to the universe being old (I'm pretty sure I covered that in the Galileo post but I just wanted to remind everyone). So if the universe seems to be 5 billion years old how can it really be..uh...much less than that. (I'm not sure what the agreed upon age of the world is by the traditionalist view, but its less than 5 billion).

Well that's actually pretty easy to answer if you think about it. The Bible is pretty clear that Adam was created as a man. Not a baby, not a child or teen, but a full grown man. So I'm willing to bet he would seem in every sense to be grown up.

Let me put it in another way. God creates a whole bunch of trees at creation. Do you think He created a whole bunch of saplings? Or do you think He created trees at varying stages of the life cycle (so that an entire generation wouldn't die off at the same time)? So if I went up to one of these freshly made but old seeming trees right after God created them, and cut through the trunk to see the tree rings, do you think it would look like there were no tree rings or God would really have made the tree be 20 years old and have the appropriate yearly rings? So if a scientists saw those rings he would swear the tree was 20 years old, when it reality it was literally created 5 seconds ago.

So the universe seeming old doesn't have to be contrary to a seven day Creation. God is smart, and He's certainly smarter than we are. If He wants the universe to seem 5 billion years old than its because we people need it to be that old to survive in it. It's like God fastforwarding through all that pesky other stuff (or skipping right over it) to create a world that's the exact right age we need to survive. I fully believe God is capable of doing something like that.

Now I feel I should note here that some people believe in a more of "seven distinct stages of creation". This sort of merges into the 5 billion year old, evolution universe, but it doesn't have to. I fully believe God is perfectly capable of creating our universe and all the life in it in 7 nanoseconds. How do I rationalize this with the Bible which clearly states days? Well, God is outside of time, so I don't think He would need to feel constrained by a period of time He had not necessarily yet created. He could if He wanted to--I don't doubt that--but I don't think He had to. However, I also think if God had said to Moses (the usual person believed to have written Genesis), "It took be one nanosecond to create all the animals in the world", Moses' mind might have exploded. Sure, God could have explained to Moses and make him understand. Completely possible and within God's power. However, then Moses would have to explain to everyone else and that's just a hassle. God could have been just talking in terms He knew people would understand.....

Thus we segue into a discussion of evolution and the possibility of Creation taking much much longer. However, that is a post for next Tuesday.

I forgot

2011-04-19T19:59:00.003-04:00

So I forgot to write up today's posts. I blame it on school. This week is often lovingly called "hell week" at Georgia Tech. I suppose its because officially during next week, "dead week", professors aren't supposed to assign homework or give tests, so this week is the week all that stuff would fall on. But in reality, the two weeks have sort of melded into one awful time period where everyone shuffles around campus like zombies.

But I only have five things left to do this semester and then I can call it a quits:

1) Homework due tomorrow (that I honestly haven't started yet)
2) Test on Friday
3) Paper due on Monday
4) Make a poster for final presentation
5) Statistics final exam

So if I can survive all that, it'll be summer and you guys know what that means! It means my Tuesday/Thursday blogging schedule will morph into a daily blogging schedule! (Or at least a Monday, Wednesday, Friday blogging schedule--I haven't decided yet).

So if my posting in the next three weeks is sporadic, I hope you'll forgive me. I'm sprinting to the end of the semester.

Galileo

2011-04-15T10:48:00.005-04:00

(Sorry about not posting this yesterday. My mom is coming to stay with me for the weekend starting today and I went into a cleaning frenzy. All thoughts of posting sort of fell out of my mind. But I'm back with the long promised science and religion post!)

Science and religion are often regarded as oil and water: two things that cannot mix. I have friends who are not religious who think believing in God is daft, to say the least. I have friends who have very strong faith who think a lot of science is completely bogus, like scientists are making information up purposefully to undermine Truth. And then there is my little sister and me, who believe in both science and religion. My sister and I are both strong (Baptist *gasp*) Christians. My sister is a Master's (soon to be PhD) student in anthropology and has no problem (faith-wise) TAing a class called "The Origins of Man" or something like that. I'm an aerospace engineering Master's student who has been known to say that the Matrix could be real and if it is please don't tell me.

So I think the most publicized science vs. faith debate is Evolution versus Creationism. Scientists firmly believe that nature, observation, and science point towards evolution. Let me assure my Christian readers that most scientists do not just make stuff up. They believe stuff based on math, observation, and experimentation. They're not stating it to mess with you. If math, observation, and experimentation could prove a seven day Creation, they would not hold back the information from the public. (Why would they? They'd probably win a Nobel Prize). Now let me assure my atheist, scientific type readers that Christians are not a bunch of blathering, head in the sand idiots. Christians believe in God because of personal experience, observation, and experimentation (though we call it "fleecing" or if we're real brave "doubt"). Christians, like any group of people, do come in varying levels of intelligence, but there are actually scientists and engineers among Christians. You can be smart and have faith.

Now that we've all put our prejudice aside and can look each other in the eye without thinking "that person is an idiot or bogus or fake" let's talk about something else: Galileo.

Galileo lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s, so think Elizabethan Era--except in Italy. He was a physicist and astronomer among other things. He was fascinated by the sun, stars, and heavens in general, as many were back then (and still are).

Now by the time Galileo lived, Copernicus had already made the insane statement that the Earth revolved around the Sun. I know, crazy right? Clearly the Sun revolves around the Earth. I mean, just watch it move across the sky. It's obvious. At least, that was very much the thought process of people back then.

Galileo and Kepler were both two dudes who wanted to figure out if this Copernican theory was real. But we're not here to talk about Kepler, who was living in Germany. We're here to talk about Galileo, who was living in Italy--which was very much controlled by the Church.

Now, I feel its very important to note that Galileo was actually a pretty religious guy. He had considered going into the priesthood. And honestly, he probably would have stayed under the Church's radar even with publishing his ideas, if he hadn't been such a religious man. You see, Galileo believed in heliocentrism (fancy word for the Earth revolving around the Sun) and God. And he went to Rome, to try to explain to the Church that one could believe in both heliocentrism and the God of Christianity, to try to convince them that those who like him believe in both were not heretics. Because of his love of the Church and science, he was banned from further defending this to the Church (though he was not banned from working on his science).

You see, heliocentrism and the Bible could not both possible be true, in the mind of the Church 500 years ago. The two things cannot possibly be reconciled. There is no way heliocentrism can be true if you believe the Bible is true. The two things directly conflict. Obviously.

After all:

"The Lord reigns, He is clothed with majesty;
The Lord has clothed and girded Himself with strength;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved."
~Pslam 93:1

"Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns;
Indeed the world is firmly established, it will not be moved;
He will judge the peoples with equity."
~Pslam 96:10

"Tremble before Him, all the earth;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved."
~1 Chronicles 16:30

"Also, the sun rises and the sun sets;
And hastening to its place it rises there again."
~Ecclesiastes 1:5

"He established the earth upon its foundations,
So that it will not totter forever and ever."
~Psalm 104:5

Clearly, the Bible indicates the world is not moving but sitting still in space. In fact, I'm not even sure the Earth should rotate according to these verses.

Now, I'm not here to point out supposed contradictions in the Bible. I do not believe that any of these verses contradict the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. I think the writers (and through them God) were trying to make the point that God very carefully placed the Earth. That this Goldilocks zone we are in is special. And that God will not allow anything to move us from this zone. And that we can depend on the Sun. He put it there for us. And as long as He wants us to be here, the Sun will be there.

The point I am trying to make is that today, in the modern world, we all believe in heliocentrism (as far as I know). Christians are not protesting in the streets, not angrily overrunning school board meetings, to protest that heliocentrism is being taught. We believe in heliocrentrism. And we believe the Bible. Yet, the angry feelings and denials people had back then are very similar to the feelings Christians have about Evolution.

So maybe 500 years from now future Christians will laugh at us for disregarding Evolution as true.

In short, as Christians we shouldn't dismiss science out of hand because we think it contradicts. It doesn't always. Sometimes it just involves thinking out of the box. As for my feelings about evolution (and the Matrix), that's a post for another day. For now, I just want you to remember Galileo when your first thought is "Scientists are just making this crap up!" Galileo was a scientist and a believer and he really did believe both (as most of us now do when it comes to heliocentrism).

Feminism and Geordi LaForge

2011-04-12T12:31:00.003-04:00

So when I was taking a five minute break from my research over the weekend, I read this article on Feminist Books. Basically the point of the article is that its not the behavior of the characters in the book that make the story Feminist, it's the attitude of the reader. I didn't really think much about that at the time (due to my head being overloaded with control laws, algebraic riccati equations, and saturation blocks), but while I was driving into the office this morning, it sort of popped into my head.

I was thinking about how Amanda Tapping is going to be at Dragon*Con this year, and how I need to add her signature to my collection of science fiction engineer/scientists. And I started thinking about how recently in SF a lot of the engineers and scientists are mainly females. It started with everyone's favorite Klingon Engineer, B'Elanna Torres. Then came Samantha Carter of SG-1. Then Kailey of Firefly. It's a trend. And I get it. We're trying to tell girls--hey! you can be in the position! See! Here is a girl engineer. You can be one too.

And thinking about all of this is what made me realize what the article is saying. That is sort of anti-Feminist. Saying "Here is a girl doing it so you can do it to" is not the point of feminism (in my mind). The point of it is the same point as getting rid of racism. I don't want someone to look at me and pre-judge me based on my sex, race, or anything. A person shouldn't think "Look! A black man has become president of the United States! I can to!" A person should think "Hey! A person can become president! I can to!"

What the article is trying to say, what it means, is basically that a girl should be able to look at an character/role and know they can be that. And I think the best example of this is one that happened to me and is very near and dear to my heart.

I was not inspired to be an engineer by the female B'Elanna Torres or Samantha Carter. I was inspired to be an engineer by Geordi LaForge, as played by LeVar Burton. I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation as a kid, and I saw how cool and wonderful being the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise was. I wanted that job. I wanted to be Geordi. It never crossed my mind that Geordi was male or black or blind (though with the visor he actually had better vision than any other person on the Enterprise). It was a job a person was doing and therefore I knew I could do it. Geordi was a person (fictional, yes) and I am to, and that's the only correlation necessary. That is feminism.

It doesn't matter that the Lord of the Rings is mostly about guys. What matters is that I can relate to the characters and can see myself being one of them.

I've always liked boy books better than I like girl books and I think in a way this is part of the reason. Girl books make me hyper aware that I'm a girl, that I'm different somehow, somehow a different sort of human from a boy (or other girls apparently since I can't relate to them). Boy books just deal with life, without making it a big deal. It's not a big deal that Harry is a boy. He just is. And I can imagine myself in his place, taking down Voldemort.

Yes, I think it is important to have females portrayed as engineers to help girls overcome their own un-feminist minds, but in the end a girl (or boy) should be able to look at any job/role and say "I can do that" regardless of the gender of the person portraying it. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Summer Reading

2011-04-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

So I was going to have a nice, thoughtful post on how science and religion don't have to conflict in all situations, but a thoughtful post requires thought. And due to a statistics test tomorrow and a research deadline on Tuesday, all of my thought processes are currently in use. So instead a less thoughtful post.

Every summer I go back to my co-op, which is wonderful. It's like three months of vacation. Not because I don't have to work--because I do. I go to work everyday for eight to ten hours (depending on how I feel) and then I go back to my apartment. So how is this like a vacation? Well, when I go back to my apartment--I don't have homework. I don't have to fret about school. I don't have to feel guilty about watching TV or reading a book because I have work I should be doing. I can leave work at work, and that is the most wonderful thing ever. It's a vacation from 24/7 stress. Wonderful.

So I do a lot of reading in the summer (as if you couldn't tell from the large quantity of book reviews I posted last summer). But this year I'm being slightly more intentional about my reading, I'm creating a list of all the books I want to read. And I can read a lot in the summers. Three books a week is a minimum. I've been known to devour a book a day in the summertime (I have very few friends at my co-op, so though that means I have no life it means lots of time to myself which means lots of reading).

So my current list is:

1) The Forest of the Hands and Teeth Trilogy by Carrie Ryan
2) Bumped by Megan McCaffery
3) Memento Nora by Angie Smibert
4) Dark Parties by Sara Grant
5) Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
6) City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
7) Divergent by Veronica Roth
8) The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson (I think its 10 books long)
9) The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett
10) Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
11) Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

So far my list is a lot of new YA books, an entire series of fantasy, and one non-fiction book. (I don't usually read a lot of non-fiction, but Thunderstruck is apparently really good and its a narrative which is all that really matters). This is only 22 books, which is not enough. Even if I limit myself to three books a week I still need about 22 more books. So does anyone out there in blog land have a recommendation? I would greatly appreciate it.

So please! Suggest books!

Faith and Work

2011-04-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

The other day one of my friends was told by his research adviser that because of my friend's personal beliefs, he was unfit to be an engineer. My reaction to this news was three-fold.

First off, say what? Aren't we past that now? Isn't America supposed to be beyond religious persecution? If my friend thinks his beliefs don't conflict with his work, who is his research adviser to tell him otherwise?

Second, what the heck does engineering have to do with what I believe? Last I checked engineering and science were not the same thing and let's be honest--what does robotics have to do with evolution? Not much.

Third, why do people still have the ridiculously mistaken belief that science and religion are incompatible? (And I'll also admit that people have this ridiculous belief on both sides of the fence! Religious people think they can't believe in science and science people think they can't believe in religion! Ridiculous! But more on this in Thursday's post!)

I will be the first to admit that there are some beliefs that are incompatible with some job options. If you believe modern medicine is wrong, then you shouldn't be a modern doctor. Firm believers in seven day Creationism probably wouldn't make good evolutionary scientists. I get that. But no one should ever be told they can't do something because of what they believe.

Yes, I wouldn't want to work on anything that conflicts with my beliefs. But if I think something doesn't conflict with my beliefs, who are you to tell me they do?

I think this all comes back to my fundamental belief that no one should ever try to tell me what I should and shouldn't do (outside of the law, of course). That is for me to decide. If I think I can and should be an engineer, then I will be an engineer. If I think I can and should be a doctor, then I'll be a doctor. It is not an outsider's place to tell me otherwise--to tell me my capabilities or supposed place.

Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm a Christian. But that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't be an aerospace engineer, or so I believe. And that's what matters.

Reading Order

2011-03-31T08:00:00.000-04:00

So I've been re-reading the Dragonrider of Pern books which brings forth an age old debate: in what order should a person read books.

For the most part its the age old chronological order versus publication order. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, let's use a movie example. Star Wars. If you were watching all the Star Wars movies would you watch them in order of episode (1,2,3,4,5,6) or release (4,5,6,1,2,3). Personally I'm a fan of the flashback order (4,5,1,2,3,6), so that you get sucked in with 4 and 5 and then when Darth Vader says he's Luke's father you can see how that came to be, as if its a flashback, before ending the series.

Some books can easily be read in both orders, since the published order is chronological, but that's not always true.

I'm a huge fan of chronological order, but I feel I'm in the minority. I have friends who swear that published order is the only way to read books. It's something I feel I have argued about and worried about a lot in recent years. Whenever I'm going to start a series, I have to look it up and figure out which book is first.

However, when I was younger I didn't worry about these things. I read the Star Wars in a completely random order, starting with The Young Jedi Knights, moving to The Thrawn Trilogy, and then whatever book my bookstore had in random. The same was true for the Dragonriders of Pern books. I read "The Smallest Dragonboy" in my seventh grade textbook, I then went to the library and got the only Dragonriders of Pern book there was: Moreta. Then I read the Harper Hall Trilogy. It was all very random. And yet none of this randomness bothered me. Strange how the times have changed.

So what about you? Are you a believer in chronological order, publication order, or random order?

Pern

2011-03-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

One time at Dragon*Con I waited in two author signing lines simultaneously. How I managed that is a story for another time. The important thing to this post is the two lines I was waiting in: Anne McCaffrey and Tamora Pierce. Anne McCaffrey's line was full of men and women ranging in ages across the spectrum. Tamora Pierce's line was full of weepy teenage girls. (I'm not exaggerating).

While I was standing in the Tamora Pierce line the girls kept saying how her books had changed their lives and how the characters were a part of them and how much they loved her. They expected me to be saying similar things, but the truth of the matter was that I was waiting in that line for my little sister. Sure, I have read all the Tortall books, but I read them as a college student who was trying to keep tabs on my high school sister's reading habits.

At some point, I had to explain to them my simultaneous waiting. They didn't know who Anne McCafffrey was. When they asked who she was I answered, "Anne McCaffrey is to me what Tamora Pierce is to you."

What did I mean by that? Well, I started reading The Dragonriders of Pern in my crazy seventh grade year when I started Harry Potter and Wheel of Time. "The Smallest Dragonboy" was a short story in my seventh grade text book and it mesmerized me. The idea of dragons as lifelong partners, the idea of Impression, and the fact that no matter what happened you would always have a dragon who loves you...it was breathtaking and enthralling. I wanted a dragon of my own, I wanted to be Keevan, and I had to read more.

So I began to check out books from the library, and I fell in love with this world. Girls like reading Tamora Pierce books because they enjoy strong women who work to change society and do what they want--like becoming female knights--but still have strong relationships and lives. I adored Anne McCaffrey books for the same reason. Lessa and Menolly were two fictional women I could look to, women who were in a men's world and forced that world to change to accept them and let them be who they wanted to be (whether that be Dragonrider or Harper). And yet they didn't isolate themselves from others by doing it, they formed strong relationships of love and friendship--and with dragons, as the case may be.

When I was in middle school, I read Star Wars, Harry Potter, Wheel of Time, and the Dragonriders of Pern (as well as a few smaller books). Each served a purpose. Star Wars got me through the fifth, sixth, and early seventh grade, when I wasn't ready for PG-13 material, but had out read PG. Harry Potter connected me to my generation. The Wheel of Time introduced me to how epic stories could be. But lets face it, most of the cool stuff in Star Wars is done by guys. Harry Potter only had three books out, and the Wheel of Time for all its epicness takes place over the course of 2 and a half years. The Dragonriders of Pern were different. They should me how girls could be strong teenagers and grow into strong women with children of their own and later even grandchildren. In Pern I was connected to a world, to generations, to a people.

And I think most importantly it showed me everyone deserves a dragon, someone who will love them no matter what, someone who despite everything bad that happens will be there for you.

However, my heart is still set on a non-metaphorical dragon that I can ride through the skies. If only fire lizards were real and we really could genetically engineer them into dragons. :)

Sorry!

2011-03-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry about not posting last week! It was Spring Break. As a grad student, spring break doesn't really mean anything. For the most part we sit in the office and do work. However, since I worked through most of last Christmas all my Christmas doctor appointments (like the dentist and eye doctor) got pushed to spring break, so I had to go home for a little while. I expected to do work while I was there, but for some reason I find its impossible to do work in my parents house, even when I'm alone.

Anyway, posts will resume as normal this week!

An Open Letter to Brandon Sanderson

2011-03-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

Dear Brandon Sanderson,

I love your books, and I hate you for it.

It's ironic I suppose that in the Alcatraz books you clearly state that authors are evil, and I didn't believe it. But now I understand. You are evil.

You write books that are completely amazing, books that suck me in from page one, books that I can't put down--and that is the crux of the matter! I have things I need to do! I should be doing research. I should be doing homework. I should be doing a hundred other things, but instead, I'm re-reading the Mistborn Trilogy.

That's right. Re-reading. I've read these books before and yet even knowing what's going to happen, even knowing the characters and plots, I cannot put the books down. I reread The Final Empire in one day. I reread The Well of Ascension the next day. And now I'm rereading The Hero of Ages when I should be studying plasma physics and working on my control laws.

And it's not just Mistborn. Last August I said to myself "I need to reread something I've read before so I won't be distracted from my research on Kalman Filters. How about Elantris? It's been a while since I read that but I remember it clearly so it won't distract me."

Wrong. I read chapter one, and then chapter two, and suddenly I couldn't put it down. I had to keep reading. I had to stay in this world, even though I had read it before!

I know you seem like such a nice guy. At every signing I've been to, you were approachable and joking with us fans. But I know the truth, the truth you yourself revealed in the Alcatraz books. You are an evil, evil, evil man. You want to suck me away from my research. You want me to not finish my thesis. You want me to not graduate. I see it now. I understand.

You are evil.

And the worst part is that you're like an evil overlord, and I'm like a willing minion. You're the Lord Ruler, and I'm a Steel Inquisitor. Despite your evil ways, I follow. Despite the fact I know your books are destroying me, I read them. Because they're amazing. WHY? Why must you write such amazing books?

Oh, Brandon Sanderson, why do you torment me so? And not just with your amazing books, but with the anticipation of even more amazing books. I wait in eager anticipation for Alloy of the Law. I'm dying to read A Memory of Light. And I have no idea what your Rithmatist book is about but I can't wait to get my hands on it.

You're my favorite author, but I don't want to fail. So right now I'm just going to have to hate you. I'm going to have to lock away all my Brandon Sanderson books. And the only key will be my degree. Because its the only way I'll survive. It's the only way I'll actually keep my focus on my work.

Thanks a lot,
Mandy P.

Late Post

2011-03-15T10:54:00.004-04:00

I know, I know. I'm a slacker. But today's post will either be really late or posted tomorrow.

My life is in full on crazy mode. I really need to do research and can't focus a lot of time on blogging. But I will blog at some point. I just have to remind myself to write blogs while I watch TV for an hour each night.

So I will post. Just either late or tomorrow.

No Post Today

2011-03-10T10:37:00.003-05:00

I have a test in my Plasma Physics class tomorrow, so I'm spending all day today studying things like the plasma criterion and solar physics. While this is definitely more exciting than studying for my statistics class, its still studying. I hate studying.

Since the test is at 2:00 pm tomorrow, I'm not sure whether I'll have a post tomorrow either. If I do, it'll be after the test.

So hope you guys have a good weekend and I'll post again regular-like next week.

A Book Review: The Wise Man's Fear

2011-03-09T10:09:00.002-05:00

Title: The Wise Man's Fear
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Genre: Fantasy (epic)
Length: like 1,000 pages*

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: R

Read First: The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss' books are somehow indescribable. I've had several conversations with friends that went something like this:

Person 1: The Name of the Wind is awesome. I can't wait until Book 2.
Person 2: I know! Right! SOOO awesome.
Person 3: What's so awesome about it?
Person 1: Uh.....I...Uh.....I don't know.
Person 2: Kvothe is just so like relate-able....
Person 1: Because you've experienced your whole family being massacred? You're an arcanist? You play an instrument?
Person 2: Um. No. He's just like-able ok.
Person 3: So its the plot? The plot is great? Right?
Person 2: Totally.
Person 1: Actually, it was kind of predictable.
Person 3: So you're telling me this is a predictable plot with a like-able character?
Person 1: No. It's like really really really really awesome.
Person 3: Why???
Person 2: Just go read it and you'll see.

The awesomeness that is The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear is really kind of indescribable. In fact Brandon Sanderson catches the feeling of being unable to describe why these books are awesome in his review of The Wise Man's Fear:

"Why do I recommend it?
Because it's awesome.

Why is it awesome?

This often stops me. Why IS Pat's writing awesome?"

Brandon Sanderson goes on to explain reasons that make these books amazing and you should really read the whole post. But in short these books are amazing because they are beautiful, and I couldn't agree more.

Yes, the story is predictable. Yes, Kvothe is somewhat a reckless, hot headed, messed up kid. But I find myself sucked in because the writing is just amazing.

How can amazing writing rejuvenate a story I feel like I've heard before? Well, that's fairly simple.

It's like an artist doing a cover of another song.

I've heard Elton John's Your Song. It's nice. I like it. But when I heard Ewan McGregor sing it in Moulin Rouge, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. It felt like a new song.

And that's sort of what Patrick Rothfuss does. He takes a couple of old plots and melts them together into a beautiful cover that is so much better than the original.

Patrick Rothfuss is an artist, and his books are beautiful works of art.

As for the content rating, I went back and forth on this one between PG-13 and R. There is sex, but its not descriptive. I could have easily rationalized it down to a PG-13. I'm sure there are a lot of jokes and innuendos I just didn't get in the book at all, so since I didn't get them, I think younger readers won't be scarred by them. What put me over the edge to R though is the violence--the violence Kvothe himself commits. If it was a movie, this violence would definitely up it into R. So just keep that in mind. It's a beautifully written book and everything (whether its sex, violence, or Kvothe taking a nap) is done tastefully, but its there and this book has its dark moments. Kvothe is getting older, and this book reflects that.

*So I don't have this book sitting in front of me while writing this review, so I'll update this number later. But 1,000 isn't an exaggeration. I seem to remember the book ending somewhere near page 980.

Controversy

2011-03-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's post mentioned on of the recent YA controversies; however, it is far from the only controversy in the field of Young Adult Literature. It seems almost every other week people are arguing about something: Boy Books, the B***** List, Feminism, Violence, Sex, and sooo much more. It seems you can't mention a popular YA book without some controversy popping up.

Why? Why is YA so ridiculously controversial? MG rarely has this problem, with the exception of some misled people thinking Harry Potter is of the devil. Adult books have controversy but the controversy is never about whether its ok for adult books to discuss topics or whether something is appropriate or too much. So why is the controversy all in YA?

Well I think the real answer to this is that MG is determinedly PG or low PG-13. Adult books have free range to be anything from G to NC-17. But YA books....oh YA books. Some are cleanly G. Some are NC-17. Most I would argue are safely PG-13. And they are aimed at teenagers, which is a group of people as widely diverse as any can be.

We want to keep our kids safe. We want to teach them good things. But kids don't always live in a safe world. They don't always do good things. Where is the line in portraying the world as it is and portraying the lessons and world views we want teens to have? Where is the line in wanting to keep our kids safe and wanting to censor them?

My parents never limited what I read. My parents really had no idea what I was reading, not because they were bad parents, but because they couldn't. I just read too much. But on the other hand, I didn't read YA books (by choice) as a teen. I solidly and steadily read adult books--most of which were safely PG-13. But my little sister read A LOT of YA books as a teen, and I tried my best to read them all--to keep up with what she was reading, and I have to say I was stunned by the messages I felt YA was giving, messages that I didn't feel were in adult books--messages that I felt were detrimental and hurtful to a female teenager's mind.

I would try to talk to my sister about these books--try to give her better books to read, better YA books with awesome messages, but she didn't want anything to do with a book I recommended to her--she still doesn't.

And therein lies the crux of all YA controversies.

We're trying to protect people who don't want to be protected.

And so YA is always going to have controversy. Parents are always going to try to shelter their kids. Teens are always going to push back on those protections.

Anyway, I mention all this because in the coming weeks I might do a few posts on some of the controversies out there and my often strange feelings about them. I've mentioned this before but I was a really strange, logical, rational teenager. This often causes me to have really strange opinions on things because when I look back at the olden days when I was in teen at the turn of the century (that's right I get to say that), I remember how coolly logical my thoughts were. But I recognize now that most females under twenty aren't like that (at the time it frankly baffled me).

So I hope you don't mind as in the next few weeks we explore the random opinions of this crazy writer. And if you have any controversies you would like my two cents on please leave them in the comments. Though lets please keep them at least loosely related to books.

Fear & Book Reviews

2011-03-07T08:00:00.005-05:00

Despite the fact that I've been Internet connected since I was fifteen years old, I'm actually fairly new to the whole author(aspiring or published)/agent/publishing online community. Seriously, before I started reading Stuff Christians Like, I didn't read blogs. Never had any interest in them. And I really didn't know anything about the publishing industry at all. I discovered SCL and started doing research my third year in college, which is the year I also started blogging, just for fun and mainly just for my friends.

Generally, the more I know the more I realize I don't know anything (thank you Socrates), but as I read writerly blogs, I discover something else. The more I know the more terrified I become.

Mainly in the context of book reviews.

For almost two full years, I have been blogging book reviews. Sure they haven't always been regular, but I started this blog with the intent that I would review every book I read, in a short concise way. Why? Mainly because I firmly believe books should be rated and wanted to put ratings out there for other people. But also because I read more than any of my other friends, and a lot of them do come to me for recommendations. So I figured why not put them all in one easy to access place?

My reviews are generally positive. They're not always enthusiastic for every book, but I firmly believe that every published book has merit--or else it wouldn't be published. This book is some writers baby, and I respect that.

But I sometimes post bad reviews. Sometimes I'm frankly not just unimpressed but horrified by what I read. However, in all of my time of blogging, I can only remember posting one really awful probably slightly mean review. From what I hear, I don't really think Mr. Goodkind cares about my opinion anyway. However, I recently read one book that frankly horrified me, and though I don't think the review I prepared is mean, its definitely negative.

And I'm now afraid to post it.

Why? Well for the past couple of months I've begun to realize that there is a not so subtle message coming from people in the publishing world (be they agents or authors). Only publish good reviews. Never publish a negative review if you want to be an aspiring author. Only publish reviews of books you truly love.

As I say, this really hasn't been a problem for me. I mean look at my reviews from last week. They were like love letters to Cassandra Clare. But I had planned to post this bad review today, and I double checked it to make sure it was critical and not snarky and figured that would be enough. After all, this is a little known blog, its semi-anonymous, and its really just for my friends. I don't want them to accidentally pick up this awful book and then ask me why I didn't warn them.

Then something crazy exploded in the blogosphere. Truly insane, really. The discussion has been labeled as YA Mafia, and for a good recap, go here to YA Highway.

Basically the underlying message of the discussion was: don't post negative reviews or it may come back to really bite you.

So now my heart is filled with fear. I've never really considered myself a YA writer, but my current WIP is YA. And I totally get networking and not wanting to burn bridges; however, I am also really outspoken about my beliefs.

Let's put it this way. If I ever met Terry Goodkind, I would be unfailingly polite and I would honestly tell him everything I loved about his books. (Like every straight female whose read Sword of Truth, I can't help but like Richard Rahl). However, if asked I wouldn't lie to him about what I didn't like: the plot. His characterization and ability to make you love a character is stunning. But I found the plot very lacking.

I'm not looking for conflict, so if I met the author of the bad review I want to post, I would never without prompting tirade against them and their books. In fact, I'm afraid of conflict. But if it came up in conversation, if they asked me, I would not lie to them. And isn't the point of reviewing saying what you liked and didn't like about a book?

So basically, I have no idea what to do about this book review. I wrote it. I planned to publish it here today. But what if, one day, that author sees I wrote a bad review and then decides to shot block me somehow? Because despite the YA community's reassurances that there is no mafia, everyone still cautioned that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, because it may actually hurt you.

What do you guys think? If you're one of my friends who reads this blog because you know me personally, what are your feelings on me posting negative reviews? If you don't know me in "real life" but follow this blog--what's your opinion on negative reviews? Have you been following the YA Mafia insanity? What are your feelings on it?

And I guess the underlying question is: should I post the negative review?

A Book Review: City of Glass

2011-03-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Title: City of Glass
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 541

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

Read First: City of Bones, City of Ashes

I thought this was the conclusion to a trilogy, and it both is and isn't. It's sort of like the Wayfarer Redemption Series where there are two distinct trilogies that are very closely tied. At least, that's my understand. Regardless, after finishing this book, I can't wait for the next book to come out this April. I'm dying to read it.

This book simply continued the awesomeness of the first two, bringing together all the hinted at subplots and problems into an epic finale. And let's add a double twist to the love story. My my. I have to say I didn't see this double twist coming at all! (It's not often that happens).

But since I don't want to give away spoilers but I do want to talk about how awesome this book is, I'm going to talk about something a little vague that I think Ms. Clare did an awesome job with: background romantic subplots.

In most books you have your POV characters who fall in love. You get that romance up close and personal, so you get invested in it. But Ms. Clare went above and beyond that. She made me invested in the romantic story lines of background non-POV characters. I longed for the background hints of Alec's romance (I won't say with who so that there are no spoilers). Every time his name was mentioned in conjunction with his love interest, I perked and read voraciously. When his love interest resolved in the end, I was happier than I could imagine--especially considering its a secondary subplot.

I can think of few other authors who managed to convey a deep and real relationship without using those characters POV. David Eddings comes to mind. In his series, he usually only has one or two POV characters and yet all of his characters seem to have romances going on in the background--romances that you can follow without their POV. I love that. It shows a mastery of story telling that I'm not sure I've come close to mastering.

So read The Mortal Instruments and become invested in all of the characters, not just the POV ones.

This book is also rated PG-13 for violence, death, demons, vampires, and sexual situations.

Critiques and Descent

2011-03-03T10:15:00.003-05:00

If you're a writer and you don't frequent the blog Miss Snark's First Victim, you don't know what you're missing. It's a great blog for aspiring and established writers to get critiques and see how agents view those crucial first 250 words of your novel.

This week, Authoress--the hostess--is doing a critique called "Drop the Needle" where writers could enter any 250 words from their story as long as it goes along with the theme she presets. This week's theme is revelations.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, for the first time, I was brave enough to try to enter one of her critiques and I got in! Woohoo! And I didn't just send in 250 words from any old story. I sent in 250 words from Descent, the novel whose inspiration I discussed in an earlier post today.

So if you're a friend and want a taste of the new Descent, go check it out my entry. If you're a writer, head over to Miss Snark's First Vicitm and join in the critiquing.

On a slight different note, if you're one of my non-writer friends, please don't offer a critique or comment unless you feel you're opinion is really valid. I don't want a rush of friends on my post saying "I love Mandy! I love everything she writes! Woohoo!". Serious critiques people. That's what Miss Snark's First Victim is about. Serious, helpful, but not snarky, critiques.

When Inspiration Hits

2011-03-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of my current WIPs (WIP = work in progress) is something that is near and dear to my heart. I thought of the original idea that eventually grew into this story when I was a sophomore in high school. In many ways it was a reaction to Harry Potter, so yes, it involves wizards, but now it has gained a life of its own, and is a story that I think is worth telling and needs to be told.

So if this idea has been around so long, why haven't I written it? I've tried several times. I've started it so many ways. But every time I'll write three chapters and then falter. I can't go on. I'm no longer hearing it, feeling it. Somehow, what I'm writing is not true to the vision I feel in my heart.

Recently I've really struggled with it. I'd written six chapters, but I reached a wall. Not a wall of writer's block, I knew what should come next in this draft and know how to write it. No, this wall was a feeling that the story was failing, not staying true to what it should be.

In many ways this is the darkest story I've ever tried to write. It's a story of evil and its development, of how it slowly takes over. But my draft wasn't giving that feeling, that ambiance. It seemed too lighthearted, not enough darkness.

I thought of combining it with another WIP, trying to force them to come together to get that feel. But the characters wouldn't agree, they wouldn't mesh. It felt forced on every level.

So the story went on the back burner. I turned to another one while letting the juices of that story stew.

Then in class on Thursday, inspiration struck. I really can't describe it any other way.

I remembered the first line of one of my early drafts. I remembered the emotions I was trying to convey. And suddenly it was like I was hearing a voice speaking to me in my head. It was Chris, my main character, telling me his story.

I began writing in class, disregarding the lecture on statistics. I raced home, sat at my computer, and wrote for 4 hours. At the end of it, I had nearly 10,000 words. Ten thousand words that for the first time seem to get how this story is supposed to be.

Is it perfect? No. It'll all need revision of course, once I finish the story. But I think I've captured the voice, the mood, the feeling of darkness.

For the first time, I am confident that this start is one I can take to the finish with confidence. All I want to do is write in it.

This time Chris's story will be told and I'm thrilled.

A Book Review: City of Ashes

2011-03-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: City of Ashes
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 453

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

Read First: City of Bones

This second book in The Mortal Instruments is not a disappointment. I don't want to release any spoilers, but let's just say that the romantic plot twist from the first book is a present problem in this second book.

It's really hard to say anything about this book without completely spoiling the first book, because this book deals with the repercussions and revelations of the first book. And what I love about this particular set of YA books, as opposed to YA books in general, is how it deals family relationships. It seems to be a general rule that YA books deal only with friendship and romantic relationships, while familial relationships are the domain of MG relationships--as if family problems disappear when you hit 14. But that's not true, and Cassandra Clare deals with that. She deals with how if anything familiar relationships get more complicated when you become a teenager. How you're striving for approval and love--not just from the opposite sex (or the same as the case may be) but from your parents. And family relations are definitely a theme hidden within the awesome action of this book.

If you loved City of Bones, you'll love City of Ashes.

This book is PG-13 for the same reasons as the first: violence, sexual situations, comas, demons, and death.

Ode to Borders

2011-03-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

If you follow the publishing industry or books much, then you know that Borders has recently declared bankruptcy. This greatly distresses me because I love Borders. In fact, I adore Borders. So today I present my ode to Borders, written in multiple stanzas of haiku:

Rows and rows of books
and books. Glistening covers
that beckon my eye.

I pick an aisle
and walk trailing my hand on
spines, feeling titles.

I look over the
tops of shelves and see genres.
So many choices.

Need assistance? No
Thank you. I can find my way.
I’m glad they offer.

I find my section.
Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Old friends, maybe new.

Alphabetical
order just seems right. I know
my way to fav’rites.

Ender’s Game? Brandon
Sanderson? They have them all.
I breathe in the joy.

Yes, these are my friends:
Ender and Vin. But new ones
await. What to choose?

I peruse with joy
to the smell of coffee and
new books. I love it.

Please, Borders, don’t die.
You mean so much to me. Not
just books. But more too.

Evening meetings with
my mentor, studying God’s
Word while drinking tea.

Hours with my friends
talking about books we love
and ones we want too.

I discovered new
books on your shelves. New friends I
took home to join mine.

Please, Borders, don't die
or I'll loose my escape from
purgatory--school.

One day I hope to
see my own books on your shelves
discovering friends.

I hear the news, but
I won't lose hope. I have faith
Borders will still live.

I will buy books from
you. I will buy coffee too.
You will live for me.

Please, Borders, don't die.
I need books to love so please,
please, Borders, don't die.

A Book Review: City of Bones

2011-02-28T08:00:00.003-05:00

Title: City of Bones
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Urban Fantasy (YA)
Length: 485

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

When I picked up City of Bones, the first of The Mortal Instruments series, I wasn't expecting an awesome book. To be honest, I was sort of expecting a paranormal romance of the Twilight variety: stalkerish, hot paranormal boys. The cover sort of made me think that to. So why did I pick it up? Well, I've heard great things about it and as a writer I like to keep up with awesome SF/F--regardless of the age level it finds in. So reluctantly I picked up this shiny covered book, expecting to find vampires (and I really really hate vampires).

But I was so wrong.

City of Bones isn't about vampires. It's about demon hunters. It's not about a girl being strangely and inexplicably drawn to a mysterious and dangerous boy. It's about a girl who seems to see things that aren't there, whose mother is kidnapped, and she must throw her lot in with the only people who seem to know what's going on. That's right--I said people. Not one lone boy. But three teenagers and their adult tutor. But she isn't stupid about it. She lets her normal (non demon hunter) best friend know what's going on. A main character who has common sense??? I know! My mind was blown.

Of course, there is a hot boy. It's not YA without that. But this romance subplot does not resolve in a way you would expect. Let's just say, this isn't a girl meets boy, and they live happily ever after story. The characters in this story have depth, a depth that is realistic, and their relationship is equally realistic. It has ups and downs, complete misunderstandings, subtle hints, and one doozy of a twist.

I loved all the characters, for their depth and realism. And I loved the plot. Oh, it had its predictable twists (what doesn't?) and I saw a lot of things coming, but I loved the way the characters handled these plot points. I loved their human and realistic reactions.

And I loved the urban fantasy world that Ms. Clare built. A world of angels, werewolves, demons, and yes even vampires. I could image this world hidden within our own. I could imagine this secret society of demon hunters and the mind set they developed being real. And in the end that is a big part of what I look for in urban fantasy. Not just a fantastical earth--but an earth that I could believe is our own.

This book will make you want to read the next one and will leave you wishing Cassandra Clare would write faster.

This book is PG-13 for violence, death, kidnapping, demons (which are extra points for generally just freaking me out), and some sexual situations.

A Book Review: Across the Universe

2011-02-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Genre: Science Fiction (YA)
Length: 398

Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13

Beth Revis is the second member of the League to get published, and between following her on the League and the wonderful Authoress singing her praises, I couldn't resist running out to get this book. Not to mention its science fiction, and I love a good SF book. Though, I have a small confession. This book's dust jacket is reversible, with a completely different cover on the inside. The two different covers represent the two different characters, Amy and Elder. Though I am a female and should technically be ok with Amy's romantic girly cover, I really hated that cover. And I really really really love the blue-print Elder cover. So I switched it. Blame the engineer in me.

In the not to distant future, Amy and her family are frozen so they can undertake a 300 year journey to a new planet. Except Amy's mind doesn't freeze like it should. She's aware as time passes. She dreams and remembers, trying to pass the time.

In the distant future, Elder is the future leader of the people who live on the ship and is destined to be leader when the ship finally lands on the new planet. Despite his great destiny, Elder is alone. There is no one on the ship near his age, and he alone is to be trusted with the secrets of the ship.

When Amy wakes up it is 50 years too early, and it is to discover a society that is unlike anything she has ever known. Something is wrong on the ship, and its up to Amy and Elder to figure it out.

I stayed up late one night, reading this book, when I should have been sleeping. I told myself I would only read for an hour, but suddenly three hours had passed. I couldn't put this book down, as I discovered the strange society that inhabited the ship and wondered how a people could possibly go so wrong. The secrets of the ship were not what I expected at the beginning, and I love being surprised. I also enjoyed the description of the ship itself and its layout. I love seeing how people imagine space travel might be.

This book is PG-13 for a crazy intense description of being frozen in the very first chapter (that I admit scared me very much), violence, and sexual situations that include a near rape.

The Start of the Year of Weddings

2011-02-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I knew intellectually that life wouldn’t end up the way I expected it—that the world wouldn’t change to fit my whims. My life experiences growing up sort of confirmed and denied that. Anything I expected to happen and wanted to happen academically did happen. I always got what I wanted and earned the position I desired. Anything I expected to happen or wanted to happen relationship-wise never happened.

This trend has continued on through college and graduate school. Mandy says she wants to go to France? Mandy studies abroad. Mandy says she want to work for NASA? Guess who offers her a job. Mandy says she wants to go to Grad School? Bam. Doors open.

But Mandy says she wants a boyfriend. Uh…not quite happening.

However, this post is not about me lamenting about not having a boyfriend, because honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had one. This post is about another relationship-type life expectation that got completely shot down.

Growing up I never expected to get married right out of college. I expected to live by myself and live the cool singles life with all my awesome cool singles friends. Imagine How I Met Your Mother with less bars, less sex, but same amounts of good times.

So in less than a year I will be graduating from college and I will still be single and able to live this life I imagined with one exception. By this time next year, I will only have the barest handful of singles friends left. And I don’t just mean all my friends are dating someone. I mean that by this time next year, I will only have two female friends left who are unmarried.

This weekend starts the year of weddings. I have seven weddings this year, to be exact.

I’m glad my friends are marrying the men and women of their dreams. I’m glad they’ve found someone to be with, to share the rest of their life with. I wouldn’t take that away from them for the world. It’s just that this isn’t how I thought life was supposed to be. I didn’t think that my friends would be moving on to a stage of life earlier than I expected and thus leave me behind.

And I hate being left behind. Who doesn’t? I was always the girl who was moving on ahead. I was the one who moved away every couple of years, leaving everyone else behind. I was the one who studied hard and took summer classes every summer in high school in order to get ahead. I was the one who went off to an out of state school in order to better my career. But suddenly it’s all my friends who are moving on to a new life, and who are leaving me standing behind, waving goodbye as they drive away from their wedding reception.

Somewhere along the line I forgot that marriage after college is expected and yearned for in Southern Christian circles. At some point on the road, my path completely diverged. And it’s ok being on a different path. I just don’t like being on that different path alone.

Where are my friends to walk with me? Where are my friends who understand what it’s like to be single in this crazy mixed up world?

I’m sure those friends are coming. I’m sure in a year, when I’m out of grad school (fingers crossed) and have a real job I’ll meet these awesome likeminded people who will travel with me. But for now, it can be a little lonely.

Ah well, that’s life. And now I have to go figure out what I’m wearing to wedding number 1. I hope the weather stays nice, because I have absolutely no decent clothes to wear to a cold weather wedding.

A Book Review: Shaman's Crossing

2011-02-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Shaman's Crossing
Author: Robin Hobb
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 607

Quality Rating: 6
Content Rating: PG-13

The first book of the Soldier Son Trilogy was slow to start, and for a while I seriously considered putting it down (especially since Beth Revis' book had just come out when I started it). The story is told in first person, as if someone is telling their life story from the end of their life, and to me this made the story very detached. I didn't feel like I was growing up with Nevare Burvelle, I felt like I was sitting and listening to someone tell me about Nevare Burvelle growing up. However, halfway through the book, Nevare went off to the Academy to become an officer in the Calvary. Suddenly, a boring book about a boy growing up was a military academy story, and I love a good military academy story. (I blame this on too many Star Wars books). Suddenly the book was brisk and fast paced. I felt like I was with Nevare, no longer just listening. Suddenly it was a book worth reading. The book kept its brisk pace until the end and left me wondering what would become of this cadet.

This book gets a PG-13 rating for some ridiculously awful hazing, 1800s-esque violence (swords and guns), sexual situations, plague-like disease, and death.

Achieving Life Goals

2011-02-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

There are many types of life goals. In my very first post of this blog, I listed my big three overarching life goals. However, there are some smaller life goals that aren't nearly as important or are merely building blocks to these big goals. For example, one of my life goals is to be invited to be a guest at Comic-Con. I see this as a stepping stone to my Hugo Award dream. Another smaller life goal of mine was to meet LeVar Burton, which I did at Dragon*Con this year. And yesterday, I unexpectedly met another life goal.

I came to school this morning an hour later than usual, because my 9:00 o clock meeting was canceled. I was strolling up to the AE building, when suddenly a student with a yellow bandanna tied around his upper arm dashed past me into the building, running as if his life depended on it. In a way, his life did. Today was the first day of Zombies versus Humans. Georgia Tech plays Zombies versus Humans every semester, and my friend Allison was looking forward to playing it this semester. However, it looked like she had missed the start, so instead of going straight to my office as normal when I entered the building, I went to Allison's office.

First off, I informed Allison she had missed the start of the game. She had already realized earlier that morning it was true. My grisly deed done, I went to head out of the office, when the undergrad at the undergrad desk stopped me by saying, "Did you hear Billy Nye is coming today at 12:30 today?"

Me: "Like to Georgia Tech?"

Undergrad: "Yeah, but to our conference room."

Me: "No way. No way is Billy Nye coming to our conference room."

But it was true! Bill Nye had lunch with my lab today, which isn't that many people. He came and we geeked out over several aerospace engineering concepts like adding ridges to motorcycle helmets to create turbulent flows and watching movies of old airliners doing barrel rolls. It was awesome.

And so another childhood dream and life goal fulfilled. I met Bill Nye! Woohoo!

A Book Review: The Scorch Trials

2011-02-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: The Scorch Trials
Author: James Dashner
Genre: SF (YA Post-Apocalyptic)
Length: 360

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

Read First: The Maze Runner

After an amazing, unique first book, I sometimes worry when I pick up the second book. I don't want the second book to simply be the first book again, and I don't want to be disappointed. I want the second book to be as unique and amazing as the first book. This is the fear that I had inside of me when I picked up The Scorch Trials.

Thankfully, James Dashner did not disappoint me. The Scorch Trials was not simply a rehash of The Maze Runner. Though this book was another pre-planned challenge for the Gladers, a challenge they must survive and win in order to save their world (somehow), it is not the Maze. It is uniquely different. We are introduced to new characters, new plot, and this leads to all new character development. The dynamic among the Gladers changes and Thomas, our own dear main character, is given a challenge unlike anything else he can remember (which granted isn't very long).

Fantastic from beginning to end, I cannot wait until the third book and cannot wait to see if and how the Gladers will save their world.

This book is PG-13 like its predecessor for violence, death, betrayal, disease, and violence.

My Fictional Crush

2011-02-18T16:30:00.001-05:00

(Sorry for posting so late today, but today ended up being much busier than I expected. Without further ado, the post)

Some people crush on actors. Some people crush on people in real life (psh...that's overrated). Me? I crush on characters from books. When I was in middle school, my love darted between Jacen Solo and Wedge Antilles, both from the Star Wars universe. But in high school and beyond, my crush lies with one fictional man, Mat Cauthon.

Mat Cauthon from the Wheel of Time. General of the Band of the Red Hand. The player of the Horn of Valere. Prince of Ravens. Pretty much awesome. Unless of course, you've never made it past the first three books of the Wheel of Time. Then you're thinking "What? She likes that dagger-crazed freak?"

Yes, Mat gets off to a rough start in the Wheel of Time, but when I first started reading it the first 8 books were already out. I read them all in a relatively short period of time so I watched Mat develop from the possessed, treasure obsessed boy into the man who leads hundreds of men in battle (and wins).

Mat has many qualities that I actually do prize in a man. He's laid back, has a sense of humor, and a strong sense of responsibility (though his sense doesn't always line up with the other characters in the book). He is loyal to his friends and to his men.

However, there are a lot of qualities that Mat has that I would not appreciate in other men.

For one, he's such a player. And he's a gambler (though to be fair--is it really gambling if you know you're going to win?). He's a troublemaker and he curses a lot. None of these things are what I prize in a guy.

But I think they work very well as qualities of Mat, and they make me love him more. Probably this is because I am in his head. I know exactly what he's thinking when he does these things I don't like. However, its possible its a little bit of a bad boy complex. I have never liked real bad boys (honestly, badness is just unattractive), but Mat is mischievous, and a troublemaker/mischievous boy is my equivalent of a bad boy.

So there you have it. My confession. I adore Mat Cauthon of the Wheel of Time.

How about you guys? Anyone out there have a book crush?

No Post Today

2011-02-17T08:55:00.002-05:00

For the past month I've been doing really well about writing all my posts a week in advance and having them scheduled to post. However, due to the crazy factor my life has reached in the past week, I didn't actually finish today's post. Since I have a test today that I'm studying for all day (almost literally--the test is at 3:00 pm so I have most of the day to study), I will not be able to finish up the post for today. Instead, I'll post it tomorrow.

See you tomorrow!

A Book Review: The Maze Runner

2011-02-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Title: The Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Genre: Science Fiction ( YA Post-Apocalyptic)
Length: 374

Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13

This book is Ender's Game meets The Cube. A set of boys live in the center of a Maze, a maze they think they must solve in order to escape. But all is not what it seems in the Maze. When a girl shows up, Thomas knows this is the beginning of the end.

This book was gripping from the beginning to the end. I had to know the solution of the Maze and what the purpose of the entire thing was. I felt for Thomas as he struggled to figure out who he is and his connection to Theresa and the Maze. I learned to love the Gladers along with Thomas, I learned to become their friends. I felt fully immersed in this world. When the Gladers failed, I failed. When they succeeded, I succeeded. And that is what a novel is all about. Feeling like you are there, in the action.

Another great aspect of this YA novel is that it is one of the few YA boy books! Not to say girls can't enjoy it and love it--because I did. But if you're looking for a young adult book to get your son, brother, or friend, this is definitely an option.

I give this book a PG-13 for violence, death, betrayal, pure fear, and violence. Lots of kids die in this book. Granted, its not like the one-on-one deaths/murders in The Hunger Games, its more like death in the midst of battle. This novel is not for the faint of heart.

My Favorite Fictional Couples

2011-02-15T08:00:00.003-05:00

In the theme of love, today we're going to discuss my favorite fictional couples, the love stories and romances that make me feel warm and fuzzy.

I'm pretty honest with most people that I don't like romance novels; however, that doesn't mean I don't like romance. I just like romance that occurs in the greater plot of a novel. So here are my favorite couples, my top three romances in fiction.

Third Place: Vin and Elend
Book: The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
Elend is a bookish lord's son. Vin is a tough street urchin. And yet, they are amazing together. I think one of the things I love about Elend and Vin is that they are so much better together than they are apart. Vin makes Elend strive to be the man he should, a lord who really can lead. Elend makes Vin less rough, wild, and street, a woman who can take care of not just herself but also care for others. They are better together than they are apart.

Second Place: Ella and Char
Book: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levin
Honestly, when I want to read a good romance, I read Ella Enchanted. Most might think that's strange, since its a middle grade novel, but there is just something awesome and pure about Char and Ella's romance. Ella is a spunky girl who is trying to live with a ridiculously awful curse. She doesn't expect Char to save her, like so many traditional fairytale girls do, but expects to save herself. Char is a serious, responsibility driven prince who is doing everything he can to become the king he should be. And though Ella and Char can exist apart, like Vin and Elend, they are better together.

First Place: Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe
Book: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (and many many other books)
Meg and Calvin. What can I say about Meg and Calvin? Two genius misfits who found they weren't alone. Neither is perfect. Together they are an unstoppable team. And the best part? They grow up, get married, and have a ton of kids. They live happily every after, for realz. And that's awesome.

So how about you? Do you have favorite fictional couples? Who are they and why?

Valentines Day

2011-02-14T08:00:00.001-05:00

I don't normally post non-Book Review posts on Mondays. I'm trying to stick firm to my Tuesday and Thursday schedule. However, today is a special day. I day I hold in esteem above all others.

That's right. It's my birthday.

Oh? Not what you thought I was going to say? Well, it's true. My birthday also corresponds to a ancient holiday of love*. In honor of that holiday, this weeks posts will be love themed. In the meanwhile, lets talk about the true meaning of this holiday: my birthday.

I really really really love my birthday. Some think its a little unnatural. And some find it odd since I generally complain about the placement of my birthday, mainly the day it is on. Having a Valentines birthday can really suck. It means your friends and family would rather not spend time with you on your birthday; they would rather spend time with their significant others. It means that sometimes they forget to get you anything, because they spent so much money on those very same significant others. And in general it just sucks.

But I still love my birthday, because my birthday is my day.

When I think about it, I blame my love of my birthday on being the third of four children. When you're in the middle and chronically younger than half your family, sometimes you can feel like you're not important or just a small cog in a large mechanism. For 364 (or 365 on Leap Year) days a year pretty much everyone is more important than I am. And I'm cool with that. I try not to be selfish. Other people are important. And other people have bigger, more important problems than I do. But on my birthday, for once, I get to be number one. Theoretically.

Theoretically, because my birthday is Valentine's Day, which is a holiday when people are supposed to focus on their romantically loved ones.

Since I can't fight Valentine's Day, I long ago embraced it. I've made it my holiday, my day, so that really when people celebrate with their loved ones, they're still celebrating me. Because it's my day.

And that's sort of appropriate. If you look at name meanings, the books will tell you that Amanda means beloved, but its more than that. In Latin if I say "Sum Amanda" I'm saying "I am Amanda" but I'm also saying "I must be loved." It's like a command.

So go out and celebrate your Valentine's Day. Enjoy it. Live it up. And remember, it's my day. :)

*To all the people out there who think Valentine's Day is just a made up holiday, look up Lupercalia. People have been celebrating love at around this date for over 2,000 years. So it may be made up, just not by Americans.

A Book Review: Cold Magic

2011-02-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: Cold Magic
Author: Kate Elliott
Genre: Fantasy (historical)
Length: 502

Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG

I had never heard of this book before but the tag line on the cover got me: "When science and magic collide--it is the innocent who will die". Granted, I thought the later half was a little melodramatic, but the first bit about magic and science colliding peeked my interest. Fantasy writers don't often delve into time periods with lots of science. They tend to stick with the middle ages.

I found the book to be fast paced, with a sympathetic main character. In fact the entire way this book was written struck me as very YA. So if you have a friend or daughter who is afraid to branch out of the YA section, this would be a good book for them. Cat is engaging, the love story is not intense but instead subtle--and enjoyable in its subtlety. The alternate history aspect is fascinating. We're presented with a world where the Romans ruled for much longer than they did in our world, and its an exotic and fascinating world.

It's been a while since I read this book, so I don't know exactly if it should be PG or PG-13 but nothing in this book stood out to me. There is violence but not excessively and mostly in a self defense situation. However, its possible it should be PG-13, so when I reread this book to prepare for the sequel I will update you. However, if it is PG-13 its definitely closer to the PG side of the spectrum.

Conflict

2011-02-10T08:00:00.000-05:00

We've discussed a lot of the story idea process, but the one element we haven't discussed yet is conflict. There is a good reason for that. Conflict and good plot are the main things I struggle with. I can create worlds that are rife with conflict--worlds where pickpockets are dominated by mobsters then taken off the street by a man feared by mobsters and regular people alike--but somehow I can't make that conflict jump off the page. Why? How? It's something I'm working on.

Without conflict, there is no story. In some stories, the conflict is obvious. Look at The Hunger Games. A girl's little sister is chosen for a reality show where teenagers fight to the death, so said girl volunteers in her sisters place. She then spends the majority of the novel trying to stay alive. In A Wrinkle in Time, Meg must save her father. In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo must destroy the One Ring. In Harry Potter, a boy must take down the Dark Lord. What would any of these books been without the conflict?

Katniss hunts in the woods.
Meg sulks in the back of a classroom.
Frodo eats six meals a day.
Harry lives under a cupboard.

Exciting, right?

And yet, when writing, I really love exploring some mundane aspects of life. But mostly I love character development, how a character slowly grows and changes. And sometimes, I forget the plot and instead Arthur spends 100,000 words in Copperton getting to know the family he never knew he had. (That's right, Meredith--an Alloquor reference.) To me, its riveting to see how Arthur deals with the fact that he has an extended family, it helps with his healing process over his brother's death...but there is no plot.

It's said that in a novel every sentence should be character development or plot development. Unfortunately, my novels tend to be 75% character development and 25% plot development.

So I really have no helpful hints or pointers on developing plot. My plots get better with each revision of the novel. I'm slowly making my novel more plot heavy (which is especially important in MG).

If any of my readers have tips on how to think of great conflict/plot the first time around though, I would greatly appreciate it. How do you spice up the action of your story?

A Book Review: The Warded Man

2011-02-09T20:35:00.001-05:00

Title: The Warded Man
Author: Peter V. Brett
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 453

Quality Rating: 7
Content Rating: R

I picked up The Warded Man because Borders kept recommending it to me. You see, I buy a lot of books from Borders, and so when they email me coupons and the like, they also send me Book Recommendations. Usually they recommended books I already owned, but The Warded Man just kept popping up again and again, so I bought it. From the beginning the characters were compelling. I sympathized with the characters' unusual plight. In Brett's world, magical demons hunt humanity, slowly withering them away to nothing. The people don't know how to fight them, and the demons have almost broken their will to fight. But three youth desire to fight back and throughout the events of the novel they are drawn together.

The world is unique, the characters are believable, but somehow the plot was lacking. The book itself had no overarching plot, other than the development of our main characters from children to adults. This book seemed to be a set up book. It'll be interesting to see if the sequel is worth the set up. I hope so, since the premise is fascinating. For readers interested in a unique world, where humans are the hunted, this would be a good read.

This book is rated R for many sexual situations including rape and lots of violence (after all, people are being killed by magical demons).

Secondary Characters

2011-02-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Other than background "extras" like a shopkeeper who is only visited once, secondary characters are our third type of character. They can be the minions of our main character or antagonist. They can be a friendly neighbor. They can be a supportive best friend. Basically, they're the character who would be looking to get "best supporting actor/actress" if this was a movie.

Spirit Riddled has several that I can think of off the top of my head. All are created because the main character or antagonist needs this person to exist, either to further the plot or to be the character they are. For example, if your main character is a second son who is not to inherit the throne, then there needs to be a firstborn. This firstborn may not be directly tied to the conflict in anyway--he may not even show up in the story directly. But his existence directly correlates to how the second son thinks and behaves. An example of someone who furthers the plot might be the assassin your villain hires to kill off your main character. He exists so that there is an assassination attempt on your main character, allowing him to realize someone has it in for him--thus furthering the conflict.

So these characters are created to compliment the other characters (though by compliment I don't always mean to make look better. Sometimes they make the main character worse). In a past post, I mentioned how its important to me, as a writer, to know the future of a main character--to know whether they marry and if they do who it is. And I asked for your help to create this person. So Mage's wife. Who is she? How did I create her? Did you guys help? Yep. Your comments definitely helped.

So, I was having an extremely hard time thinking of this character--how she would compliment Mage, how she would challenge him, make him grow as a character, and yet be the wife he needed. I was really stumped, and all the comments helped. Some of the comments made me think "No, Mage would never go for that" or "No, that sort of person who never help Mage to be who he needs to be". But some made me think "Yes, Mage needs that!" or "that could help him". However, one comment in particular struck me. My friend, Michael Gabriel said that she and Mage needed to have a "mutual concern for children".

My immediate thought was "yes, of course!" Mage could never be with someone who didn't care for abandoned and lonely children like he did. He would resent her, she would be in direct conflict with one of his life goals. This thought gave me the foundation I needed to create a character who loves lost children more than anything--perhaps even more than Mage.

So for those of you who helped and are curious, here is a small blurb about the woman who will be Mage's wife. A secondary character that was only recently created.

Name: Bridgette Tailor
Occupation: tailor, teacher

History: Bridgette is the middle class daughter of two tailors, and that is what she believes she will one day be. However, she has a kind of heart and is always caring for sick neighbors. She particularly loves children and wants to help the abandoned children of her nation, but doesn't know how. Her parents worry for her safety and don't want her going into the bad parts of their city. And then one day she comes into contact with an abandoned boy.

Attributes: Kind. Bridgette's main characteristic is that she's a bleeding heart. She will help anyone if they need it, even if they are thieves or "demon-possessed". Self-Conscious. Bridgette doesn't really think much of herself. Most people mistake her self-demeaning personality as modesty, but its not. She really just doesn't think she's worth most people's time--which is one of the reason why she is so selfless and throws herself into helping other people so much. Hard-working. Bridgette believes in working hard to get where you want. Though she's willing to teach and help anyone, she believes in teaching a man to fish, so he can feed himself forever. Ardent. When Bridgette believes in something or someone, its with her entire being. She will do everything she can for that cause or person. Reasonable. Despite her ardent nature, Bridgette never loses her ability to be reasoned with. She doesn't blindly believe anything.

Thank you everyone who helped! I'm excited to see how the secondary character of Bridgette will affect Jess and Mage and help them to become better people.

A Book Review: XVI

2011-02-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Title: XVI
Author: Julia Karr
Genre: Dystopian (YA)
Length: 325

Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13

In Julia Karr's debut novel, when girls turn sixteen they get a tattoo of the Roman Numerals "XVI" on their wrist, signaling they are ready to have sex. Nina, our main character, is a fifteen-year-old girl who is not looking forward to turning "sex-teen". As if that's not hard enough, her entire life changes when her mom is killed. Now Nina must stop her step-father from stealing her little sister away from their small family.

I was looking forward to reading XVI because I have been following Julia Karr on the League for quite some time. And Julia did not let me down. Though I wished we had gotten to explore the world of XVI a little more, I realize this is a YA book, and as such it must meet the usual YA themes and standards. There is only so much you can explore from a 15 year old's perspective. And yet what Nina did explore was a scarily realistic world--a world that ours could easily become. Nina was also a realistic character. She's the sort of character I would have enjoyed reading about as a 15 year old and enjoy reading about now. And though her love interest is handsome and charming, he's also realistic in the way he interacts with Nina. He doesn't always know the right thing to say, and sometimes puts his foot in his mouth. In short the characters were realistic, the plot was intriguing, and the conflict riveting. I was rooting for Nina the entire way and felt for her the entire time. I highly recommend this book for lovers of YA dystopian novels or just YA in general.

I give this book a PG-13 rating for violence, murder, rape, discussions of sex, and some intense sexual situations. However I would like to add that this book is a great discussion starter about gender roles and the over sexualization of teens. It's the kind of book I could see a mom and daughter reading together and discussing.

A Bittersweet Fountain

Meeting Other Writers

Farscape First Watch: I, E.T.

Eve: A Desire for Knowledge

Year of the Dragon

Farscape First Watch: Premiere

The New Schedule!

Egad!

What Should This Blog Be When It Grows Up?

2012 New Year’s Goals

Why I’m Terrified and Excited about Being Done With School

2011 In Review (aka: Did I meet my New Year’s Goals?)

Haitus Over (Starting Next Week)

Rest In Peace Anne McCaffrey

Haitus

Using Tropes

Next couple of months

Smell the Pumpkin in the Air!

I've Gone Insane

Dragon*Con and Amanda Tapping

*sigh*

Dragon*Con Prep

Fall Semester Schedule

Killing your...uh...very much loved things

Engineering Conferences

Traveling, Again

Wanting to Slap a Minion

Elementary School Sucked

How Star Wars Saved My Love of Reading

Using Logic in Life Decisions

What does that mean?

Teenage Stereotypes that I Despise

Travel

Geek out???

Harry Potter

A Navy Girl in an Air Force Town

RANdom capiTALIzation SyNDrome

Plotting

The Movie Channel Conspiracy

Faith Thursdays

Prairie Dogs

Fourth of July!

My Science Fiction Hierarchy

Church Hunting

Chile

"No Inorganic Metals"

Voice

I know, I know

I'm back!

Degree Petitions

Born to Move

Moving

A nerd by any other name...

There is no sound in space

Summertime

Finals! AHHH!

A Book Review: City of Fallen Angels

A Book Review: Clockwork Angel

A Brief History of the British Royal Family

A Book Review: Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

Nerds are Hot

5 Billion Years, Seven Days, or Yesterday

I forgot

Galileo

Feminism and Geordi LaForge

Summer Reading

Faith and Work

Reading Order

Pern

Sorry!

An Open Letter to Brandon Sanderson

Late Post

No Post Today

A Book Review: The Wise Man's Fear

Controversy

Fear & Book Reviews

A Book Review: City of Glass

Critiques and Descent

When Inspiration Hits

A Book Review: City of Ashes

sigh