Random Monday: Community College

In May I graduated with an Associate's Degree in the Arts. Something that struck me as odd was that I didn't feel quite as excited as some of the people graduating with me. Regardless, it was still an enjoyable night of my life. There was a hot gym, not a lot of seating, a 'powerful' statement from my state governor claiming to make our state "the greatest nation on Earth," and diplomas. 

College has been one of the best educational experiences I've ever had. In high school I dealt so much with classmates who didn't care about education and spent most of their time hassling my teachers (or me). High school wasn't a good time.

College is where you meet the people who care. They want their degree, they want their education. Whether it be because they're paying for it or because they simply enjoy learning, they do their best. I didn't have to dread group assignments anymore because most of my teammates put in proper effort. There are the party-people, but they still do their best in classes.

Now, I went to a community college, so the classes were reasonably smaller than they might have been. My biggest class had maybe 35 people. That's huge to me, considering I graduated in a class of 13. With these smaller classes, the teachers were able to offer much better one-on-one help. They could also take a more personal interest. I will always remember my days here fondly just due to my Composition and Literature teachers. 

Assignments in high school usually came across as easy to me, unless they were math related. I rarely had to study, made study guides only if I had to... Hell, in high school, we got study guides for use during finals sometimes. Yeah. College challenged me, and I liked that. 

So it was with bittersweet emotions that I took my diploma on the stage and turned my tassel. It didn't really feel like the end. After all, I'm still going to transfer to a university, but I'm still a student at this college despite having graduated! I have to finish out a certificate (one-year program) that I'd started last semester. It still feels like it deserves a post on my blog, though, because it was a big experience in my life - one that obviously kept me away from my blog for some time.

If anyone reading this ever doubts that college would do anything for them, at least try some classes at a community college. A lot of people claim community colleges to be "not as good" as universities, but I promise they're wrong. In some ways, I bet community colleges are better.

Random Monday: Smoothies

Trying out a new font, everyone.

I'm not a big fruit fan. 

Now believe me, I've tried. I can handle the classics - apples, oranges, grapes - but give me a banana or a piece of cantaloupe and I'm going to recoil. I've just never had a taste for them, until I tasted a smoothie on the day of my college's welcome fair two years ago.

It was a strawberry banana smoothie, one of THE staple smoothies, and I was reluctant to try it but, to be honest, it looked appetizing. The smoothie consisted of only a few swallows anyway, so I got one (for free) and tried it - and loved it.

It took me a few weeks to realize, "Oh. I can make those." I got my mom's old blender down and dug some frozen fruit out of the fridge, putting together what looked good. Voila, I consider this to be my signature smoothie: the strawberry-pineapple-mango-peach smoothie.

Making smoothies turned out to be a strong point last semester when, for a business course, we created a business with smoothies as its main menu. I got to really expand my own menu by making new recipes.

There were a few failures - blueberry pear and apple kale weren't great - but some like mango pineapple were fantastic. 

Anyway, the point of this is that, texture can sort of change the concept of taste dramatically. Just because I don't like cantaloupe doesn't mean I don't like the smell of it. Maybe if I tried it in a smoothie I'd like it better. 

So if you find a food you don't really like, instead of condemning it, try it cooked or prepared a different way. A few weeks ago I had broccoli as a part of a stir fry and adored it, even though I despise it raw. Heck, maybe thinking of it like this can give a character in a book a special perk. Possibilities are endless.

Here's some tips for making smoothies:

1. Use REAL juice. Not V8 Fusion. I did for a while, but the smoothies were always so sweet it could make me queasy if it was a big smoothie. You can use water, too, but I personally hate the taste of watered down fruit. Watered down anything, really.

2. Freeze your fruit (unless you're sensitive to cold things). I'm of strong belief that a cold smoothie is one of the best things ever. Not only that, but you can't make a ton of smoothies and drink them all within a couple days. Freezing your fruit can give you months of time until you're ready to make your smoothie. 

3. Use ENOUGH juice/water. Otherwise your blender is going to have so much trouble chopping up your fruit, especially if it's frozen, and it's agitating for everyone and everything involved. I find that pouring in enough juice to keep it equal with the fruit prior to blending does a good job. 

4. There's very little difference between pre-frozen fruit and freshly chopped fruit. Sure, there's a feel of more 'authenticity' if you chop it on your own, but I personally have never had an issue with simply getting a bag of frozen strawberries from Wal-Mart and using that. It's actually easier when I'm in a pinch.

5. Remember that you can preserve smoothies for a couple days. For my class I made 4 liter-sized smoothies. For optimum time, make sure the smoothie fills almost all the way up to the lid to keep oxygen out, and make sure the lid is tightly sealed. 

6. When blending, blend until it's swirling like a funnel at the top of the mixture without any pauses or chopping sounds. This means you won't have any fruit chunks. If you want the chunks, just stop earlier.

7. Toss in some greens. Just a handful of spinach can do it. I don't do this too often, admittedly, but mainly for aesthetic reasons. Believe it or not, you can barely taste greens when you put them into a smoothie, but it makes it SOOOOOO healthy! I just don't like the color it makes my smoothie, that's the only reason I don't do it often.

8. Get creative! I haven't found a smoothie that pears work well in yet, but considering how good they taste, I'm determined to find something. 

Finally, here's the recipe for my 'signature' smoothie:

1 cup frozen strawberries, diced into halves

1 cup diced mango and/or peach and/or pineapple

1 and 3/4 cup of your choice of juice (preferably something tropical, I use an orange pineapple blend)

Blend until smooth. 3 servings - or one... 

Have a happy Monday!

I'm off to drink my strawberry pineapple smoothie. 

Random Monday: I'm Marrying a 6-Year-Old, Apparently

Let's kick off my once-again-revival with some good fun.

If you have me on Facebook... I am indeed copy-pasting. Shame on me. But I'm going to have more posts later that aren't from Facebook, so it'll be okay. 

(:

Last night at work a little boy was there, and when I was about to start cleaning he took a very big interest in me. I'd been answering a question for his mother when-

Boy: Hey! Hey! Hey! Excuse me! Hey!

Me: ...Yes?

Boy: You...are you the guardian of this place?

Me: Guardian? Sort of, I guess!

Boy: Do you open at night and close in the morning?

*His mom is trying not to laugh, I'm grinning*

Me: Close, it's the other way around. I close at night and open in the morning.

Boy: Ohhh. It's already night... What's your name?

Me: Kendra. What's yours?

Boy: Nathaniel! (Or, at least, I think that's what he said. His mouth was full of pizza.) I'm six, I'm going to be seven soon!

Me: That's neat! My birthday was just this past week. Last Tuesday.

Boy: Wow! Happy Birthday! My birthday's November 22nd.

Me: That's coming right on up.

Boy: Hey, uh... Have you ever, uh... Do you know Walmart?

Me: Yeah?

Boy: It's like, just down the street. It's got so much stuff.

Me: I know, it's a pretty big place.

Boy: You can BUY all the stuff. There's so much.

Me: I know, right? Get this. About two months ago now, I went all the way across the country. *Boy's eyes widen* I went to a mall there, which is sort of like Walmart, but it has a bunch of different stores. It had FIVE floors of stuff.

Boy: WHOA. Were there lots of shoppers?

Me: Yep. There was even an ice rink.

Boy: WHOA. Are you, uh, are you off tomorrow?

Me: I open in the other store, why?

Boy: When you get off...you should take me to that mall.

Me: *Laughs* Well, that might take a while! It took me almost three days to get there!

Boy: Whoa. Oh. ): 

Me: I'm going to go to the bathroom now, okay? 

Boy: Okay. When you finish, you should come back so we can talk some more.

Me: I need to get started cleaning, but if you want, you can follow me and we can talk while I clean.

Boy: Oh, okay!

(I went to the bathroom and came out, and he got out of his chair when he saw me, running over to me. I start spraying down tables.)

Boy: Can I help? Can I can I?

Me: Um... Sure. 

(I give him the spray bottle and instruct him to spray down some of the washers. He runs off and does so. In that time I've moved to another table, and he yells, "Kendra! Where are you?" until he finds me.)

Boy: You scared me!

Me: I was right here, sorry!

Boy: Hey, Kendra, you know something?

Me: What's that?

Boy: When I get older, I'm gonna marry you.

Me: ... *Laughs* Oh, really?

Boy: Yeah! I like you that much!

Me: You've got this all figured out then.

He asked me a couple more random questions about myself and the workplace, and his mom thanked me for humoring him and letting him help me clean. They left after that. Unfortunately I didn't get to tell my "future husband" goodbye; I'd been helping another customer in that time. It turned out to really help me make it through the night. He was so adorable. 

Make sure to check back in tomorrow for something special.

There's also going to be some book reviews in the coming weeks on Thursdays, and remember that Interview Saturday is indeed still open if your characters have any interest at all in getting some spotlight here.

W3: My Favorite Writing Habits

You know what I love about writing?! I love writing and making sentences super intriguing the best way to do that is to go on for a while!!! And making sure to start sentences with the appropriate words while maintaining consistent punctuation! You also need to make sure you have everything in one big block of text you know because that makes things super easy to read and that's just how this thing kind of works!! This is how I write all the time!!! Make sure you don't use quotation marks because those can confuse your readers!! Quotations are for the week! Make sure most of your characters think and talk the same because changing voices can be confusing too! I'm just offering my advice because I'm really good at this so you definately should listen to me!!!

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Happy April Fools.
Oh my goodness. That hurt to type out.

On another note...

Camp NaNoWriMo started today. Best of luck, everyone!

On another note, I was going to make a post on Monday about deadlines. IRONIC, HUH? Ha ha ha. Have a happy Wednesday!

Random Monday: Coffee

Last night after work I pulled into the Starbucks drive-thru at 9:57 PM - three minutes before they closed. As I pulled up to the window after ordering, I apologized. "I just got off work and hurried over here..."

"Hey, you've got time," the very-kind barista said. "When you need coffee, you need coffee, right?"

Right. 

I don't know about you, but when I wake up in the morning, I usually have two thoughts on my mind. One is, naturally, "Do I have time to write before I go to school today?" and the second is, "I need coffee."

I used to hate coffee. That probably comes from my dad drinking it black and me trying to conform to his tastes when I was younger, but I couldn't get past how bad black coffee tasted. (He's since started using creamer.)

It was around the time I went to visit one of my best friends that he took me through a Starbucks and got me a Gingerbread Latte. It was November. I took a sip. It was alright. The more sips I took, the more I liked it. (Yes, Phil, this is your fault. :P)

When I got back home, I went a little Starbucks-crazy. I became a member and earned my gold card in less than a month.

I have officially become a coffee-holic. My mornings have to involve coffee, or it turns out to be a sore day indeed. It's only gotten worse since my parents got a Keurig. I just find it amusing how, when I was younger, I very solemnly vowed to myself to never enjoy that adult drink.

And now here I am, typing this up with a mug of coffee. Starbucks Veranda Blend, if you were curious.

Are there any other coffee fiends out there reading this post? How do you take your coffee? Does it get your brain going or do you just enjoy the taste? 

Have a happy Monday, everyone, and enjoy the wonderful weather we've been having!

Random Monday: Tones

I've always been intrigued by how the subtlest differences in tone can work. Sometimes they can sound similar and sometimes unearthly different. 

I won't lie - my parents bicker a lot. I tend to leave the room whenever they do. In my upstairs room, I can hear the fluctuating tones of their voices downstairs. I groan to myself every time I realize they're arguing.

Imagine my surprise one night when I ventured downstairs to get a drink, thinking they were in a fight, and instead found them snickering together. Somehow the stress in their voices matched, to a degree, some of the joking tones they used. 

On the other hand, in my workplace, I've been having a very hard time with my manager. In a sentence, I feel as though I'm inconveniencing her every time I ask a question. Even her texts to me give off the air of, "Leave me alone, I don't have time for this." 

Just the slightest shift in volume of a voice can mean the world. One night when I was speaking to her, I asked a question, and her voice dropped - almost un-noticeably - but enough that I felt as though I couldn't ask any other questions for the rest of the evening.

This is actually a great tool to utilize in writing. Simply making a character use a different word than they would usually use, or use a shorter sentence than they might normally say, can speak a lot for what the character is actually feeling.

Just a random musing I've had lately. What sort of experiences have you had when it comes to people's tone of voice?

Have a happy Monday, everyone!

Random Monday: Better Late Than Never

New Posts Coming This Week!

I've got myself a couple motivators and I should begin preparing posts regularly again. See you soon!

Random Monday: New Year and Indie Horrors

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas and a good and safe New Year's, and that any students who perchance on this are ready to go back to school. (Yeah, I'm not either.)

So, I came up with something to talk about!

Indie Horror RPGs. A video game, yep. Hear me out.

The Witch's House is a game made in RPG maker a few years ago and follows the story of a girl travelling through a malicious witch's house to find an escape route out of a forest. Being a horror, there are unsettling and gory elements involved. That's not what this is about though. This is about endings. I will tell you two things about the game's end:

1. You will be blissfully ignorant.
2. There are no happy endings.

A lack of a happy ending is something sometimes sought for (not by me - but maybe someday). The thing about it though is the ending is so abrupt, so unexpected, and so gut-wrenching that upon finishing you can do little more than stare speechlessly. Oh, yes, the game had foreshadowing - the smallest sprinklings of it - but not enough to guess what you could have possibly been doing.

The story told in this game is an unexpectedly powerful one and done in a very short amount of time. It's something that I think writers of all trades could learn from. I wanted to share this resource with anyone who might perchance on this blog despite there essentially being a two-year-hiatus.

A horror is something that involves a delicate balance. To truly frighten an audience, you have to grip onto their jaws and turn their head to look at one thing even though the real threat is out of the corner at their eye. Then, when the time is right, you let go and let them finally see the truth - the monster - whatever the subject of your horror may be.

There are probably a great many other examples I could have used, but I just watched a playthrough of this game not too long ago and I'm only just now beginning to recover from that sucker-punch of an ending. Anything that effects someone as much as that deserves a bit of recognition.

I wish you all a happy week, and again, Happy New Year!

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Hey, everyone, my Interview Saturday options are still open. Please feel free to shoot me a message if you want to have your character featured on my blog.

Random Monday: Letdowns and Vacations

*Shrugs* C'est la vie.

Vacations aren't good on inborn procrastinators. You know very well with me rambling about my tendency to push things off... I've had two vacations recently, one for my birthday and one for a trip I was supposed to have. Both were soured.

The birthday didn't go as expected, as a lot of people I know forgot (despite it being on their Facebook feeds), as well as a few other reasons. Let's just say my wallet is hurting right now. Also, I was meant to have a writing retreat on my birthday; as I did last year. It was cancelled last minute. ): The trip I was meant to take on the second vacation didn't happen either...

So, yeah. While vacations aren't good on inborn procrastinators, letdown-vacations probably aren't that great either. At the same time, forcing a work ethic on procrastinators isn't that great either. Keeping up on blog posts during the school year (seventeen days...) isn't something I'm good at, so while I promise to keep up; don't believe it.

Procrastinators also break promises when they don't want or mean to. :/

This sort of seems like a depressing post, but I'm not really depressed. The only reason I've really got to depressed is the fact I ate an entire bag of chips on my own yesterday for no reason.

I need something to make this happier... Here, have a sleeping lion.

By the way, there's going to be an INTERVIEW SATURDAY this weekend!!

Random Monday: In Their Shoes?

Your alarm clock rings. You get up and go through your morning routine, and finally catch a glance in the mirror. Something...is not right. You look like you, but at the same time, you don't. What's going on? Next thing you know, everyone is calling you by a different name. Then you realize:

You're being called the name of the MC in your book!

How do you react? How many of you are getting genderbent? (okay, that's not relevant, but.) Also, think about this: You have prior knowledge of the timeline and chain of events.

Knowing what your MC will likely face, how do you react? Would you change the way some things would happen in order to keep yourself from facing their tragedies? What would you do if you woke up one morning as the main character of your story?

An Idea: Interview Saturdays

As follows, this is the layout for the week (that I'm still super duper behind on)

Monday: Random Monday
Tuesday: ---
Wednesday: Writing World Wednesday
Thursday: Book Review Thursday
Friday: ---
Saturday: Interview Saturday??? (Read below!)
Sunday: ---

I had the idea thanks to a certain blogger named Ever On Word (A.K.A. Danielle), as we have had conversations that involve...our characters! Ashley and Will getting to know each other and asking random questions, as well as comforting each other when we've been particularly cruel to them.

So that's why I have this idea:

What if I were to host an Interview Saturday, featuring...

YOUR CHARACTERS
Being interviewed by...
ONE OF MINE?

The rough idea is that you'd contact me wanting an interview (or if I want to interview you bad enough, I'd ask you); and you'd tell me a little about your book and character. You'd also choose my character--whoever interviews yours. Then a list of questions would be made and sent for answers.

Once I get a yea or nay for this, it'll progress. If "yea", I'll make a separate page on the blog with some info for you to get in touch with me. Actually kind of excited for this!

Random Monday: Thought Tracing

I was just thinking about this like a few days ago and thought it might make a cool blog post. I don’t know if anyone else does it and I don’t really know why I do it.

You know how you can be sitting in class/at work (depending on how old you are, lol) thinking, and then you reach a thought where you catch yourself and start paying attention again? Do you keep thinking about the thing you were just thinking about? Some people normally continue to think about it as they go to work. I don’t.

Instead of changing my topic of thought to whatever comes to mind next, I try to trace it. I ask myself, “What led to me thinking about this?” Like, let me try to remember... A lot of times I forget these as soon as I finish tracing them. OH! Okay, I’ll go with something that happened last night.

As I was trying to go to sleep (prime thought tracing time) I caught myself thinking of an event in seventh grade, when I was in the middle of writing FLAME DANCER. I had been on Chapter 6 if I remember correctly, and I wanted to use the word ‘miraculous’, but I wasn’t quite sure how to spell it since I was longhand-ing this. I asked my teacher how it was spelled and one of my classmates asked why the hell I was trying to use words I couldn’t spell. (I still don’t like this kid. >.>)

Anyway, I thought, “How in the hell did I start thinking about this?” Then I traced it. Before that, I’d been thinking about the event in which I’d wanted to use the word ‘miraculous’—my main antagonist had caught a fireball on his sword and made the fireball disappear.

Before that, I’d been thinking about how in the sequel to FLAME DANCER he’d been able to uphold a clash with a frigging Indiana-Jones-style boulder—with his (sort of flimsy-looking) sword. (Of course, at this point in my thought tracing, I’m thinking, “lol, it’s a good thing his sword is infused with the power of an almighty and invincible element of lore because how else would he do this crap”)

And before that I’d been imagining one of the fights this character had in the third book with his archrival and thinking about one of their clashes. After that, I reached the CATALYST of this thought tracing.

I’d just gotten to bed and told myself I was going to listen to a few songs on my iPod, so I was going through shuffle and I came to one of the songs in which they fought. So I started to imagine how that fight could go, which led to the imagined swordplay, which led to old clashes his lol godmoddish sword could uphold, which finally led to the time where I’d tried to use the word miraculous.

I just think this is a kind of unique exercise. I don’t know if it benefits anything I do, but it’d just something I do. I thought I’d share it; it makes for a sort of interesting topic. X3 Sorry I haven’t posted anything of relevance for the past week or two. I just suddenly lost a lot of drive. With that, have a nice Monday! (School just started for me. I am NOT having a nice Monday.)