News, Good and Random

French the llama, is it only 4 (almost only 3) days until Christmas!!!??!!!??!?!?!

(For an explanation about the "french the llama" thing, visit this video. It's nothing bad, I promise.)

Okay, so, some good news.

Darling Dearest is doing great. She's gained significant movement back in her left side since last I saw her. She has a slight case of "word salad", which, in case you don't know, means that sometimes she gets the words she means confused with a different word. However, it's much better than it was when she first woke up.

On the down side, she's very, very angry, but that's also understandable. She hates relying on other people, so I totally expected her to be pissed off at the nurses and such when she can't do what she wants.

They're going to start physical therapy with her soon, and she'll probably really like that. She's been trying to crawl out of the bed for a while anyway.

I'm doing good, myself. I've upgraded from crutches to a walker, and hopefully I'll be upgraded to a cane before I head back to college. It'll be hard to get to room on the second floor with a walker.

My Christmas shopping is done, I believe. I just got the last thing today. It's a great present for my mom.

Also, I've been very interested at cryptograms. They're very interesting and fun...but I'm rubbish at them. So...hopefully I'll improve. Also, I'm trying my hand at crossword puzzles. I'm rubbish at those too.

I've found myself not writing like I should be. I'll want to, I'll get on the computer...and then start surfing the net instead. I've been trying to make myself. Gotta get that discipline ready for next year.

I participated in an amazingly awesome project a few days ago. John Green, YA author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns, is also known for his video-blog project The Vlogbrothers, which he does with his environmentalist/musician brother Hank Green. They're both very funny, and both promote ideals that I hold very dear myself, including green technology, reducing your carbon footprint, and promoting to charities.

Every year the brothers Green head up a project -- which they have dubbed the Project for Awesome. It's a great project where all of their viewers (dubbed "nerdfighters") get together to take over YouTube. You make a video promoting a charity that you really like. Then everyone spams the crap out of the comment sections, rates the videos, and favorites them, so that most popular, most discussed, and most viewed pages are all Project for Awesome videos. This is meant to raise awareness about charities to the average YouTube viewer, instead of them watching videos about water-skiing squirrels.

I participated in it--a 48 hour event--and I am proud to say that not only were all but two of the videos on the most discussed page Project for Awesome videos, but on Twitter, Project for Awesome trended above everything, including the movie Avatar, which made it's debut during the project for Awesome. John Green's goal was to trump Avatar, because it cost $250,000,000 to make, and, as John said, the Project for Awesome is free.

Anyway, so that's what I did with my weekend. It was fantastic. I was very proud to do it. John also auctioned off a pair of what he called his "nerd glasses"--the proceeds went to charity. In addition he's donating $1000 to his favorite charity from the list.

On a tiny sidenote, should you want to help with a charity, but have no money to do so, go to freerice.com. There's a vocab quiz there, and for every question you get right, they donate rice to starving nations. Totally free, and totally helpful in "decreasing world-suck," as the Brothers Green put it.

Anyway, that's all I've got for right now. Tomorrow my brother will be putting up Christmas lights and our tree. I'll be there for moral support mostly. And then we're going to see Darling Dearest before coming back for Christmas Eve with mi familia. Then it's back up to the hospital the next day to spend Christmas with Darling Dearest--because we will have our first Christmas together, dammit!

I hope you and yours are having a very Merry Christmas, a very happy Hanuka, a very happy Kwanza, or whatever it is you celebrate. As long as you're a live and you've got people to celebrate with, then you've got the world.

Happy Holidays all and Best Wishes!

College: Episode One, Part Deux

Unfortunately, I'm back at college again. *sigh * That means more homework, less writing time, and a crappy internet connection besides. But, on the plus side . . . I have a new book to read. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor.

I am hoping, due to a nice new schedule with more free time than last semester, that I will be writing more and reading more than I was last semester. However, I'm really worried about a few of my classes – American Government. On the one hand, I get a better look into what makes our country tick . . . on the other hand, the teacher is supposed to be really hard.

My posting will drop some, but I'll try to post at least three times a week, not counting weekends, which I will try to post on, too.

Welcome to college, boys. Now bend over for the shaft.

So, here's what I've been doing.

Hey, just so you know, college is busy. I know in the movies they always show those college kids going out every night and partying all night and sitting in coffee shops and stuff. Lies, all of it. Now, the first week was like that, because it was pretty much a meet and greet--all the freshmen got to meet eachother and get adjusted to living at home. I'm sure you're all wondering how it worked out. Well...

My roommate likes pretty much everything I like. He owns the entire series of Trinity Blood, a series I got into watching but didn't have time to finish, and both he and his girlfriend like to write, so we've sat around talking about our stories and discussing things about each of them.

Not only does he own Trinity Blood, he owns pretty much every Miyazaki (I think that's how you spell it) ever made. He has Howl's Moving Castle, Steamboy, Princess Monoke, Appleseed, and tons more; also, he owns just about every movie made in 2006. So if we're bored, we have plenty of movies to watch.

The third or fourth night there I went to a concert that was taking place on campus. I wasn't really excited about going because I've always assumed that anything the school wants to hire is going to suck. However, what got me to go was that the year before they got Nickelback to come, and if you read PBW's blog, I share her sentiment on Nickelback--(hint: we don't hate 'em.) Anyway, I'm really glad I went. The band is called Midnight to Twelve and they have a myspace page here. If you haven't heard of them, you need to go check them out. They along the same genre as Nickelback, they're so awesome. I screamed myself hoarse, but I had a great time, and I went out after the concert and bought their cd. I say again, if you haven't heard of them and you like alternative music, give these guys a shot. They're worth it. Midnight to Twelve - King of Spain.

Anyway, classes have started and I learned something. My hometown is very undiversified. We have two African-Americans and that's about it. So when I saw that my college offered Japanese, I couldn't figure out where I would use it. It sounds like a cool language, but where would I use it? At my college. There are Japanese people everywhere. Apparently there's a sister school in Japan, so they've come over as foreign exchange students. I wish I'd taken Japanese instead of Spanish, but I still may take it. I'll have to see how my schedule looks next semester/next year.

I've made several friends, and I'm going to the gym 2 or 3 times a week. All in all, it's busy but so much fun. It's not the horrible fiasco I originally imagined it would be. No horrible faux pauxs--although I did get distracted and almost fall off the tread mill in the gym earlier this week. I'll probably change my tune when finals come around, ha ha, but let's just go with that for right now.

The one downside with college so far? No time to write...at all. I really miss it, and I want to write, but everytime I sit down to write, something else is happening and I get pulled away. But when Christmas Break comes around, I'll have quite a bit of time to catch up on my reading/writing, two things I haven't had much chance to do in college. I've been drawing a lot, but that's because I go to class early and start a drawing before the class. I can usually get them done by the teacher walks in the room, but I'm trying to work on refining my drawings--improving how I draw the hair, getting more consistent with my eyes and mouths, and general anatomy on girls. They always come out looking like long haired guys, and that's just sad.

So, I've been busy with classes, but I've liked them all so far. The teachers are great. Each one has their own plusses. In Spanish, the teacher is really nice; in English Comp, the teacher is extremely laid back and patient; in Biology--as much as I hate anything science or math related--I look forward to seeing more of how our Biology teacher is adjusting to America (he's from Sussox, England). His reaction to seeing a tick for the first time was pretty funny.

So, anyway, I hope I can post more often, because I miss posting on this thing! How've you guys been while I was gone?

Also, thanks to those of you who wished me a smooth move, it worked, the move was easy and no horrible problems.