NaNoWriMo All The Time-O!

Mood: energetic
Listening to: nada
Reading: Perelandra and Paradise Lost (both for school)

It's that time of year again! Lovely November, when the air starts to get chilly, the trees stand bare, and over a hundred thousand people across the world ravenously begin typing their brand-new masterpieces. Yes, I am doing National Novel Writing Month again this year: it's my third year, and hopefully my second victory. Don't ask me why there's a viking hat on my participant icon.

The prospects for this year's novel are looking good. I am basically re-writing my first novel ever, "Auteria," that I started when I was 12. Of course, you can't use previously written material for NaNoWriMo. But I've changed the story, the plot, and the characters so much that it only bears a slight resemblance to the original novel.

My biggest goal this year is to actually finish the novel in the month, and finish it in 50,000 to 53,000 words. Because I am just so bad at finishing the novels I start. Last year I reached over 51,000 words, but the story was only about 4/5 done. And I haven't finished it! Still! So, this year my aim is to actually write "The End" before December 1.

I'm excited. I put a word-count tracker in the sidebar, so you can cheer me on. :)

In the meantime, I accomplished many important things this weekend. I submitted three (3!) online college applications, and one scholarship application. The stress is starting to fade out. I actually had fun writing essays. Since I'm only applying to Christian colleges, I got to talk about my relationship with God and my testimony and stuff. It was kind of fun to do some "soul-searching" and describe the milestone that I'm at in my life, which is beginning the transition from high school to college and my "real-world" life after that. So, wish me luck, as I still have a couple of applications to complete this month!

And don't worry...NaNoWriMo is not my top priority this month. College apps are, then homework and school stuff, then my novel. I'm just taking every moment of free time I can get to write! :)

A Peculiar Thirst

Mood: contemplative
Listening to: Hillsong United
Reading: Out of the Silent Planet

It's fall break. I've been spoiled by this lovely, school-free week, ever since I came to my school in 4th grade. With the empty days comes time to simply relax a bit. Yes, it is the middle of the October of my senior year, which means I am approaching the days when I will have to make important decisions about my life after high school. But this weekend I've been able to enjoy moments of rest.

However, I've been noticing something strange.

Whenever I have free time like this, there are certain things I particularly enjoy doing. For example: I wrote a song and have been working on it in GarageBand. I made some progress in outlining one of my novels. I'm working on catching up in my scrapbook/diary.

But I feel that all of these little pleasures are sort of distracting me from what is most important. I feel exactly like C.S. Lewis in Surprised By Joy, when he described the sensation of Joy. He was drawn to studying mythology because it gave him a feeling of desire for something faraway and unattainable. In the same way, my own little endeavors of artistic creations...like writing, composing music, and scrapbooking...produce a feeling of being close to God through being a co-creator with The Creator. But this sense is only an imitation of knowing God deeply, the highest joy. Lewis said, "I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy."

My prayer and reason for living is to know God, and "become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:13.) There is this thirst within my heart, to know Christ more when I go to bed every day than I did when I woke up. So it seems that my other harmless pleasures—with which I can pretend to seek God—are merely distractions from praying and studying His Word.

I apologize if this post was rather wandering or vague. I suppose my proposition here is that the only way to true Joy is to take joy in God alone, to make the Word of God my contemplation, my meditation, my object of desire.

Where You Lead Me

Mood: anticipatory
Listening to: "Where You Lead Me" by MercyMe

What is life?
A thousand roads, a thousand ways...
Why am I so afraid to move?
I crossed the line;
I'm stepping out, so come what may.
I give it all, 'cause I'm drawn to You.
As long as my heart is beating...

Where You lead me, I will follow.
Where You lead me, I'll give my life away.
Where You lead me, I will follow.
Forever and a day,
Forever and a day.

I can't deny, Your very presence is my life;
And why would I ever turn away?
'Cause deep inside, I know that I cannot rely
On anything less than faith.
As long as my heart is beating...

[Chorus]

This is all I'm dreaming of,
To live completely in Your love...

So this is life;

[Chorus x2]

In the midst of this madness that is the college search process, I know that nothing will do me good until my faith is completely in Him.

"Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand." Isaiah 14:24

Ramblings

Mood: rather nice
Listening to: Llegar a Ti - Jaci Velasquez
Reading: Brisingr (for fun), The Screwtape Letters & Paradise Lost (in school)

¡Hola! Quiero hablar en español, pero probablemente tú no me entenderás. Me gusta mi música en español, y me encanta leer mi Biblia bilingüe. :)

Well, life is busy. Busy busy. Being a senior is fun, but the workload... stress about college applications... scholarship applications... yeah, I'm afraid it will get even more overwhelming in October and November. I'm just trying to keep cool and enjoy Homecoming week with Powderpuff and school spirit and the dance this weekend.

I bought Brisingr (you know, Inheritance Book 3, Christopher Paolini...you know?) the Saturday it came out, over a week ago. Now I've read about 170 pages. I usually read a lot more quickly, but homework and stuff. So far I'm liking it, at least it's better than Eldest so far. I'll see when I'm done... (which at the rate I'm going, could take a month! xP)

Sorry, this post is kind of random and disjointed. But I have a lot of random things to talk about.

Now I am going to add a couple of things to my About page. :) ¡Adios!

Breaking the Monotony

Mood: lovely
Listening to: D.C. R.E.T.O.
Reading: (in school:) The Inferno (Dante), Surprised By Joy & The Pilgrim's Regress (C.S. Lewis)

I lied. And broke my promise to blog this summer.

Yes, summer is over, my senior year of high school has begun, and my, what a summer it was. I had so much to do that I actually forgot about my website, and here it has sat, unspoiled, for two and a half months.

First, my favorite events of the summer.
1. Mission trip to Guatemala!
2. Church youth conference!
3. Family trip to the mountains for 4 days.

Now, my favorite new things from the summer.
1. Wall•E — the best Disney/Pixar movie ever!
2. Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox — what I thought was the best AF book so far. I definitely liked the time travel element...made my brain hurt trying to figure it out. And I liked how it tied the whole series together.
3. D.C. R.E.T.O. — a Christian, Spanish, rap/hip-hop/dance/techno music group. YES! Discovered it while in Guatemala...search them on Youtube to see some music videos.
4. Beijing Olympics — a big historical sort of event, fun to watch, cool that China won more golds than the US, fun to root for Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin. :)

Hopefully I'll blog more often from now on, but that's not a promise!

P.S. Yay for Sarah Palin. Too bad my 18th birthday just misses the election cut-off by 6 weeks!

Going Out on a Limb

Mood: spiffy
Listening to: Prince Caspian soundtrack
Reading: so many to choose from; I can't decide

Okay. So I'm deviating from the norm with my latest website addition: I've put two of my school research papers on the Writing page. What inspired me to do this? I'm not quite sure. Maybe that I spent so much time on them, I felt like someone other than my parents and my teacher should read them...heh. Call me a nerd, a geek, or whatever you prefer, but the fact is, I'm just academically inclined. I enjoyed learning about the topics of those two papers, especially the Scopes Trial. (More on that later, maybe.) I'm sure that whoever reads my papers will learn something they didn't know before and maybe gain some appreciation for the subjects. I won't die if nobody reads them; I'm just saying that they're there :)

Go to the Writing page and scroll to the bottom, or go directly to: Dred Scott v. Sandford or The Scopes Trial

Summertime Is Here!

Mood: calm and free
Listening to: Tell Me What You Know by Sara Groves
Reading: Dreamrider by Barry Jonsberg

Summertime is here, happiness and cheer, fun for all that children call their favorite time of the year! Yes, Christmas carols are still fun to sing in the summer. :)

Hm. For the first time in months and months, I am able to breathe freely. Final exams are over, no more homework or papers to write, and yes, I have entered the domain of seniorhood. At the top of the high school food chain now. :D

I'm not going to waste a moment of this summer. I want to spend every second doing something important, fun, helpful—something edifying. I have more than enough books to read and stories to write, art to create and ideas to devour. Simply put, I am going to get reacquainted with myself and with God this summer. :)

Some thoughts. In the spirit of up-to-date-ness, I saw Prince Caspian for the second time a couple weeks ago, and enjoyed it much more than the first time. :) I also got the soundtrack and have been listening to it voraciously. "The Call" by Regina Spektor is a lovely song that I have grown very attached to, and I also adore "This Is Home" by Switchfoot.

The album by Sara Groves that I'm listening to for the first time right now is surprisingly beautiful. The lyrics are very poetic and insightful. I think I'm also going to grow attached to this album. :)

And as for what I'm currently reading, I actually finished Dreamrider last weekend but it's the only thing I've read lately. It's interesting: I usually don't go for the sort of contemporary Teen Fiction genre (except for Artemis Fowl), but this book sparked my interest because of the concept of lucid dreaming. I didn't really like the author's style, with short sentences and simple wording, but I appreciated how complex and interwoven the story was. It was sort of an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller. I liked it, but it won't necessarily be going on my list of favorites.

That's all for now; I promise to update my blog more often this summer! :)

Prince Caspian Analysis

Mood: content
Listening to: BT - This Binary Universe
Reading: nada

Alright—this will be a long one!

Well, I apologize for briefly turning inquisitivity into a Prince Caspian blog. What can I say? Narnia has been part of my life for years now. :)

I saw the movie! And it appears that I was wrong about a couple things in my last post. The Caspian/Susan romance was not cut out of the movie. The kiss at the end was a glaring screenwriting glitch and a ridiculous Hollywoodization - it had no basis, because Caspian and Susan had not interacted very much before it! But I guess it wasn't that big of a deal. It can be shrugged off. (My friends thought it was cute. xD)

The theme of faith was not as strong as I would have liked. It seemed like the character of Peter really ruined things...thinking he could do everything without Aslan's help (until his night raid on Miraz's castle failed). And why would Peter be enticed by the White Witch, when he himself had watched Aslan defeat (or eat) the Witch in LWW? Besides, I thought the White Witch scene was really unnecessary and overdone, especially with the hag's incantation...it made me really cringe and sort of squish back in my seat, because I didn't like it at all...until Edmund saved the day of course. :)

I did like how Trufflehunter was always the loyal badger and the true Narnian. His character didn't meet my hopes of sort of embodying the faith theme, but they did a really good job of making him the same lovable character that he is in the book.

I loved the scene where Lucy was dreaming, and how the trees parted for her and she walked through them and talked with Aslan. It captured some of the emotion from the scene in the book, but not quite enough...partly because it was a dream! Which brings me to my next point...

I decided on what I think is the key difference between the book and the movie. Book: Pevensies see/speak with Aslan before the battles. Movie: Pevensies don't see Aslan until after the battles are over (except Lucy). I feel like that single change gave the second half of the movie a completely different dynamic: the characters were sort of at a loss, the conflict seemed unguided, Aslan wasn't important enough. It kind of mixed up the whole structure of the story.

But all analyzing aside, I was extremely pleased with the movie. My expectations were met, if not exceeded. Cinematography, music, acting, costumes, computer-generated imagery, nods to the book (like Tarva and Alambil, Bulgy Bear, apple trees), everything...it was all great.

Favorite shot: Miraz's view through the telescope, watching Edmund, Glenstorm the Centaur, and Wimbleweather the Giant approach. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. :)

And of course, Skandar Keynes was quite impressive as Edmund. But maybe I'm biased. ;)

Some Thoughts on Narnia

Mood: just peachy
Listening to: Cities by Anberlin
Reading: The Chronicles of Narnia

Well, it has been some time since my last post. Almost a month. It's been a busy month. I had my AP exams last week—Spanish Language and AB Calculus. Phwew, am I glad those are over or what!

Hehe. I find it immensely hard to believe that the Prince Caspian movie comes out this Friday! And I am going to see it on Friday evening. I really am too excited to express! When it comes to the book-to-movie changes, I am worried about some minor things. But guess what? They cut the Caspian/Susan romance out of the movie. Yes! Overall I'm feeling very optimistic about it and I'm quite sure it will be mostly excellent.

Today I read the Prince Caspian book for, oh maybe the 5th time or so. One of its themes that really struck me this time was the theme of faith vs. skepticism/unbelief. I hope that in the movie they capture the essence of Trufflehunter the Badger's character, which is his unwavering loyalty to and adamant belief in Aslan and Aslan's might. Trufflehunter's confidence as opposed to Nikabrik's skepticism. Of course this is one of the Chronicles' many parallels to Christianity.

The Narnia books are definitely theologically rich. There are lines, images, and ideas from the books that are very personal to me regarding my relationship with God. One of these is one of the scenes that, I think, is an iconic image from the Prince Caspian book: the scene where Lucy hears Aslan calling her name in the moonlit night, and she follows his voice...weaves through the dancing, wading trees...and finds Aslan, who is gentle, warm, and powerful, and who lets Lucy rest by him and partake of his strength. I found this drawing that was concept art for the movie, however I don't think the scene will happen very close to the same way in the movie. Nevertheless, this picture really captures the essence and emotion of that scene. (By the way, I found it on NarniaWeb.com)

Prince Caspian Promo

Mood: relaxed
Listening to: Once soundtrack :)
Reading: still The Great Gatsby for school

Well, here's a video I made about this Prince Caspian thing I have. Do watch!



And now for my thoughts about something else: American Idol. I am shocked, indignated, and infuriated that Michael Johns was eliminated last night. x( Enough said.