Vindicate Vaguary
...I'm typing this from my library, during a bit of a break in between classes. I've done a bit of work--not much, but some, and then I fell to reading my old blog posts. It strikes me that I've really not changed much at all since my A-Levels days; I still worry about the future, I still don't like not knowing the full impacts of my possible decisions before doing them, I still have a relatively bad temper even if it manifests a lot less these days, and I certainly still don't get good grades, although I've been reading Gladwell's Outliers and it seems that I needn't worry about being smarter than everybody else as long as I'm smart enough, however much enough might be. Then again, being a February baby explains how I've been more or less coasting along academic life, or at least I was during primary and secondary school--of course genetics comes into it somewhat, along with me being the firstborn, but then there's the early-birthday advantage.
I also found out this morning that I can still fit into a pair of cargo pants that I bought back in my A-Levels days; it was rather gratifying, because I haven't been exercising at all lately (I haven't swum at all this semester, and running... let's just give that up as a lost cause, shall we?) and I keep discovering new stretch marks all over the place. Though how I'm managing to still be getting... more... faster than my skin can keep up defies my understanding; my diet's not that large. I think. I certainly ought to exercise, and I would, if I could find anybody similar in (un!)fitness level to myself who would want to exercise together; there's something to be said for deriving motivation or inspiration from fitter people, but generally all I get is depression and a desire to whop them in the stomach.
The NaNovel's actually close to completion--by which I mean it's close to 50k words--as far as the storyline goes it's only still in the second of ten chapters--which is a gratifying thing; I'm averaging 2,000 words a day, and the storyline's nowhere even NEAR a quarter of what I thought I'd do; I spend so much time establishing character traits that there isn't much time to make them walk the path I was planning. And even then I find that all my characters somehow manage to be... me-like: not bad, not good, just neutral with maybe one or two interesting but not particularly jarring traits. Not a single jerk amongst them, nobody lazy or alcoholic or given to promiscuity or anything of the sort--well, there's a Bottle Fairy Conspiracy Nut, but... maybe I'll do a Character Tropes page on them. That should certainly be good for some more word count! And if I do some character derailing on the way, so much the better, I'll just throw a Reality Warper into the mix and Hand Wave it that way--put the Deus in Deus Ex Machina, you could say.
I also recently obtained and installed The Sims 3, which I only convinced my computer to run after some tinkering with drivers (I kept getting an error message about the ialmrnt5 driver failing, which Google showed was a terribly common failure, so I had to uninstall and restart and download an updated driver and restart and then play); at the moment I have just the one Sim, whom I called Always Right, and he's an up-and-coming politician. I haven't yet installed the expansion packs that I also obtained, though, and I haven't yet succumbed to Videogame Cruelty Potential--so far it's more Heartwarming Potential than anything since his Lifetime Goal involves making lots and lots of friends.
I met Fourth Aunt and the Gobbler last Wednesday--it was the Muslim equivalent of the New Year--and we went out for food. Apparently I appear considerably thinner to her than the last time she saw me; either that or she formed an impression since our last meeting of me as a giant roll of fat. But it was something of a compliment.
I also found out this morning that I can still fit into a pair of cargo pants that I bought back in my A-Levels days; it was rather gratifying, because I haven't been exercising at all lately (I haven't swum at all this semester, and running... let's just give that up as a lost cause, shall we?) and I keep discovering new stretch marks all over the place. Though how I'm managing to still be getting... more... faster than my skin can keep up defies my understanding; my diet's not that large. I think. I certainly ought to exercise, and I would, if I could find anybody similar in (un!)fitness level to myself who would want to exercise together; there's something to be said for deriving motivation or inspiration from fitter people, but generally all I get is depression and a desire to whop them in the stomach.
The NaNovel's actually close to completion--by which I mean it's close to 50k words--as far as the storyline goes it's only still in the second of ten chapters--which is a gratifying thing; I'm averaging 2,000 words a day, and the storyline's nowhere even NEAR a quarter of what I thought I'd do; I spend so much time establishing character traits that there isn't much time to make them walk the path I was planning. And even then I find that all my characters somehow manage to be... me-like: not bad, not good, just neutral with maybe one or two interesting but not particularly jarring traits. Not a single jerk amongst them, nobody lazy or alcoholic or given to promiscuity or anything of the sort--well, there's a Bottle Fairy Conspiracy Nut, but... maybe I'll do a Character Tropes page on them. That should certainly be good for some more word count! And if I do some character derailing on the way, so much the better, I'll just throw a Reality Warper into the mix and Hand Wave it that way--put the Deus in Deus Ex Machina, you could say.
I also recently obtained and installed The Sims 3, which I only convinced my computer to run after some tinkering with drivers (I kept getting an error message about the ialmrnt5 driver failing, which Google showed was a terribly common failure, so I had to uninstall and restart and download an updated driver and restart and then play); at the moment I have just the one Sim, whom I called Always Right, and he's an up-and-coming politician. I haven't yet installed the expansion packs that I also obtained, though, and I haven't yet succumbed to Videogame Cruelty Potential--so far it's more Heartwarming Potential than anything since his Lifetime Goal involves making lots and lots of friends.
I met Fourth Aunt and the Gobbler last Wednesday--it was the Muslim equivalent of the New Year--and we went out for food. Apparently I appear considerably thinner to her than the last time she saw me; either that or she formed an impression since our last meeting of me as a giant roll of fat. But it was something of a compliment.
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