4 - memories, moleskines, and stephen chbosky

     It's nearly the end of Thanksgiving break. I remember that last Thanksgiving break, I read Across the Universe by Beth Revis (one of my favorite books) and then threw the book at the wall when a certain character death took place. I remember that last Thanksgiving break, my mom lined the banisters with multicolored Christmas lights. We put up the Christmas tree early, and every time you stepped around that corner at the top of the stairs the sight of it would hit you and take your breath away. I remember that my friend H came over a few times and her whole family came along and we ate chocolates and laughed in the living room and her little sister watched Frosty  with me. I like remembering things, measuring how much time has passed since I last remembered them.

     I can't wait for it to be Christmas. I've just got three more weeks of school and a few AP Bio tests to get through.

     On Friday, I bought the unabridged Les Misérables and a limited edition Hobbit Moleskine. It's brown with a shiny red-gold Lonely Mountain etched on the cover. It came with a map of the Wilderlands. My brother bought Assassin's Creed III and I played it a little bit yesterday and today. It's such an interesting concept. I quite like Connor Kenway's sassy classy father. 

     I just googled Hobbit Moleskines and discovered that there's an unruled version in black with a shiny red dragon. Want. 

     And now I leave you with a quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower: "I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it won't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."

3 - excursions in digital art

 OMG I DID AN ART.

I've been dying to experiment with digital art lately, so I randomly downloaded Sketchbook Express from the Mac app store and then this happened. I somehow did it with the macbook's trackpad. I'm hoping for a drawing tablet for Christmas. :3

How are you, blog? Long time, no see.

It's Nanowrimo season! Woot. I'm powering through. Planning on finishing this year. My story's about a zombie apocalypse. Those journal things - Aster's journals - they're written by the main character. She's quite interesting. Keeps surprising me with her random coolness. Just yesterday she socked my male main character in the jaw without my consent, but I'm okay with that. She's just asserting her independence. ^.^ 

I should write a story about this mysterious turquoise-haired girl who just manifested herself as my first-ever piece of digital art. She reminds me of a My Little Pony. I have no idea why. 

Her name is now Starlynn.

Yes, good. :3

I want to do more art. 

*looks at blank sketchbook nearby*

Meh. 

So tomorrow's Thanksgiving! Let's do the elementary thing and make a list of what we're thankful for.

Or just me. 'Cause I'm only one person. Who does not have schizophrenia. 

Anyways.

STUFF I'M THANKFUL FOR:

- Art.

- Music.

- Air.

- Hope.

Look at me being all vague and hipster.

- Fluffy blankets.

- The smell of baking cheesecake.

- Mechanical pencils.

- The ocean.

- Sparkly unicorn stickers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2: Aster's Journal, entry 2

   Today I saw one rotter. Just one. In a flower field, for goodness' sake. I don't know how it got there or why it was there or why it didn't try to hurt me and just stared at me instead, eyes blank. It seemed to have recently turned, and something made me pause before I attempted to kill it. It was clutching a flower in its hand, slowly tugging off the petals as it watched me, as if it still had a shred of humanity left. It wasn't savage and starving and terrible, like all the others. 

    When I kicked it in the face, it fell heavily, like they always do. It fell and just stared upwards. It made no attempt to eat me. It looked at the sky with its dead eyes, its splayed-out arm with fingers still clutching the flowers, and as I stared at it I felt a shred of guilt beginning to eat at me. For the first time, I felt bad for killing a rotter, and I don't know why. Things aren't going to get any better. This is the way it is now. If there was a cure, it would have been found by now. There's no way those rotters are going to change. 

     And there's no way I'm going to change.

1: Inheriexcitement, the finale

Today, I went to Barnes and Noble because of reasons. Reasons being THE AUTHOR OF MY FAVORITE BOOK SERIES EVAR WAS THERE. 

   We got there an hour early and were second in line. I had to buy a copy of Inheritance to be signed, for some reason involving support for Barnes & Noble. So I bought a shiny copy of the new deluxe version of Inheritance. Heheh. I felt stupid for not having brought any other books to be signed, but now this copy of Inheritance shall be hallowed on my bookshelf.

   Behind me were these cool people, and we started talking about Doctor Who and other geeky things. 

This is the picture that I drew to give to Christopher Paolini. It was really rough, and Saphira was far from being done.

Then this happened.

   I like how the respectful Barnes & Noble employee stepped back politely to let him talk, and then he was like LOL I DON'T NEED A CHAIR TO CLIMB UP ONTO THIS TABLE LIKE A DRAGON RIDER BOSS. I also like how everyone laughed pointedly at his handstand remark and how they uttered an obvious cry of dismay over him mentioning that this was his last Inheritance tour.

   I was so excited that I couldn't keep the camera still. Then he started signing books, and suddenly the first person was done and it was our turn.

MY CONVERSATION WITH CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

A report by Julia

(With what was said in normal font and what I was thinking in italics.)

CP: Hi!

Me: nfdjksfksdbhlabsdhsabdhjsa Hi.

CP: So have you read all of the Inheritance books?

Me: Yes I have read all of them forty-two times each because forty-two is the meaning of the universe and they are the song of my people and they lie at the depths of my literary  heart and there is a special spot on my bookshelf just for them Yes.

CP: I guess I should write more books, then. I like your dragon necklace.

Me: adsbjkadbksalbdklsbdla Thank you. I drew you a drawing. (Then I awkwardly slid the drawing across the table and Christopher Paolini looked at it thoughtfully.)

CP: You drew this for me?

Me: Yes.

CP: That's very nice! Thank you. (Or something like that. I don't even remember. I was just like hibagabjhidahhgjia.)

I took this picture of him.

He was very nice and polite and awesome. Then he signed my book and I thanked him and walked away wishing I had told him that I read Eragon when I was twelve because I found it in a used bookstore and liked the cover because I had recently seen How To Train Your Dragon. I also bought Eldest, and I was so busy reading during my trip to England that I didn't even care about how bad public transport smelled or how beautiful the Yorkshire Dales were. Then I finished Eldest and declared, MOARRRR! and found Brisingr in a bookshop near our hotel and I started reading it as we sat down in a pub. I should have told him about how cracked the spine is on my copy of Brisingr, and how I've read Eldest at least thirty times, no lie. I should have told him about how I always bring one of the books in the series with me on every trip I go on. I should have told him about all the memories that lie between the pages of those books that sit on a practical shrine on my shelf and how if it weren't for the Inheritance Cycle, I wouldn't ever have wanted to be a writer and I would never have learned to appreciate a good book.

So that's what I should have told Christopher Paolini.

But at least I now have this.

20: The Girl who Can - pt.2

(WARNING: This story contains Doctor Who season 7 spoilers, specifically from the first episode, Asylum of the Daleks. Read at your own risk. Unless you don't care. Then don't read at any risk.)

   Oswin spun on her heel, thrusting her whisk forward.

   There was no one there. She could have sworn it was the Doctor. 

   She gripped her whisk tighter, dismayed. She knew what kind of forest this was, and the revelation filled her with dread. 

   Every step she took pressed the ground, releasing vapors into the air - vapors that, when breathed in, caused lifelike hallucinations.

   Just as this thought crossed her mind, a dalek sprung up in front of her. In its harsh, cold voice, it said, "I am not a daaa-lek!"

   Oswin backed up. "No!" she screamed at it. "I know you're not real!" 
   Her back jolted against something hard and cold. She whirled around. Another dalek turned slowly toward her. "Egg-egg-egg-egg-"
   "NO!" shrieked Oswin, and she turned and fled, but daleks continued appearing all around her. She was being hemmed in. There was nowhere to go, nowhere but through the thickening forces of the terrible daleks. She could hear their voices all around her, raised to an desperate, eardrum-bursting pitch. 
   "Save us! Save the daaa-leks!"
   "I am not a daaa-lek!"
   "Exterminate! Exterminaaate!"
   "Rescue me, chin boy, and show me the stars!"
   "I AM HUMAN!" screamed Oswin at the top of her lungs. Her voice broke, and she tasted blood. She kneeled to the ground as the daleks closed in around her, and she braced her arms over her head, sobbing and rocking back and forth, her whisk forgotten on the ground.
   Silence pervaded the forest.
   Oswin let out a sob and looked up. The daleks were gone. Entirely gone.
   She shut her eyes tightly and stayed curled on the ground, trying to find her grasp on reality, on her sanity. She lay there until her sobs were reduced to hiccups. That single phrase continued racing through her head - I am human. I am human. I am not a dalek, I am human.
   But how did she know this was not all a dream?
   And as the thought passed through her mind, the entire forest faded around her.
   "NO!" she screamed, clawing at the earth as it disappeared and she found herself curled up pathetically on her hammock.
   In her spaceship that didn't exist.
   In her head that didn't exist. 
   She was a dalek.
   She screamed and screamed, her voice tearing out of her throat, breaking her. She grabbed the nearest souffle bowl and smashed it on the ground. The pieces skittered across the floor. They weren't real. This wasn't real. She wasn't real. Everything the Doctor said had been true, and he had left her here, left her here to drown and to die in her own insanity. All that was real was the cold shell outside of her, the chains that held her down, the alien hardware and wires that were now where her body and soul used to be. 
   "I HATE YOU!" she roared at the ceiling, at the Daleks, at The Doctor, at herself. She pounded her fists desperately against the wall, creating a dull reverberating sound that hurt her ears. "I AM NOT A DALEK!" Her throat hurt, and the slick taste of blood touched her tongue. 
   She slid down against the wall and lay curled against it, tears running down her face. "I am not a Dalek. . ." she whispered. "I'm Oswin." 
   She found her eyes focused on the shattered pieces of souffle dish on the ground. One small piece had buried itself in her thumb, and she stared at it, barely seeing. Pain. Blood. Wasn't that proof that she was human, that she existed? But it wasn't. She was in a dream world, a place that her mind had created, and her own subconscious had made it as realistic as possible. That was why she had never suspected that nothing was real. Not until The Doctor came, of course.
   Why hadn't he taken her with him?
   Why had he broken her heart, shattered her world, and left her to die?

19: Half - pt.2

   By the time she got to high school, some of her classmates' clocks had run down to mere days or months. Some of them were even at zero, and they sat with their apparent soulmates at lunchtime, blatantly freaking out over each other.
   But Eve sat alone. She didn't really like it and didn't really dislike it. It was just one of those things.
   The general population - with their olive skin, dark brown hair, and nearly black eyes - seemed to be afraid of her, and she couldn't blame them. She had dodged the civilization's constantly recessant genes and received pale skin, light blue eyes, and fiery red hair, as shiny and bright as copper. It had come from her mother. She loved looking like her mother. She just didn't like being different.
   She picked at her sandwich, but she wasn't hungry anymore. She stood up and dumped it into the garbage with disgust. She began walking towards the exit, gaining speed, almost feeling like she was suffocating, and she didn't take a breath in until she reached the cool spring air outside.
   She fled from the lunchroom to her hidden spot, nestled in a corner of the grounds. It was an old wooden bench swing, a rickety wooden structure that threatened to give more splinters than it gave her comfort. But she didn't care. It was her special place, and she didn't believe that it would hurt her.
   She sat down heavily on the bench, not caring if the skirt of her airy floral dress snagged on the old, rough wood. She bent over for a while, catching her breath and enjoying the sun on her back.
   It was a beautifully sunny day, and the overgrown grasses and flowers that were interspersed around the swing waved in the breeze and brushed her legs. But she barely felt it as she stared at her clock. Sometimes she felt a sudden, sharp spurt of pain from it, spasming up her entire arm, as if it had begun to eat her flesh. But today it was normal, painless, average.
   She rolled her eyes and tore her gaze away from the clock, resting her elbows on her knees. The numbers read thirteen years.

18: Normal Ranty Post

   Here I sit in the computer lab, writing idly because I have no ideas but I have to finish these blog posts. Today I have a math test that I think I'll do well on and tomorrow there's a Spanish test and then on Friday there's an AP Bio test and I'm just becoming the queen of run-on sentences over here.

   Next week we have three days off, starting with Wednesday. If I'm not mistaken, I'll be getting some bones ripped violently out of the part that food goes in. In other words, I'm getting teeth pulled. I still have baby molars that are stubbornly not moving to make room for my braces, so it looks like there will be no candy apples at the fair for me this year.

   Ah, yes - the fair. Apparently that's beginning again soon. Like the Taylor Swift song, "Begin Again", which is really pretty even though I thought I wouldn't like her newer music. Ah, well. Once a Swiftie, always a Swiftie.

Just listen to it. <3

Oh, yes, that reminds me - both Ellie Goulding and A Fine Frenzy, two of my favorite musicians, are releasing new albums today. One called Halcyon, and the other Pines. I'd love to listen to them, but I'll wait until Friday because this is a busy week in terms of schoolwork. Maybe I'll go out and buy both of them. 8D

I find my normal ranty posts, such as this one, to be . . . well, boring. They're not as fun to write as stories are. I'm just spitting out randomness. Meh.

Maybe this will be my last normal ranty post for a while. :3 Expect more fiction! Huzzah!