Under the Skin

Sometimes I come across literary characters that I just can't figure out. I have decided to name a "I Can't Figure Him Out" of the week. This week's character is *drumroll please* Sir DeBracy of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. He's just so...hard to figure out. First he's all for killing anybody in his way to marry Rowena, and then just like that, all of the sudden, he feels for her. Because he sees her tears! Yeah, he's got bunches of rogue appeal, and his acts of sacrifice in the end are perfectly beautiful. But I can't figure him out! Any opinions? Don't know who DeBracy is? Go ready Ivanhoe. It'd be worth your time in so many ways. Yes, it is very thick reading. And it's not the curl-up-in-the-corner type of book at all. But it's very good really.

I am not much of a critique of the following: 1) photography. I recognize that photography is an art. I just don't understand it. I don't know what makes a good photo. And I don't understand what's going on with it all. But I admit, there is an artistic aspect. I just don't know what it is. 2) Fashion. Let's just let it be about me and fashion 3) Movies. I don't know. I can't say much more than I like or don't like it. Needless to say the one page critique of the movie of Cyrano de Bergerac written entirely in French was not my best piece of writing in French class. That was just...rough. On the other hand, I guess if I had extremely developed feelings towards it, I'd become frustrated by what I don't know how to say. Anyways, I found a list of what TV guide finds the 50 best movies of all time. I will list those that I have seen, and say yeah or nay. This will consist of do I like it or do I not like it. Why some of them seem to b...

James Joyce is my kind of guy. He made puzzles that I like to think are just for me. He was a great lover of languages, and he is sometimes called the father of a literary technique called polyglotism. This is when you insert other languages in there. Just 'cuz. So, in James Joyce's wonderful story, "Eveline" there is a phrase that nobody knows what it is. Even to this day. "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" Many people believe it to be corrupted Irish Gaelic. Needing a break from homework, I have approached this by taking the words and then transliterating them into Irish Gaelic, trying to create Irish Gaelic that would be spoken by someone of this status in this time in Ireland. Nationalist, but not educated enough to actually understand all the ins and outs of the language. I came up with two possible phrases that I find very probable. And I'm not pretending to solve the mystery. If Joyce experts over the years have not discovered the mean...

Hey everyone! Inglemoor High School started 1 hour late this morning due to flooding. It was a nightmare trying to get home last night and a smaller scale nightmare trying to get out of Inglemoor today. However, we're alive. Firstly, the snow began on Saturday. It was pretty nice to tell you the truth. By Sunday, it had begun to rain. And then it rained. And the snow was gone. And before you knew it, the portables were flooded, they were doing something bizarre to save the planetarium roof, the puddles were rising, every river in Western Washington was on flood warning (not exaggerating), the dike in Chehalis broke, the entire downtown city of Woodinville was underwater as was part of Bothell, I-5 down in Chehalis was closed (and as such, the detour from Vancouver, WA to Seattle entailed going to Portland, east to La Grande, up to Yakima and over through Ellensburg, and then everything was a complete mess. That's the flooding story in detail. Agenda of the Day: I'...

So, if out of state people have heard about the floods in Seattle, here's what's going on. Yes, it is flooding here. We are all safe here, and we live on high ground. However, want a local coverage: http://www.komotv.com/ # click on the movie. It will illustrate it pretty well. Yeah, we do live in Woodinville, which is mentioned (it's under about four-feet of water), but we are not at all flooded at our house. A little soggy, but we're okay.

So, this Friday marked the last day of NaNoWriMo. And I made it. 50,000 words, as I realize the rest of the year where I don't if I even acheive 10K, is no small feat. But, once again, my friends, I celebrate my success of having made it. It was tought in some parts and I'm not going to pretend that there weren't times when I wanted nothing more than to quit. But once I got to a certain level, I just knew that I'd come so far that I couldn't quit then. NaNoWriMo went out with a bang this year because the day after NaNoWriMo marked the first day of snow of the year. A nice pile of snow was accumulated by this morning: I'd say perhaps even a half-a-foot. Sadly, the stupid trademark of Seattle (rain) has caused it to melt into yesteryear. I did not cheat very much for NaNoWriMo. My characters can sing songs, can't they? Of course they can. They can speak in foreign languages so then I have to translate them or make the rest of the dialogue tell you what it says...