I've been having a good week so far. Running errands and laughing and playing with friends is just what I needed after being stuck in bed. I got my books for the Philosophy class I'm taking in January and moved most of my stuff out of my dorm room with a little help from my friends (insert proper Beatles joke). I'm actually quite proud of myself for driving on such tricky roads; it's exactly what I signed up for to deal with next semester when I commute, so I should get used to it, right?  I've been getting away with some beastly snow maneuvers, believe you me. Also any car ride that lasts more than an hour devolves into Disney music, whether or not passengers are in the car with me. I'll make a man out of you, alright.

I've been doing a wee bit of "holiday shopping" in the last week as well. Malls are such carnivals of the grotesque. Consensus among myself, Emma, and Smalls is that some sort of nauseating substance is pumped through the air vents to make shoppers tense, hyper, and impulsive. My heart goes out to anyone working retail or forced to cater to the insane whims of shoppers this season. Oh America, ILU.

One thing I noticed from being at the mall is that Waldenbooks is closing its doors. I fear Borders is next. I'm not going to knock the discounts it has been forced into providing, though. 30% off was the discount I got when I worked at Barnes and Noble, and that was just what was off fiction books when I walked in today (slim pickings, though). Doubtless it will rise, but I have to assert some control over my mass book hysteria, or it will ruin me.

Do you like languages? You should try livemocha. It's sort of fun; I have to admit I haven't explored it much beyond the beginner courses of a few languages. Beware the arabic and farsi courses though-- the alphabet appears in the equivalent of what English spakers would call capslock, so don't expect it to teach you the letter forms, which is an important component of their alphabets.

I just found an e-mail from Chris Baty of Nanowrimo reminding me that my book is waiting patiently for me to come back and love it properly like I should. It's true. I have neglected it in order to let ideas swirl in a less frienzied way. I printed out a paper version of my manuscript so far. My characters seem all on the cusp of something, which makes sense considering nothing much has happened. Some of them have weird quirks that I have to flesh out. One of them turned out to be much more violent than I anticipated! Anyway, enough of that for now. 

Have you heard of formspring? You create an account and people post anonymous questions for you to answer. I have just made one. If you're secretly dying to ask me silly or serious things, by all means, do so immediately. 

Lastly, I just want to say that I've been illustrating, really illustrating for the first time since the summer and it's been flexing my creative muscles like woah. If anyone wants anything contact me about commissions/drawing something for them, go for it. I invite you to check out my sketch blog for some random stuff in case you forgot what I do.

In the next few days, some lovely family will be coming to visit and staying until January. It will be fun and busy in the house and I can't wait.

I will leave you with this picture of my bed. It is made of starlight.

Why, hello. Let me tell you what is up.

It's my birthday tomorrow and I have no plan besides having told my friends to meet me in Manhattan. I told twenty people altogether. I originally intended to have a picnic but now it's going to rain and I will feel terrible for making them all spend money to get there without having a place to go or a course of action. I would cancel what I said to them if I could, but I'm not going to have a chance to see anyone again until August.

Put that together with the fact that I'm already scared witless about turning twenty one and that I'll be getting on a really early train tomorrow to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park (which will also probably get rained out), and you can perhaps understand why I could be in better spirits.

So I'm pretty much boned. I'm going to try to accept it with grace.

In other news, do you like this piece I posted? It's the first thing I've properly attempted to color in years. They're two characters from the Kushiel's Legacy books (Mavros is in black and Imriel is in blue). I love that series because everyone is described as so unutterably beautiful that no matter how hard you try to capture them you can always excuse yourself for not quite getting it right. To top it off, they're described as a pretty folk, so drawing males as bishonen would be pretty much welcome.

RIP netherworld.nu. You had a good run. Not really, but let's just pretend you did. I registered a new site, which will probably be completed sometime soon. It's aestival.net. If anybody who reads this wants hosting on there, leave a comment about it and I would be happy to discuss it with you. So far there is nothing up except for an online playlist that you can listen to by clicking here. I have bizarre tastes but maybe you will find something worthy of listening to. There is some kind of theme to that playlist, be it the cosmos, making babies, or robots, but I'm not necessarily one for laying it all out there to be understood. All I have to say is that the song selection is both thematic and incredibly indicative of albums that have come out in the last year that I have adored and listen to pretty regularly.

If you want something else to do, visit Fifty Two Stories. Free short stories are like free cupcakes, only without calories you don't need and just as sweet. For some reason I really liked this one, although I can't quite figure out why. Tiger, Tiger is also pretty good.

I changed my livejournal layout and added a new mood theme. It's going to be hilarious looking at old posts and seeing my mood described as "JARETH LOLZ" next to a picture of Audrey Tautou.

Oh, and, I suppose you have figured this out, but I returned from England and France. About a month ago, actually. I have come back from trips before and announced it on livejournal only to never post pictures or stories, but this time I am making a blog on aestival for my photos and intend on describing certain bizarre incidents in alarming detail, whether on there or in another post to come on here.

For this afternoon, I'm going to drive to Stony Brook with Sarah and see if I can do anything for the paper. MCAT studying goes okay. I'm trying to block out flagrant wank and focus on learning, but boy is it hard.

I have 4 chapters of Physics, 4 chapters of Psychology, an abstract to perfect and lecture slides to memorize. And yet here I am.

I want to announce to the world that Greg and I FINALLY bought our tickets to England (and I bought my return ticket from France; at some point I have to get all up on easyjet.com and get my in-between flight from Gatwick to Lyon). I would just like to say that Orbitz and CheapTickets.com were cheaper than both StudentUniverse.com and StaTravel.com (although the latter most was almost comparable, I will be fair). But if I hadn't checked I would have paid $140 more. The true Quest for Money begins now that I need spending cash. If you know anyone who would like art commissions done, or in fact have so much expendable income that they wish to give it to a wandering college student in Europe, please send them my way. As for MCATs, I'll take 'em in June or July. Studying in advance is only helping me.

In other absolutely random news, check out Paper Links. I meant to plug it before this point but I'm sure they won't miss the .2453 number of hits this link will get them.

Does anyone on my flist have a DSLR? I have been itching to buy a Canon Digital Rebel since this past summer. My flatmate has an XTi and she gets some damned gorgeous shots out of the thing. Canon is rumored to be releasing the 500D and will have a press release of some sort in a couple of days; this is exciting because by the time I have enough money to buy a DSLR the new 500D will presumably drop down the prices of the XTi and the XSi. Or I'll just throw caution to the wind and buy a 500D (it is going to have video capabilities! I wouldn't need my point and shoot any more!). But if anyone out there in livejournal land has anything good/bad to say about Canon, or in fact wants to tell me all about how I'm wrong and should be purchasing a Nikon instead, speak now!

And in another plug for the sake of plugging, I've been incredibly consistent in updating my sketch blog!

Cindy and I went on a mighty adventure tonight. A quest, if you will. It started in the Union where we merely wanted delicious corporate beverages. After I talked Cindy's face off and we managed to reattach it with no lasting damages, we traveled across the treacherous roads of Stony Brook, went to my room, and listened to copious amounts of music from the dubbed version of Sailor Moon (amazing music, you must realise we've no shame). We then sought to retrieve my magic curtains from the perilous doom of the A side, as well as retrieve a book, drop off a clicker, and find a new home for my soon-to-have-been-abandoned boxes of cereal. Along the way, we met a betta fish named Oscar, who we re-named Belle De Jour, as its owners (both of them) had abandoned the fish. On our way to do this, we stopped to regain HP, had members join and leave our party, and fought twelve demons. Twelve.

Party members gained / lost: (1) James, (2) Jenny, (3) Betta Fish aka Belle de Jour
Items aquired: +2 curtains, -1 clicker, -2 cereal boxes, +1 fish, +2 books (Jenny was nice enough to give me a copy of Wicked!), and several hours after all of this, +1 clean, ready-to-be-vacated room.


Also it's very, very important to note that Alex, James and I saw Ghetto Asian boy practicing being awesome on the Staller lawn. His smooth moves were a treat, indeed.