Karen Chance Fans discussion
Off-Topic
>
Random Thoughts
Sorry I haven't been around. My husband came home a few days ago and we have been going out on dates and spending time together :) I hope everyone is doing well!
Aww, that's lovely! Hope you're having a great time. :) I remember you saying he was coming home soon, but I thought it was a few weeks yet. Have fun!
Zeenat wrote: "Sorry I haven't been around. My husband came home a few days ago and we have been going out on dates and spending time together :) I hope everyone is doing well!"Awww, congratulations! You must be so relieved to have him back.
I've been moving in to my dorm room. The room is nicer than last year, but has significantly less storage. *grump*
My copy of To Be or Not To Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure
has arrived in the post today! I bought this as part of a Kickstarter project a while back (mostly because the guy that created it writes Dinosaur Comics, my absolute favourite web comic ever) AND I got some dinosaur temporary tattoos and stickers and other bits & pieces. You get to choose which character you want to play. I laughed at the description of Hamlet as 'an emo teen in his early 30s'. The book's 740 pages long, so I may be a while. After all, who wants to read boring old Shakespeare when you can play it like a game?! :D
Thanks guys :) It's been fun. This september is going to be one busy month. Between my husbnd being home, trips/vacations, defending my thesis, and turning 30! lolLannister, that sounds like fun! You have to tell me about it!
Claire, what are you doing for storage solution?
@Zeenat Not bringing my whole wardrobe at once is a huge part of it, because I have a buttload of clothes. Also, I'm just getting crafty in how I pack things in drawers. It's obnoxious because we have more than enough space in the kitchen, but the bedroom wardrobes are teeny tiny. But, the roommate I was supposed to have isn't coming so I do have extra space. I'm just reluctant to use it in case the university puts someone else in my room.
Kay I totally had a question for you guys but I can't remember what it was....
cross your fingers you do not get a roommate!
That's what I'm doing!! Seriously it's so nice not having a fourth. I may be inclined to scare and random roommate away...
just scream out random angry statements at your books. "Just have sex already!!!" at every Pritkin and Cassie scene. And Trent and Rachel. And Toby and Tybalt.
Lannister, that sounds like lots of fun...after playing tell us about it!Zeenat, what is your thesis about? I also have to present mine in paper/cd in a week and then defend it and I'm getting nervious. Mine is about 'how to promote tourism with the help of sports, in the off/low season'.
Claire, let's hope you don't get a roomate so you can bring more things and feel like at home.
Mine is about how to slowly murder myself through grad school... J/K LOL It's about workplace discrimination and courts, and the statistics used to help with that.
Zeenat wrote: "just scream out random angry statements at your books. "Just have sex already!!!" at every Pritkin and Cassie scene. And Trent and Rachel. And Toby and Tybalt."Well I was thinking we'd band together and scare her off with our nerdiness (an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician..) But that totally works too!
@Zeenat:That sounds so exciting, I hope you have the best time of it. I mean the thesis part too ... just remember it might be annoying to screw up, but it won't kill you. :P
@Claire:
I had to deal with the roomate issue when I went to Criss Cole, (rehab center/school for the blind--I so passed blind school ir pro) it was fun and not so fun. My first roomate was a self-absorbed bitch that thought it was okay to play loud rap music and talk on a phone chat line at 2am ... the phone party consisted of her lying about her age, name, and saying hello alot.... My next roomate went blind due to a brain tumor, didn't speak much english, and complained to her counselor that I used her toothpaste (I had nfi where she kept it, since it wasn't mine and I brushed my teeth in the shower.), and stole food out of her fridge (hello, I am blind, do not have much of a sense of smell, and my sense of touch is wonky, wtf would I steal mystery food from my roomate's fridge?) I had a really nice roomate, she was nice because she only stayed 2 weeks in my room. Come to think of it my next roomate was nice in the same way ... my last roomate before I graduated was a friend of mine who I shared classes with and wasn't a pain in the ass that I wanted to strangle.
mmmm storage, is it weird that I like to pack and store stuff?? People are surprised at how much stuff I have in my small ass room. Under beds are a great place for storage, with bins or without. Before I got a dresser I used portable drawers in my closet, I gots bins all over the place.... If no room under the bed you can always by a set of risers that raise up your bed a few inches so you can put bins/drawers in there.
Today my little sister left to fly to so cal to visit my middle sister for a week. She had to wait in Austin for a few hours due to the plane needing engine maintenace--fun idea right? When she finally got going she had a lay over in Phoenix and the next flight was overbooked by like 8 people. She volunteered to take the next flight ... and somehow it was recorded that she waited again so instead of getting a $300 something credit she got a $700 something credit. That is like 2 trips to california....
AWESOME! Your sister is lucky! I would love a 700 dollar credit LOL!
@Llaph It's not even a real closet, it's this tiny wardrobe. And the bed has built in drawers. But I just have a lot of clothes. In my defense, I wear them all! My main issue with roommates is that I'm super sensitive to light and sound when I'm falling asleep/waking up. The littlest things keep me up/wake me up early in the morning, which makes it really hard to have a roommate. I love the current situation, because I have my own bedroom, but there are other people around.
That sucks your sister had to wait so many times, but I guess it worked out now!
I am rather sensitive to sounds myself and usually wear earplugs when I am sleeping. I don't have to worry about light of course.... I started trying earplugs a while ago since my sister wakes up at around 6am and does a slam dance or thinks the shower is a mosh pit when she uses it. The bathroom shares a wall with my bedroom and that wall is the wall that I have my headboard on. That and my dad, who is hard of hearing, tends to be loud in the morning too, he gets up around 3 or 4am. It really sucks though that the door to the garage (which is the only way we leave the house) is right across the hallway from me and the hallway is like a sound tunnel now that it has laminate floors.I dunno about clothes ... I don't have a ton atm. The perils of having to get a whole new wardrobe twice in the past couple of years. Some say losing weight is a good thing. Not when you lose so much you gotta get new clothes! Well, to be fair the only reason I did was because when I had to move back in with my family my sister and mom got tired of seeing me in clothes that hung off of me. I was happy with stuff that covered my business and didn't have holes in it. I never have been one for clothes. I am a talking doll for my mom and sister for the most part....
I think I would go nuts if I had to have a roomate again. Atleast one that is not family that I shouldn't play tricks on or bitch at.
I would sympathize with you about the clothes...but I'm with your mom and sister!! Clothing should fit.Regardless of whether or not you can see yourself, other people can see you and what you wear says something about you. It should be a good message. My mom and I also fight with my baby sister about her wardrobe. Funnily enough, she also just lost weight and needs new clothes. Now that she feel better about herself, she's more on board with the whole fashion thing. Still whines incessantly when we shop, though.Have you spoken to your sister about the amount of noise she makes? It's possible she doesn't realize it.
Oh I agree now with the clothes thing. I have been overweight since middle school and since I can't really "see" myself I don't have a lot of self confidence back a lot of the time. (that is wrapped up in other issues I have too.)I feel better now that I have nice clothes that fit. It is still sometimes hard for me to realize how much weight I have lost ... since
'07 about 75lbs in total.
People say that the saying is just an excuse, but damnit, I am big boned....
My sister has always lived with my parents, except the few times she tried out leaving home to go to school. She has also lived in this house and had her routine for years before I moved back in. I tell her sometimes when it is something really annoying. In her part of the hallway there is a big mirror hanging there that is right outside of her door and she uses it to put on her make-up etc. She has the short part of the L for a hallway.... I said before that the hallway is like a sound tunnel now that there is no carpet right? 7am is not an OK time to chat on your cell phone and jabber for however long. My sister is a very loud person too ... sometimes she paces the hallway while on the phone too. (this is normally later in the day or something.) It is not too bad since I am usually already awake and can get up and close my door. It is annoying though when she does it when she is wearing her cowboy boots and wants to hear herself walk....
The other night she was washing her hair in the tub while me and my mom were talking in the hallway, I reached in and turned the light out on her. She whined at me saying that she needs the light to wash her hair. I told her to quit being such a candy ass and that I wash my hair everyday with the lights out and to get over it.
We aren't a physically demonstrative sort of family ... we snipe and pick on each other to show our love. :x
I just love feeling healthy. I did an hour of power yoga (believe me, it's hard) and an hour of zumba at the gym today. I'm probably going to be sore in the morning because of how far I pushed my hamstrings. But I just love that rush of endorphins and feeling like I did something good for myself. @Llaph My sister didn't realize how much noise she made going up the stairs to bed until I told her. Certain things are not reasonable at certains hours of the day. Talking on the phone in the hallway at 7am is one of those things that aren't acceptable. And since it's family, it's a whole hell of a lot easier to tell her to cut it out!
I had been doing exercises a bit ago that I enjoyed for the most part. I stopped doing them recently though and went back to the normal exercising that I was doing ... which is walking up and down the hallway for 30 mins. If the phone app that I was using was right it was over a mile and a halfish. I had started doing it with my leg weights strapped on. I used to do it with a full backpack too ... but Boomer used to follow me and you can't be nimble with all of that weight on your back. lolI had looked up books in my library that explained pilates, (I needed something 0 impact because of the AVN I had in my hips before I had my hips replaced)but they did not have enough written descriptions that I could read to feel comfortable enough about doing the exercises. The exercises that I was doing most recently were explained in detail enough for me to use them to put together some routines to work different parts of my body. I think I might go back to doing it, I know that I felt a lot better when I was doing the workout 60 mins a day during the weekdays. For some reason I am hesitant about doing it when people are home ... I am WTF weird sometimes.
I have told my sister before, she acknowledged it, was quiet for a few days, and then went back to what she was doing. My thing is, I don't work or do much of anything so I can go back to sleep if I want to. Sometimes I can't and sometimes when I do I end up feeling like crap when I do get up. It is just something I have come to accept and do what I can to get over it. (Like wearing earplugs) It was worse for me right after I got out of the hospital, since I had all of my family minus 1 sister and 3 dogs! Before, I had been living for at least 4 or 5 years in my own house with my ex-bf and 2 dogs.
I won't even talk about the 6 mths of hell I had to deal with when I lived with my ex-husband and his family ... people should be amazed that I didn't kill anyone really. I should so get a gold star for that self-control.
Oh man I gotta start excercising again! Now that my husband is home I will start working out with him again. He's really good at spotting me when I do weights, and being my personal trainer. I have been a bit absent cause I have been stressed about thesis and my trillions of vacations. I am in LA for the long weekend, so I will be a bit busy. but I'll be starting my reread for embrace the night!
I took yesterday off, but it's time for yoga again today. And then I'm swing dancing tonight. (because cardio should be fun)
Hi Guys! So I am back and I am actually sorry for being gone for nearly a month. I heard Karen joined in our discussion once... I cannot believe I missed it :( But on the other hand, I did have an awesome time. My company are the producers of a literature festival in Bhutan (which is this tiny country in the Himalayas - absolutely gorgeous) and so we spent a week there. Was crazy busy before, after and during - but it was also loads of fun and I got to meet some really cool people.
I thought we would be free - somewhat - once we got back but wrapping up the reports and all took forever. Still I will be on GR a lot now as I have stopped working fulltime and am now a Consultant :)
Yay for keeping my own hours!!
Welcome back, Arushi! Your literature festival sounds wonderful, especially as it's in the Himalayas. I love mountain scenery so much, and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. Also, yay for being a consultant! Do you advise authors or what?Glad you're back! :)
Mod
Lannister wrote: "Welcome back, Arushi! Your literature festival sounds wonderful, especially as it's in the Himalayas. I love mountain scenery so much, and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. Also, yay for being a consu..."Thanks :) It was awesome. Also since I basically come from a desert - the forests and the rain clouds and the absolute green that was around - totally blew me away. I will put pictures up on facebook soon... will also figure out a way to send them to you. Dropbox maybe?
I am a consultant editor - so I will be editing for my ex-boss. I am also a freelance editor - and will be happy to work on any project that comes my way :) I am pretty excited!!!
Arushi, that is so awesome on the consulting! I think you'll be great, and it'll be fab to be your own boss and make your own hours. I wish you the very best! :)Also, I'd love to see your pics and we'll figure out a way. I have a dropbox account if that's easiest.
Thanks Lannister :) The first two days have been great! I am getting work done and I also have time to get other things done like taking mom shopping :)
So, how was everyone's long weeked? I did a lot of ballroom dancing and consequently have some wicked blisters...but it was totally worth it!
Thanks Zeenat! Claire- that sounds like fun n a bit scary. Glad you had fun though.
I went on vacation to los Angeles. it was fun, but exhausting. glad to be back home.
@Arushi Nah, not scary. I'm all healed. Okay, my friend's Viennese Waltz was terrifying, but that's because he kept speeding up.I have so much work!!!!
@Claire:I never liked to dance or got into it. It was nice to watch though.... Now just the idea makes me laugh if I do dance. I would wonder if I would get flung into someone else or something. Maybe I should talk my sister into taking me to the bar she sometimes goes to to dance, get really drunk, and then try it out. It is a country western bar though so I would be limited! I just have no rhytym whatsoever, at least when it comes to my feet, I have/had rhytym with my hands though.
@ Zeenat:
I hope you got to eat some good food Zeenat! In and Out burgers are some of my family's favorites to get while we are out there. We also try to go to a smaller place that only has a few places, there was only 1 when I was growing up, and it has been around for forever in the city where I grew up. Best ... mexican ... food ... ever. My sister, who went last week to visit my other sister, brought back a few burritos for my parents and a friend. If I would have remembered I would have asked for her to get some tamales from the mexican bakery that we used to go to a lot. Texas mexican food ... is just is bleh.
How hard is it to make a good quesidilla?? Really??
@Arushi:
That sounds like it was a lot of fun. That is one place that I wanted to someday go to, the pictures I seen of some of the views in those mountains were so awesome to look at. I was going to look into seeing what all I would need to do to be an editor, I got the resources, but fail at using them. :( I wanted to get some parts of my life straightened out before I jumped into something like starting school or the like. I have the tendancy to jump into things without thinking about them too hard first.
Completely Random Thought...My parents taught me to treat others like I want them to treat me.
So Why can't they all do the same??
I leave everyone alone... But no one wants to leave me be! *huff*
Awww! I'm having one of those 'leave me alone' weekends too. I've been so insanely busy this week I decided I was doing nothing this weekend. NOTHING!I hope everyone goes away and leaves you in peace, Jax. Except your Goodreads buddies, of course. You're stuck with us! :P
Thanks Lannister :)(though I hope your NOTHING still includes a little reading.)
I don't mind my GoodReads buddies - cos none of you B*tch at me when I disappear for a while... ;D
I've been settling back into school. It's only the second week...and I already have a paper due.Oh well. I always said I liked to be busy. Famous last words I suppose!!
I've managed a little reading today, but I'm way behind with my re-read of Embrace the Night. My 'doing nothing' involved catching up on a lot of stuff I've been neglecting, so it's not exactly nothing, but it's not anything stressful either, so I suppose that's OK.I feel like going to my bed at 9pm LOL!
Llaph wrote: "@Arushi:That sounds like it was a lot of fun. That is one place that I wanted to someday go to, the pictures I seen of some of the views in those mountains were so awesome to look at. I was going to look into seeing what all I would need to do to be an editor, I got the resources, but fail at using them. :( I wanted to get some parts of my life straightened out before I jumped into something like starting school or the like. I have the tendancy to jump into things without thinking about them too hard first. "
It is a gorgeous place and if you ever get a chance, do visit. The air is so different - its so clean. I know India has a lot of pollution problems but Canada was cleaner and even they have nothing on Bhutan.
I think you would make a good editor. You are really good at sorting out BS and that is the main requirement - to delete everything that you think may be extra and not needed for the story - even if you like it.
On editing, it must be quite difficult to tell an author that you want to cut out chunks of their book, as those parts don't add anything to the story. I can picture few bruised egos and occasional temper tantrums. I don't envy you that, Arushi. I think some authors view their books like their babies and don't want anyone interfering. But hopefully most are willing to listen to a professional opinion. Still, it must be difficult sometimes.
DUDE life has been so busy. I'm so tired. And I have been reading next to nothing! I have not even had time to sit down and read. I read
a week ago, and have yet had a chance to write a review for it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Ohhh talk about cutting out what is not needed. I do a few reviews for a site and follow the same sort of format for the reviews. 4 paragraphs, 1 FMC, 2 MMC, sort of synopsis, and the actual review. Sometimes in my first draft I have over 700 words, then I wittle it down to only 300 words.... It is kinda difficult to take away the extra and leave enough to actually tell the story, which is hard for me since ... duh I know the story.I used to hate, well still do, having to write a review for a book I did not like much and still sound diplomatic and offer what I really found wrong with it. All of that without slamming or bad mouthing the book. (I save that for my sister even if she has nfi what I am talking about ... it makes me feel better.)
It is a good teacher of sorts. I know I have read a lot of books that I never would have otherwise ... some that are awesome ... and some that ... are so not awesome.
I gots the people skills, sorta.
Using my phone so please bear with typos. @Lannister- Almost all of them think of the book as their baby. While some are actually nice and listen, others do get pissy. But that is all fine as long as they take me seriously n consider what I said. The most annoying are those who write me a long email explaining the parts I called confusing n stuff like that. And I am like- I don't really wanna know for me- it has to b there (or not there) in the book. Sigh.
@Llaph- yep that is good practice. I am actually impressed coz it is really hard for me to edit my own work. I see what I think I wrote rather than what I actually did. takes a while to improve it.
On another note- a new Indian movie just came out which is set in my city. 90% is actually showing my city- well the traditional parts of it- but still!!!!
If you see hindi movies occasionally then recommending it. It is a cute n somewhat accurate movie.
Otherwise checknout the songs on youtube- especially on called Gulabi (which means pink). Oh n its called Shuddh Desi Romance.
Okay so in the other group I'm part of "Paranormal Kickass Chicks," they have a Cassie buddy read thread and everyone's talking about how they don't really care about Cassie and the books are so long and it's driving me CRAZY. I just want to pop in and go "the fuck is wrong with you people?! She's awesome!"Alsoooo I finally have a thesis for the first paper of the year! Woooooo
@Claire - So don't let the other group bother you. The fact they don't like it means nothing. In fact, our own lovely Lannister can't finish the first book of one of the best series out there - October Daye. Do we let that bother us? Hell no. Do we hold it against her? Well, maybe a little bit.... ;-)And good luck on your paper. In this area you will need it as the liberal politics everybody spouts endlessly will drive you crazy! You can't write if you can't think sanely!
Karen Chance Fans
Books mentioned in this topic
The Lycan Hunter (other topics)Black Arts (other topics)
The Shepherd (other topics)
Chimes at Midnight (other topics)
To Be or Not To Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure (other topics)
More...
I do fine with the question answering … it is the paragraphs I f’up. First, I don’t give enough information in my sentences. Then, I give too much information and she doesn’t like my wording and offers “suggestions” as to what it should say.
Pfft, I do a few reviews a month for a website and don’t have so many changes to what I write. I compare what I submitted to what is posted, (after editors go through it) and don’t see too many corrections. I mainly screw up some words and tenses in sentences or have some run-on sentences.
I think my instructor is a robot, it is the only explaination. She has like form letters where she plugs in my grade and the next date) +30 days) for when my next assignment is due and everything else is the same. (Except my assignment which has her corrections)
Also, I think I might be warped, because; the past 2 assignments I have gotten 75%and have been bummed about it. : x
Also ... frogs are awesome, that is all.