I am a Nerd

I’m cleaning out my room and I’m finding things from 5+ years ago stashed away in random places. Yesterday I found some grade 9 science tests. One of them was written entirely in pen, and I had all 4/4+’s (A/A+) on it. The fact that I had the confidence to write in pen astounds me! That or my teacher might have told us to use pens, I don’t really remember.

Then I found some old photo books and I went through them. When I saw a picture of me at my elementary school grad with the brick I painted, I basically facepalmed at how nerdy it was. (Some back story on the bricks, up until my year they let people in the graduating class paint one brick on the school’s wall. Each year had it’s own section on the wall so it was like a collage.) On my brick I had 5 things: my name, Sonic the Hedgehog, Toon Link, InuYasha and fire Kirby. Yes, I put entirely video game and anime characters on there, nothing else.

After I saw that I looked down to see the folder I had in grade 9 English for my assignments and tests. On our first day the teacher gave us a brown filing folder and told us to decorate it in anyway. The next day I came back with drawings of Kakashi and Naruto on either side done in pencil crayon.

Then I started thinking what ELSE did I do that was nerdy/geeky in high school. And I came up with this list:

• I had a full page print out of Kakashi at the front of the inside my binder (in fact I still have that picture at the front of my binder…)
• I had binders with see through covers and would put a collage of pictures of whatever anime I liked at the time. This includes: Sonic X, InuYasha, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Naruto.
• My locker had anime/videogames plastered all over it.
• I was in the Science Olympics (I’m actually wearing my Science Olympics shirt right now).
• I wrote math contests every year and did very well in them. In fact the only medal I EVER got was for getting the top in my school for a math contest.
• My friends used to bring a Wii to school and played Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the cafeteria (I still think that was awesome).
• I did my grade 9 science electricity project on the Nintendo DS.
• I used to take out so many books from the library I sometimes needed to buy a separate bag.

I’m sure there’s more but I forget. And now that I’m sort of disheveling my room I’m realizing how outwardly nerdy I was in the past, and still am now. But now it’s more of a refined nerdy; or at least I like to think it is.

My Documents

So yesterday I was reinstalling Windows 7 on my system because there had been quite a few errors compiling up. It had been months since the icon in the bottom right corner told me it was connected to the internet (even though it was) and just recently the mute icon was permanently fixed even when the sound was on.

However, in the move Windows 7 decided there was some inconsistency in my system and effectively deleted all my files after I had move them. All of them.

After the initial ‘OMFG WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS THING DOING!?!?????! WHY ME! WHY ME! WHY DID I CUT AND NOT COPY?!?! STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID!’ I’m surprised at how open I am to losing everything. All my music I’ve accumulated (about 20gb) is gone. All my school work for the past two years is gone. All my websites that were not uploaded (including past versions) is gone.

The things I only really cared about was my stories, and my pictures of my old cats. Everything else is expendable; 40+gb of files do not matter.

I’ve lost all my stories I did not previously put online or print. Which means my book, everything I’ve worked on for it is gone.. UNLESS Angela can pull a miracle and find them. OR if anyone who happens to stalk me and knows my portfolio site and saved the files from way back when they were on there has them. In which I plead to send it to me at karol@skys-content.com (unless you know my gmail, send it there). I would like to have it x_X

Then I’ve lost the majority of my cat pictures that were taken on my cell phone. Granted it’s not the end of the world, but it feels like one of those TV shows where a storyline follows a person doesn’t have baby pictures because they burned in a fire.

I think the reason why I’m so willing to let it all the stuff go is because it means a fresh start. Screw the first two years of University, my grades sucked anyways. Screw all my saved Naruto pictures from years past, I didn’t even look at them anymore. And SCREW my stories, anything I didn’t bother to print or save somewhere is not worth keeping!

(I still feel sad about the pictures though. I raided my parent’s computers for pictures to make myself feel better.)

Not to mention I got a new album by The Limousines as per Charles Trippy’s suggestion on CTFxC and I’m loving it. Who needs old music :p?

Published

I’ve said numerous times in this blog that my main goal in life is to be published. To have a book where I can say ‘I did this’. Although as I was looking around my room I noticed a book stashed away on a shelf. Then I remembered technically I have been published. Twice.

Back in grade 9 after working on some English assignments my teacher had encouraged me to try out for poetry contests. After the onslaught of ‘your writing needs to get better’ in elementary school I was shocked at her comments. Then after submitting some pieces I had written over the years, I was published in all of the contests I tried out for. I never won anything, but my poems were actually put into anthologies and sent to me in actual books.

Poem #1 from “From a Mountain Top”

Nothing
Nothing can stay the same
Everything must change,
‘Cause if not, we are not living

Our lives will mean nothing
If everything stays the same,
Life won’t be worth living
Life is not knowing what happens next

Life is being happy
Life is being scared
Life is being sad
Life is being ourselves

Different in personality
Different in appearances
Different in everyway

People want to know their future
People want to know why some things happen
But all I want to know,
Is what I am going to wear tomorrow,
And am I happy

‘Cause nothing can stay the same

Back then I was a little too repetition happy but then again, I never thought anyone would actually read that poem.

The second one is from “Celebrate! Young Poets Speak Out (Canada – Spring 2005)”

Friendship
How precious time is
We never realize it
Until it passes
We think it will never end
But it will
All good times must end
All bad times must end
But if all things must end
What about a circle?
A circle has no beginning or end
Which means for something to end, it must begin
We keep things that remind us of good times
That remind us of a time,
Where it feels like it never ended
‘Cause if we remember it
It will never truly end
People will come and go
But the people we will never forget
Is our friends
‘Cause friendship is like a circle
When strong enough it can never end

Reading that poem now is a little bittersweet considering most of the friends I was making around that time, ones I really thought I was going to have for the rest of my life, aren’t friends anymore. For one reason or another we’ve had falling outs, which is really unfortunate.

Also, I remember how ‘Cause happy I was. I realized that with the apostrophe it actually counted as a correctly spelled word and exploited it.

I sort of forgot how much I used to write poetry and how good at it I was. I remember in grade 12 English I had to do a ISU presentation on a book I absolutely hated. It was so boring and nothing of it was of interest to me. So I decided to write a poem in the perspective of the main character and I had a slide show to follow along with me showing the words. The first question I received was ‘Did you write that poem?’ followed by ‘it was really good’. I also remember that my presentation mark was the highest out of all of the sections in the ISU. Sort of ironic…

I think I’m going to divulge into poetry a little more. I remember now how good at releasing pent up emotions it was. It really helped me through some of the bad years of my youth.

But I’m not going to forget the ultimate goal is to get my own fiction book published. Have people connect with my characters like I have, and tell their story like it deserves to be told. For now though, it’s back to the books on writing and perhaps FINALLY finishing Beastly.

Do Nothing

For the first time in 2 years I actually have a sizable vacation in between classes and work. 3 marvelous weeks of freedom. So in these 3 weeks I intend on doing nothing! Well actually, my definition of ‘nothing’.

Nothing for me is doing whatever I want. Making no definite plans or goals for the foreseeable future (by goals or plans I mean ones that I would feel I am obligated to do or should do). I am just going to do what I feel like doing that day and nothing more. I’m not going to stress myself out by thinking I didn’t do certain things or that I’m wasting my time, etc etc. I am just going to enjoy the time I have and enjoy what I’m doing with that time.

Then hopefully by the end of three weeks I will go to work and be able to get back into goal/plan oriented Karol. But for now, I won’t worry about it.

TIME TO RELAX!

This is How I Edit

So for Sky’s Content 18 I’m about 1500 words in. Since I had my English essay I hadn’t looked at it for a few days and when I opened the document I thought I would post the first 100 words or so.

As Shikamaru and I start to head into the forest we’re both silent, waiting for the other to do something. Why does this stuff always happen to me? Out of all the ninja in the village, the one that had to take me to Tonakai is Shikamaru? Sometimes I think that God is personally out to get me.

STUFF HERE ABOUT FOREST AND STUFF. PERHAPS ANECDOTE ABOUT HOW KEISUKE WAS DOING SOMETHING OR RATHER.

I suppose I should I try to make small talk…

I love how I leave un-descriptive notes for myself to read later. And later on there’s a line that says ‘STUFF HERE’. LOL.

=P

Oh Hi Karol Minus 2 Years of Life!

So in my procrastination for my English Essay I’ve come across a journal I wrote for my grade 12 Religion class. The only thing I remember about that class was how much I disliked it and how I literally read all of Twilight instead of working on an assignment due the next day. And let me just say, Karol of two years ago was very bitter.

I’ll put in a few quotes below:

“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.” There has never been a quote before like this one by Jane Austen that suits me almost perfectly.

The cons of group work are so numerous I hardly know where to start; like stated previously, unless you know everyone in your group will do their fair share, it is your duty to pick up the slack. Thus one of the main cons when in working in groups is that usually your work will be marked as a group. Which means that the group members who will sit there for all work periods and do nothing, the group members who will try to help but ultimately get distracted, will be receiving the same mark as the person who is doing most of the work. Even though I think that this is completely unfair, I realize that its life.

In my group in specific, there was only one person besides myself who actually did some work outside of class. This person was the only one reliable out of the whole group; otherwise, the other group members were only willing to work when given something to do. Even then, when I had asked them to do some simple work after school, like put pictures on the slide show, or do a little research on organizations, they had came back the next day with nothing. In all honesty, these group members were probably some of the most unreliable people I have ever worked with.

All I can say is, I was quite the b****h and yes, I really did submit this for marking. Looking back on this I really don’t understand why I would be so… rant-y?

As for now, I feel that the cons I discussed are still correct, but I see the benefits of group work outweighing the cons. Perhaps that’s because I’ve successfully collaborated with numerous people on various projects since then. But I guess when you’re in high school and trying to achieve a 90%+ in your class and your group members will only put in enough effort to pass (sometimes even less), you become sort of a control freak. Still though, I don’t really believe I outwardly said so many negative things! It’s crazy!

Then again, I remember I had to do most of the work for that project so at least I was being honest.

LOL

My Dream Career(s)

For a while now I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my life. I’m sort of at the point where I have to make a solid decision about my future career goals and pursue them. For so long I was always thinking ‘Oh I’m only __ years old, I have time to worry about this later’ but now I feel like I’m at the point where I need to really start specializing in what I want to do and gain experience in my ‘dream’ job.

The obvious choice would be web development/design. I sort of fell into that when I started it as a hobby all those years ago. Then when I got to university and started to apply to jobs, employers really liked it. So, all my job interviews for previous (and my upcoming) co-op terms have been mostly for web development. And to be honest, I would be content doing web forever. It’s my hobby, I love doing it, I have for years and I don’t foresee that changing.

But the problem that has always plagued me is that even though I love web and I like programming, I LOVE writing. It’s my main outlet to the world, it’s where I can be honest, open and expressive to the world without actually having to look at them in the face. I’m horrible at talking to people in person, sometimes my words get all messed up and well… It’s not pretty. But with writing I can make as many mistakes as I want because ultimately people only see the final product where all those little mistakes have gone away.

My ultimate goal in life is to get published; to have my stories and characters accessible to people on a large scale that is not just the web. I really want to hold the hardcover copy of my book in my hand and say ‘I did this. This is my life’s accomplishment, if this is all I ever do then I will be content.’

Thus is my dilemma, I like programming and I love web but writing is my life. And if I had it completely my way I would be writing books all the time and working on website in my off time to get some extra money. But that’s not how life works. Life unfortunately revolves around money and everyone knows it’s very hard to make a living as an author (unless you’re J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer). So that’s why when I applied to university I choose programming because it’s a career that could put me in a good place right out of school. But now that I’m in school and I’m seeing myself lean towards writing more I’m questioning whether or not I should I have tried to go into English instead.

But I already made one leap from Software Engineering to Computer Science, and if I were to pursue English aside from a minor, I would try to get a joint degree. But therein lies so many problems… This is all just really confusing to me and I need some more time to think. Taking a leap like this would require a HUGE leap, nothing like what I did before.

Bah humbug…

5 Chapters

Right now in Sky’s Content my mind is stuck 5 chapters ahead. I’m planning out the exact conversations, what type of words I want to use for emphasis, etc. So now that I’m trying to write chapter 18 (a good chapter that I’ve been waiting to write for a while) my mind is so not in it. I just keep thinking I want it to write itself so I can read it and enjoy it.

Yuri is one of those characters whose mind comes out in a jumbled mess. When I’m editing the story most of the edits is re-wording Yuri’s thoughts and literally moving around paragraphs to make the whole thing flow better. I don’t know what it is but her mind comes out like ‘()#I%HROWERF*HWBE#RU. OMG SHIKAMARU. SE(#@$ E#WI*PHINCOHERENTMESSJB@M*I’ the majority of the time.

But the next few chapters won’t be just from Yuri’s perspective, it’s got some Shikamaru in there too. Now I can sort of play more loosely with his character that time has passed, and I intend to use that to my advantage considering the situation. I’m dying to just get to my own story where I can do whatever I want with the characters. Because this is a fan fiction there is certain boundaries I need to stay in in order to make the story sound believable.

But ah man, this is going to be so much fun when November comes along. 50 000 words + whatever extra to FINISH the story. Hopefully I can get into the final sort of saga/sub story by then. But that’s like 10 chapters away, maybe 1 or 2 more. Either way it looks like I’ll be doing a lot of writing… Awesome.