Life update

[cosmic_celery]

So, my Grandma seems to be doing alright. I'm still pretty worried about her, but she's going to get some more information before she does anything serious and that seems like the best was to go about things.

Last week I went into the bank with a bond (that I've mentioned here before) and cashed it in. I'd been told that it could be worth around a thousand bucks, as I've had it for twenty years. It's worth a lot less than I thought it was worth. Only about a hundred and fifty bucks. But ah well.

It's already been spent. I bought a few things I'd been thinking about getting for a while: some sunglasses, a program to help me learn guitar (the thing has just been sitting around and I can't stand it), and a pretty nice little microphone. I'd been talking with my grandma about how she wants to record some of the stories about her mother and grandmother and the stories she knows from them. I figure if I had something a bit better than the built-in mic on my laptop, I could actually make that happen. So that's what I did.

So now I've got no money. A while back I applied to be a first reader for the online science fiction magazine Strange Horizons and, after almost a month, they got back to me saying that "after some discussion of your application and your comments on your favorite and least-favorite SH stories, we think this probably isn't a good match. We thought you made some good comments, but we just don't feel that our tastes and yours mesh well enough for this position." Pfft. I can't even get a non-paying job.

But I still have yet to sell any of the stuff I've set aside, and I'm really looking forward to the stuff I'm getting. I'm trying to think of alternative uses for the mic. What would you people want to hear? poetry? my writing? excruciating guitar practice and gradual improvement? I kind of hate the sound of my own voice, so maybe it'd be like immersion therapy. I don't know.

Aaaanyway. Still liking my British lit class, and still annoyed by the ineffective teacher in my mythology class, but I'm doing well in both. Self defense class was really uncomfortable the other night because he choose me as a volunteer to practice a few moves in front of the class. That is, he "attacked" while I practiced in front of everyone. This is probably partly because my mom can't really do things in the same way a young, fit person could. Also, I think he likes me. I have no idea why. He doesn't seem to like my mom at all. It's funny since she's usually the one who's great with people. I don't like him as much as the guy he has coming in to help out with demonstrations every once in a while. This guy and the teacher seem to be a bit gay together. Again, I don't know, but it's hard not to go there when one of them's straddling the other. (And no, it's not a pleasant image. Neither of them are exactly Greek gods.} Ahem...but anyway...

Had an in-class essay comparing Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" and Shelley's "To a Skylark" and I got a 94%! Though I think he's a very easy grader with the in-class essays. The guy next to me, a complete idiot, got a B.

Next we're reading through Dickens' Hard Times. I need to read that this weekend...and I'd like to start on a book I bought called Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. It's an alternate history novel surrounding an original character and Aurthur Conan Doyle in late Victorian England. ...and the next EDA, and some art stuff. And research. Oh, and writing. I haven't done any writing. And...a bunch of other stuff.

Agh. Too much to do.

Comments

[failte-aoife.livejournal.com]

I just finished Hard Times for one of my classes and must admit that I found it terribly dull...I think Dickens & I will never become friends.

[cosmic-celery.livejournal.com]

I like it, actually. It's one of the ones from when he was publishing in serial. Payed by the word, you know. ...so there's quite a lot of image layering, but he does get to the point eventually.