Category: Life

Categories
Life

Alumnae Weekend, Camp NaNoWriMo, and Life Update

It’s May, and that means lots of things are happening.

Camp NaNoWriMo was a bust, with my total word count on the new Wrimonia novel a lovely 2004 words. Come on, I couldn’t write ten more for 2014 or cut two words for the palindrome 2002? Still, despite the extra time I had later in the month, I spent that time on other projects, like other writing and code and reading.

Alumnae Weekend (the real one, not just the math bowl) went okay. I’m indifferent toward the idea of school reunions to start with. While I’d never go to my high school reunion for multiple reasons, I do like many of the people I went to college with. Problem is, the nature of such a reunion means most of the people you talk to are the people you were friends with while there. As someone who floated around social circles for most of her life, this was awkward. Add in the fact that some of these folks are people I wish I had gotten to know better and now we’re adults and that ship has sailed. Still, between vegan brunch and Waffle House at 2am and a secret party and a stolen songbook, I had a good enough time.

My Knee. Oh, the knee. See, my alma mater’s campus has a few very climbable trees. I passed these trees on the way back from my class party to the big college shindig celebrating the 125th anniversary of the college. And what did I do in my nice dress? Climb one of the trees, of course. Because why wouldn’t I?

This didn’t work out too well. I tried walking on the branch and fell out. Luckily (?) I landed on my feet, but then I decided it would be a good idea to try again. And again! I repeated this cycle a few times, landing on my feet every time until giving up and going to the fancy shindig. I thought nothing of this while getting dragged on the dance floor and going to Waffle House afterward. But the next morning my knee hurt. I hobbled to the kitchen for breakfast, pain in every step. I dreaded standing and hoped this injury would go away because knee injuries, in general, aren’t a good thing.

Thankfully it did. I stayed off my feet most of the week and by Thursday I resumed a mostly normal gait. I took the stairs! And took out the trash! I could probably take a long walk now, but for safety’s sake I’m giving it another day or two before doing so. Because you never know.

I’m also close to beating Pokemon Black. Well, not including all the postgame stuff. And wow. Pokemon Black/White is phenomenal. Seriously, if you like Pokemon (or even if you just liked it a kid), go play it if you haven’t already. I need to do a little more grinding before the very last fight, but that’s no big deal.

And the next post or two will probably be another book review post now that I’ve accumulated a good number, along with a tea post. Get excited.

Categories
Life

Upcoming Adventures

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that I have a little more spare time in the near future. This would mean more time to work on things that I’ve been putting off doing (changing the dead light bulbs in my kitchen), or things I already do but would like to do more (write), or things I need to do but don’t do. What should I do with that time?

I made a list of those things. In no particular order, they are:

Write. I have multiple unfinished novels, as well as multiple first drafts I want to rewrite. There’s also my Camp NaNoWriMo novel, which is sitting at under 2000 words. This is half-intentional; I know I’ll have a little more time to write, so it almost makes more sense to set a couple of hours aside to write more. And the deadline will motivate me even more.

Blog. This is going under a separate category because I do have specific goals for blogging. I’ve done well with writing something at least once a week, but more time brings more time to blog. Given all the other things on my list and my long list of things to write about (including some indepth post ideas) you can look forward to/dread more posts here.

Read. I have a stack of books waiting to be read, as well as ebooks, a library card, and a 50-book reading goal for 2014. I’m well on track for that goal, but I need to be at 45 books before October because let’s be honest, I’m not going to be doing much reading during NaNo season.

Game. I started playing Pokemon Black in December and am still not finished. I have six gym badges, so surely I can finish the game during this time.

Wikiwrimo. I haven’t updated Wikiwrimo much in awhile, and there are so many things I want to do in updating the site.

Passwords. The Heartbleed bug was announced to the public this week. This affects everyone in some way since most of the web uses OpenSSL. I recommend checking to see if a site has patched its OpenSSL software and then changing your password. Ideally you would change your password everywhere because chances are good you use the same password in multiple places. But don’t change a password if the site hasn’t been patched yet! You can check here or here. The site’s blog may also mention patching the bug.

This means I’m finally installing a password manager to take care of all this. I’m guilty of using one password in multiple places, and it’s a bad habit that needs to stop. Look for a post about this in the near future once I’ve set everything up.

Update computers. There are various tiny things on my computers that are in need of updating and small things that are broken that I just haven’t gotten around to fixing because I could live without them.

This site. This is separate from the Blog area because I’m not talking about the writing. This section is for a redesign and overhaul so I can use the post formats. This also involves me figuring out how I would like to use those post formats, as well as seeing if there’s a way to add all the related features that I want.

Tweet. Okay, this isn’t really a thing, but I noticed last month that I’m very close to 50,000 total tweets–close enough that reaching that goal in April is doable with a chatty month. So the race is on. 50k tweets or 50k Camp NaNoWriMo words. Which will come first?

Code. I fell off the Python train. Time to get back on.

There we go. Anything you want to see from me–more Wikiwrimo, more noveling, more blogging? Let me know.

Categories
Life

Hello, 2014

Hello, world. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Like last time, I don’t really have an excuse. NaNo and work things took over my time in November, and then the post-NaNo blues arrived in December. Those blues decided to come back with a vengeance later in the month, and I’m just now finding my way out. (Nothing awful, just pretty persistent crappy moods for no good reason for awhile.)

At some point I started getting headaches from looking at computer screens for too long, and guess what my regular job and most of my hobbies involve? If you guessed looking at screens, you’d be right. This also means I haven’t done all that much writing or Wikiwrimo.

Here, have some bullet points:

* Didn’t scare the boyperson off. Almost a year now, wow. I’m pretty sure this is the longest relationship I’ve ever been in.
* Finished 50k day again for what is probably the last time.
* Attended Night of Writing Dangerously for the second time
* Won a word war at NOWD and got to wear the flowerpot hat!
* Watched all of Futurama and Sherlock and started Doctor Who
* Boughts lots of tea and started a tea hiatus (more on this in a future post that I’ll write, I swear)
* Met many Wrimos and got to re-meet a few more
* Met the people I work with! Neat!
* Got to see one of Mozilla’s offices. Google, you’re next. Maybe.
* Witnessed part of the whole Batkid thing while I was in San Francisco.

The number of post ideas in my mind and in my drafts is in the double digits, meaning I really just need to sit down and write them. But see above about being unable to stare at screens for long periods. I’m typing this straight into WordPress, and Blank Your Monitor, while wonderful, turns all the backgrounds black, leaving little contrast between the background and text in text fields. It gets old really quickly, let me tell you.

There are probably some other things too, but I’m getting sleepy and would like to read before bed and waking up early tomorrow.

How’s you been? What should I write about next?

Categories
Life

State of the Sushi, Summer 2013 Edition

“Hey Sushi, what has been going on with you lately?” someone asks every now and then. And considering I’ve barely updated this site outside of Legends of Wrimonia updates in quite some time, this is a valid question. Of course, you can follow me on Twitter for almost immediate updates, but that doesn’t give you a big picture version of one’s life.

So let’s do that. The answer turns out to be “pretty damn awesome”.

Work and other per-fe-shu-nal pursuits

Remember a really long time ago when I wrote about wanting a photo host that doesn’t suck and people had a hard-on for Flickr even though I specifically outlined my issues with Flickr?

Then Trovebox (then OpenPhoto) came along and solved just about everything, including the part about not wanting to store everything on my webhost because that would eat the crap out of my current pay as you go hosting bill. It even included a way to store just the photos elsewhere, a huge plus.

So I hopped aboard, backing the project in its humble Kickstarter beginning and even volunteering on the open source project as a non-code person. I was already using the site, knew a ton about it, and had some time on my hands, so why not?

And then this transitioned into really working on the project, and now I’m living the dream: working in a pants optional environment.

Want to see this for yourself? Here’s my Trovebox site.

Friends (not food) and loooooooove

Yes, Ma, I have a social life! In fact, I’m writing this post from a coffee shop playing 80s music with friends I met from NaNo.

Oh, you were here for the love part, weren’t you?

I dated a guy from NaNo for a few months during and after NaNo. We broke up. While getting over the breakup I was poking around OkCupid for giggles and messaged a guy who sounded interesting. This guy and I wound up exchanging a few very long messages before moving to GChat and talking for five and a half hours on an evening where I had to be up early the next day, then meeting in person that Thursday since he was off work. That Thursday also happened to be the second day of Lupercalia. Oh, and Valentine’s Day.

We hit it off in person and he is the person fully responsible for my love of Futurama (and my sadness when it was cancelled… again). If you follow me on Twitter, this person is the one I refer to as Boyperson now.

Writing, Editing, Blogging

I would say I haven’t been doing too much of this, but that’s a lie. I’ve been doing bursts of journal writing but not much fiction writing or editing. I’m still figuring out the world and science behind one novel, and another is going to simmer for awhile.

As for blog posts here, I’m going to get on a more regular schedule for big posts while writing more personal blog-esque posts as well and taking advantage of the aside feature in WordPress. At the very least I’m going to try to write something once a week. With all my friends writing and blogging I’m the slacker here! That’s positive peer pressure, right?

Import ALL the posts!

As part of my “everything in one place” efforts, I’ve been trying to figure out how to import all my old blog posts to WordPress for quite some time. There was one catch: I wanted all those posts to import as private posts.

I finally achieved this a few months ago. How, you ask? That’s going to be a separate post since it’s pretty involved.

Night of Writing Dangerously

Fundraising pages for this year’s NaNoWriMo Night of Writing Dangerously went up recently, and thanks to a couple of very generous people I’m already at the $200 early bird special for admission, meaning I’m going to San Francisco in November. (Eeeee!) But that doesn’t mean I’m done fundraising yet.

See, I have very long hair, and with long hair that gets everywhere comes people wanting to see it cut off. So for every $100 raised on my fundraising page I’ll cut an inch of hair. Seriously. Right now my page is sitting at $240, which means two inches of hair get to go bye-bye. All the hair will go away in one fell swoop.

If you don’t care about the hair or think it’s too pretty to go away, then consider this: if my fundraising page is one of the top three fundraising pages, I’ll write and perform a NaNo parody and put it on Youtube for all to see. That’s right, public humiliation as a motivator.

And of course there are the same prizes as last time: personal and character cameos, pep talks, and the top donor getting to choose a novel for me to write. It’s going for $200 so far, so if you really want it, get donating. Those rewards stack!

Did I mention all this money is going straight to NaNo (and it’s tax-deductible for those who care about that sort of thing)? I don’t see a single cent of that money.

Here’s my fundraising page if you’re so inclined. Thank you!

That’s it!

That’s my life as of late: good but busy. How about you?