Leisure Musings
A holiday really isn't everything it's cracked up to be. Sure, you get the free time without stresses and homework and such, but after you've lived with those for four months straight and capped it all out with three weeks of the most intense late nights and early mornings that you've had all semester, waking up late and sprawling about really does take awhile to get used to.
Not to mention that I'm really rather attached to my Internet and my forums, all of which I've had to take an absence from; it's not perhaps the most earthshaking of events, but then again in my little world, almost anything can be earthshaking. I've found myself stopping dead in a walk just because I noticed that a nearby branch wasn't moving and that there wasn't any wind around. I've also stopped for cats on fences, sudden gusts of wind, cars honking madly, and the occasional person I recognise (who recognised me first). The last occurs fairly rarely, which when you consider it, perhaps indicates the dismally small number of people that I regularly contact in the hostel. Come to think of it I could maybe reel off two. Or three. Herr Robson and Shadow (a heretofore unmentioned person whom I swim with). Maybe my roommate, if a nightly "I'll turn the lights off now" counts as contact. I can go for a whole day in silence and break it for the first and last time with that sentence; silent retreats really don't faze me since I've put myself through lots of 'em. Granted, though, I was studying during those.
In any case I'll probably want to remember what I've been doing these days, so... well, I've spent my days with lots of TV and not much food. Hostel life has left me accustomed to rather smaller portions of food than I was previously used to, so I don't eat quite so much anymore; and the Gorilla's family are out of the house and in the Philippines on a mission trip, which leaves me alone in the house with the maid (who cooks). She doesn't eat much either, though, so between the two of us, a plate of stirfried cabbage and three chunks of sardine from a tin, plus an indeterminate amount of rice, are lunch and dinner. I wake up far too late for breakfast: a habit I really ought to break. Then again I woke up at 8am this morning, which is another earthshaking event for a person who commonly wakes at 12pm and 1pm.
The comforts of living in a house (as opposed to a room) are many. For one thing, I always, always look forward to the double bed in the room I usually get put in. It's massive and bouncy and has two pillows and a nice fat bolster and blankets, and airconditioning; although I never use the airconditioning, it's a touch of luxury simply having it around. Luxury is having things you don't need, remember. Plus it's got a lovely thick mattress and it's so soft I could just roll about in it. In fact I do sometimes, just squirm a bit in between the covers and luxuriate in the sensation. Yes, I know it's insane to be quite so fond of a bed. But it's such a lovely bed to be fond of!
Otherwise, hmm. TV. Lots of it. I've already memorised the numbers for Disney, Cartoon Network, and Animax; by which you can deduce that the Gorilla has subscribed to Astro and that I'm currently in a place in Malaysia that possesses Astro coverage, although honestly there aren't many places in Malaysia without.
(I just remembered that somebody on my MSN contact list pronounces "Malaysia" as "my laser". And I just giggled because if you pronounce it that way, the last paragraph sounds quite absurd.)
Well, anyway. Three months. I could almost do a novella in this time; that's what NaNoWriMo is all about, except my Novembers are usually packed and I've no time during those so I guess I'll have to do it now instead. Certainly it'll fill up my time; my only problem is that ideas occur to me and disappear equally quickly. Or rather, they're replaced. Case in point: I have folders in my external hard drive labeled "Possible Novella", in which I have detailed plans for one novella that span several thousand years of history. I even created a sort of political system, plus measurements and a sort of pseudoscience. Hey, if Hollywood can come up with impossible ideas, so can I. I can make even more impossible ideas than Hollywood can, since I actually read books too.
And with all day to type...
Well, I suppose my only problem in this case would be that I couldn't concentrate enough. Staring at a blank WordPad file (I don't use Word much due to its relatively long loading time, although I do like its extra features) somehow drains all the ideas out of me. And I always get sidetracked on the details. Case in point: refer to above. I started out with the idea of a world that's sort of a Bleach and Hunter X Hunter amalgam, and somehow I got sidetracked into detailing plans for their entire political system plus how they came about in the first place. And right now I'm fermenting a different-but-similar idea involving parallel dimensions and the possibilities--yes, I've been reading xxxHolic and TRC and anyway those are just two of the many manga that toy with the idea of extra dimensions.
Well, we'll see. Maybe I'll actually start work on it. More likely I won't, because I much prefer drawing. It's much easier to describe things in drawing, though it usually takes a few sketches to get an idea right. Unfortunately drawing doesn't lend itself much to long paragraphs of verbosity, which is what I tend to do. I've seen a lot of my ancient art (meaning it dates from maybe 7 to 9 years ago) and the stuff switches back and forth between story and comic strip quite frequently. Five or six pages of panels of stickmen throwing what looks like beheaded cauliflowers at each other is followed by an apologetic "The rest in story" and then you get several pages of scribbly illegible writing (ye gads, my writing back then was awful, no wonder the teachers complained) and then suddenly there's a battle again and after another apologetic "The rest in comic", it's back to the angry stickmen of cauliflower land leaping around little squiggles of boxes. Completely insensible, but I had fun drawing those. Chronicles should know; he was the main influence behind me stopping with the stickmen and starting with some tiny critter-thingies that turned out to have a pretty good run. I drew those things for another two years, and then in secondary school everything petered out. Ah well.
Garrulous today, aren't I? I haven't heard the sound of my own voice all day. Didn't hear it yesterday until night time when I went with Claus and his girlfriend to the night market either. Like I said, I don't talk very much and anyway there's nobody to talk to; the Coconut's in class. I really don't see the sense in every other institute of education having different holidays from everybody else. Now, for example, I'm on holiday. Unfortunately the holidays of the Coconut and Claus ended this week, so I'm reduced to seeing her on weekends only. Well, I guess two days a week is a vast increase from no days a week, but at least back then we had MSN. Right now it's just the occasional SMS. Still, it's annoying that all the holidays aren't synchronised.
Hm, I guess this is it for this post. It's lunchtime and I'm hungry.
Not to mention that I'm really rather attached to my Internet and my forums, all of which I've had to take an absence from; it's not perhaps the most earthshaking of events, but then again in my little world, almost anything can be earthshaking. I've found myself stopping dead in a walk just because I noticed that a nearby branch wasn't moving and that there wasn't any wind around. I've also stopped for cats on fences, sudden gusts of wind, cars honking madly, and the occasional person I recognise (who recognised me first). The last occurs fairly rarely, which when you consider it, perhaps indicates the dismally small number of people that I regularly contact in the hostel. Come to think of it I could maybe reel off two. Or three. Herr Robson and Shadow (a heretofore unmentioned person whom I swim with). Maybe my roommate, if a nightly "I'll turn the lights off now" counts as contact. I can go for a whole day in silence and break it for the first and last time with that sentence; silent retreats really don't faze me since I've put myself through lots of 'em. Granted, though, I was studying during those.
In any case I'll probably want to remember what I've been doing these days, so... well, I've spent my days with lots of TV and not much food. Hostel life has left me accustomed to rather smaller portions of food than I was previously used to, so I don't eat quite so much anymore; and the Gorilla's family are out of the house and in the Philippines on a mission trip, which leaves me alone in the house with the maid (who cooks). She doesn't eat much either, though, so between the two of us, a plate of stirfried cabbage and three chunks of sardine from a tin, plus an indeterminate amount of rice, are lunch and dinner. I wake up far too late for breakfast: a habit I really ought to break. Then again I woke up at 8am this morning, which is another earthshaking event for a person who commonly wakes at 12pm and 1pm.
The comforts of living in a house (as opposed to a room) are many. For one thing, I always, always look forward to the double bed in the room I usually get put in. It's massive and bouncy and has two pillows and a nice fat bolster and blankets, and airconditioning; although I never use the airconditioning, it's a touch of luxury simply having it around. Luxury is having things you don't need, remember. Plus it's got a lovely thick mattress and it's so soft I could just roll about in it. In fact I do sometimes, just squirm a bit in between the covers and luxuriate in the sensation. Yes, I know it's insane to be quite so fond of a bed. But it's such a lovely bed to be fond of!
Otherwise, hmm. TV. Lots of it. I've already memorised the numbers for Disney, Cartoon Network, and Animax; by which you can deduce that the Gorilla has subscribed to Astro and that I'm currently in a place in Malaysia that possesses Astro coverage, although honestly there aren't many places in Malaysia without.
(I just remembered that somebody on my MSN contact list pronounces "Malaysia" as "my laser". And I just giggled because if you pronounce it that way, the last paragraph sounds quite absurd.)
Well, anyway. Three months. I could almost do a novella in this time; that's what NaNoWriMo is all about, except my Novembers are usually packed and I've no time during those so I guess I'll have to do it now instead. Certainly it'll fill up my time; my only problem is that ideas occur to me and disappear equally quickly. Or rather, they're replaced. Case in point: I have folders in my external hard drive labeled "Possible Novella", in which I have detailed plans for one novella that span several thousand years of history. I even created a sort of political system, plus measurements and a sort of pseudoscience. Hey, if Hollywood can come up with impossible ideas, so can I. I can make even more impossible ideas than Hollywood can, since I actually read books too.
And with all day to type...
Well, I suppose my only problem in this case would be that I couldn't concentrate enough. Staring at a blank WordPad file (I don't use Word much due to its relatively long loading time, although I do like its extra features) somehow drains all the ideas out of me. And I always get sidetracked on the details. Case in point: refer to above. I started out with the idea of a world that's sort of a Bleach and Hunter X Hunter amalgam, and somehow I got sidetracked into detailing plans for their entire political system plus how they came about in the first place. And right now I'm fermenting a different-but-similar idea involving parallel dimensions and the possibilities--yes, I've been reading xxxHolic and TRC and anyway those are just two of the many manga that toy with the idea of extra dimensions.
Well, we'll see. Maybe I'll actually start work on it. More likely I won't, because I much prefer drawing. It's much easier to describe things in drawing, though it usually takes a few sketches to get an idea right. Unfortunately drawing doesn't lend itself much to long paragraphs of verbosity, which is what I tend to do. I've seen a lot of my ancient art (meaning it dates from maybe 7 to 9 years ago) and the stuff switches back and forth between story and comic strip quite frequently. Five or six pages of panels of stickmen throwing what looks like beheaded cauliflowers at each other is followed by an apologetic "The rest in story" and then you get several pages of scribbly illegible writing (ye gads, my writing back then was awful, no wonder the teachers complained) and then suddenly there's a battle again and after another apologetic "The rest in comic", it's back to the angry stickmen of cauliflower land leaping around little squiggles of boxes. Completely insensible, but I had fun drawing those. Chronicles should know; he was the main influence behind me stopping with the stickmen and starting with some tiny critter-thingies that turned out to have a pretty good run. I drew those things for another two years, and then in secondary school everything petered out. Ah well.
Garrulous today, aren't I? I haven't heard the sound of my own voice all day. Didn't hear it yesterday until night time when I went with Claus and his girlfriend to the night market either. Like I said, I don't talk very much and anyway there's nobody to talk to; the Coconut's in class. I really don't see the sense in every other institute of education having different holidays from everybody else. Now, for example, I'm on holiday. Unfortunately the holidays of the Coconut and Claus ended this week, so I'm reduced to seeing her on weekends only. Well, I guess two days a week is a vast increase from no days a week, but at least back then we had MSN. Right now it's just the occasional SMS. Still, it's annoying that all the holidays aren't synchronised.
Hm, I guess this is it for this post. It's lunchtime and I'm hungry.
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