holy hell

I just realized, fully, that this is the last day of August. That means there is just two little months to go before exams. Two small months before Nanowrimo rolls around....
Part of me thinks I should just give up here and now, there is no way I am going to get everything done before then. There are still thousands of pages worth of readings to finish, 7 assignments to write, 5 exams to prep for, one trip to Rotorua for several days, a shift in lifestyle to due my loves career change, one little girl who needs my love and attention, wedding invites to design and put together and part two of a novel to plan so that I can get right into it after my exams finish on the 12th of November. And thats not even mentioning any and all of the things that could/will just crop up over the next few weeks, because there are bound to be things that do.
Bottle some motivation, some focus, send it my way, anyone who can.

gah!

I want to write, I just want to write, that's all I can think about at the moment.
I just loaded the stories I have into some storage space, and they don't really make up that great a body of work, but I do like what I have there. I know there are things missing, it's just a matter of locating them and then storing them in a safe space I think. I don't even want to imagine all the things I have lost over the years.... none of it really matters though. The good ideas I had in the past will come back as better ideas and better stories, my last novel-in-a-month is evidence of that.
I'm going to the library this afternoon to get a stack of books to read, which, I shouldn't be doing, but I want to read and learn more about writing through reading other peoples stuff, I just want to be progressing in some way shape or form.
I'm really excited about it at the moment, right when I should be writing an assignment, one that I haven't thought nearly hard enough about to actually write, but its due in 5 days, it has to be done!
but I just want to write... I found this assignment I wrote last year, it was for my speech paper and its about 15minutes worth of a speech addressed to young adults to try and convince them to sign up with this company who are colonizing a new planet (the assignment topic was to write a speech which tried to encourage action or something, addressing a problem that humans may face in 20 years or so), there is so much in there! I wrote lots about the planet, I did world building, I wrote sci-fi, without even knowing that was what I was doing!
I almost feel bad now, because i tried writing cyber punk for my zing thing challenge the other month, thinking that I hadn't done anything sci-fi before... But i didn't know... and it was fictional but not meant to be fiction. Regardless I think it had potential for a story, and that excites me.
I found another short story which I am going to polish and submit somewhere, I've been challenged to do it by Friday next week, I accepted the challenge.
I have all these plans for all these stories... and I have to write an essay.

Well, I am going to go and read over the articles, and write an outline and see what I can do from there....

Someone said I should try and finish Dream Dark, Dream Deadly today and I really wish I could, I want to, I'm motivated.
I need to write this essay though.
Life's a bitch sometimes.

contact course

Well, it went well, even though I am still not feeling 100%, it was an awesome time to build on the friendships I have with Sarah and Sarah as well, I feel like I know a lot more about both of them now and it's really nice to know that I can enjoy their company not just for a couple hours but for a couple days without getting annoyed at them or anything! lol with having nothing but a good time with the two of them. I feel like that is a pretty cool thing. There are some people who I can't just spend solid time with and still feel great about them, some people are just small dose people and it's really nice to know that the Sarah's don't fit into that category (not that I thought they did, but you just never know).
So now I am home, and I am still kind of tired. And there is still a lot of work to catch up on, but some exciting things have happened.
Simon got a new job. Which is pretty cool, and will mean that for the most part he has weekends off, which I think is going to take some adjusting too but its pretty exciting in general. Our whole routine is going to change! lol I wonder if he'll get paid on a weekly basis or every fortnight?
Very exciting anyways.
I talked a lot about writing on the journey home, it was nice. Sarah paints, and I write and we were talking about creative processes and such, it was pretty cool, she wants to read my first nano, so I am going to print it off and take it around to our next study group, will be interesting to see what she says about it! lol more feedback, I guess feedback is always good and I think it will be the first novel I edit when I get into that next year so maybe it will help put me in the right frame of mind and give me even more ideas for what I am going to do with it.
It's so exciting, thinking about writing stuff, I just wish that I could do it all now instead of waiting until after I have finished my degree. But if I want to pass, I have to wait.

neato!

I started my essay... and I realized that it only needs to be 1200 words long. Thats not very many at all! I am not sure why but it seems so much shorter than 1500, and it's vastly shorter than 2000. So, I am 200 words in, and it's going pretty well and I am beginning to think that maybe, just maybe I can finish it off today, now that would be something.
I shouldn't have stopped to come and post here, I don't even know why I am except that more and more I am getting the inkling to write in this and so I am....
Maybe it's because the words flow pretty easily here, it's probably the next best thing to creative writing, and it's definitely a change from factual, referenced academic writing.

I should mention that it's one year ago on this date that Simon asked me to marry him. It's so crazy thinking that in less than six months we are actually going to be getting married! Crazy good, and a little scary, but in that wow I never thought this would happen kind of way. I think we're going out for dinner and maybe to catch a movie tonight which should be fun. I finished wrapping his present just before. I hope he likes it.

Ok, better get back into the essay lol I feel... gleeful!

and this...

I love this picture.

well

I didn't get a lot done! Been feeling like total crap lately, caught a very yucky sickness off my lovely fiance. It's ok though, I'm not holding it against him. Part of me thinks that the Gods of Students are punishing me for taking a day off and reading Harry Potter (Tuesday). I must have broken one of the ten commandments, one that goes something like: 'Thou shalt not ignore your studies for an entire day without guilt.' Well consider me punished.
Today, thankfully, my head is a little clearer, my voice is almost back to normal and I can think again, for the most part in logical blocks, Yay. This means that I have no excuse not to start writing my essay today, well actually I am sure I can come up with several but I shall ignore the state of the house, the piles of dishes on the bench and the loads of washing that really need doing and start this essay.
I guess one could say that even now I am procrastinating. I guess I am, I can live with that. I basically know what I am going to write but I don't know how to start it. This is one of the papers that doesn't have a webct page, which means that I can't see what questions other people are asking about how to do the assignment and learn from the responses that they get. I'm writing blind, writing assignments blind is not really that fun at all. Nevertheless, it's due on Friday, it needs to be in the post on Wednesday and I am away in Palmerston North on Monday/Tuesday. Which means that I really need to have the bulk of it done today so that I can tidy it up tomorrow night in Palmy and then have it in the post. Or maybe I could drop it in while I am down there lol.
I have another essay due in a week and a half, the gods only know how I am going to manage to get that one finished as well.
All this means that the chances of me finishing the story I wanted to finish during 'finishing month' have pretty much gone out the window. That makes me sad, and disappointed in myself. I really did want to finish it, I am just not managing my time very well lately it seems. Mind you there was the concussion, and the sickness... there are some valid reasons why I've not been my usual productive self. All the excuses/reasons in the world don't really change that the story is not finished, though I did manage to write a few hundred words on it! lol Which I guess is more work than it's had than in the last year and a half or so that it's been sitting around. One day Jeremy your story full will be told, one day.

Ivy and I

Lol we had a fun morning today, playing around with the new camera and being dorks. She absolutely loves to have her photo taken, which is pretty cool, lol but after every one I take she wants me to stop and show her how it turned out! Can be pretty time consuming. I think fairly soon I am going to have to get some new photo paper because she wants a massive album of her doing everything, how can I blame her, she's just totally cute! lol the other day I even had to take a photo of her on the toilet... well, it's a pretty cool thing for her to be doing so I can understand.

I spent pretty much the whole of yesterday in bed reading the last Harry Potter book. I think I'm a bit disappointed, I'm at the very least sadly reminded that it is after all a children's book, and not one written for adults. They glossed over the death too much, I didn't feel emotional about any of it, and I think it was all wrapped up too neatly, for my liking anyways. I guess it has to be nice, because of the audience, but bleh lol. Is the 19 years later bit written for adults or children? do the younger readers really care that everyone grew up and got married and had kids of their own? Or was it just to state that this was the end of the line for good old Harry - though whose to say that the collective children of the characters of the HP books won't get together and get up to some mischief in the future?
None of it really matters. If she writes more, good for her, if she doesn't, then also good for her. I certainly hope that she has more in her than that though, it would be kind of sad I think if all I had in me was one series based around the same characters and not much outside of that scope(although obviously it was a highly successful series and much loved by many people around the globe). So I'd like to think that she has an abundance of stories to tell and that all the people who love HP won't neglect anything further she writes or judge her on that basis. I guess that would be a scary thing about being a published writer who does so very well with one thing - will they like something else? Will they ever be able to do something as good as what they have already achieved?
Not things that I have to worry about yet, or probably ever.

Gah, I should so be writing my assignment, but I am playing around with photos instead... haha. Ok. Off to get into assignments and other study related stuff!

time...

It's really going by pretty fast at the moment. Every time I finish something, there is another thing just waiting to be done. I have been feeling pretty worn down and like I really needed a break, some time out, from everything - but that's just not possible.
On a bright note I am actually going to get to go to the contact course in Palmy next week for my Abnormal and Therapeutic Psychology paper which is pretty cool. It will be fun being away with the girls, no kids, no family to think about. Long couple days but I am sure it will be well worth it.
On Monday night we'll be celebrating one of the Sarah's birthdays and mine and Simon's two year anniversary, so it should be fun! I think it's something I need. Plus it could be the last time I am in Palmy/at Massey for a really long time!

On other notes, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with my life. I keep flipping back and forward on what I want to do, but I think I've settled on making no plans at all and waiting until the right thing presents itself. Sometimes all you need to do is just stop. Stop trying to figure it out, stop trying to make plans and decide which path will be the one best suited to you and just let life happen - something always comes up when it's the right time, and I should just make sure I am open enough to notice it when it happens.
A friend rang me last night and we talked writing. I think she's going to do Nano with me this year, it will be her first time! She has a basic plan which she is going to work more on over the next couple months and I think she is really excited about the prospect of actually writing a novel. I think Nano is great for first timers, with a little pressure on you and the support of so many other people who are doing it you almost can't go wrong if you want it bad enough. Sure life can throw some things up at you to get in the way, but if your determined, then you can totally win through.
I don't think she's done a lot of writing before, but she is sounding pretty amped about this. It's a romance, which she knows tonnes about and shes considering writing it so that it fits the requirements for a mills and boon line. Which is cool, she showed me a new one, which I could totally see myself writing for, lol so that will be fun when I get around to having the time to write it.
I still have to write the second half of the novel from SoCNoC, and I need to edit last years nano at some point as well, there are a few things on the go at the moment writing wise and i keep wanting to give them all my attention but i just can't. Study still has to come first, and after exams my writing can be my secondary focus (secondary to my little one).

grar

I think that pretty much sums up how I am feeling today.
I don't think I really know how to relax - I mean, I know how to procrastinate, but it's not really the same thing as relaxing because you know, you KNOW there are all these other things that you're meant to be doing and no matter how much you try to avoid those things, part of you is still thinking (obsessing) about them. Well, that's how it works for me anyways....
For as long as I can remember there have been a million and one things on my plate. I've been working, and studying and helping my friends out with the numerous issues, I've been dealing with my own issues, moving houses, cities, obtaining pets, and so many other things. Big things, at the time they were big anyways.
Next year I don't feel like I'm doing anything. And in fact, I am coming to believe that from now on, my life is going to consist of a lot of nothing. Which quite frankly, scares the crap out of me.
And it's not that there will be nothing to do, it's just that the things I am going to be doing don't feel like the things I have been raised to believe are the important things.
Ok, that might need some clarifying.... After speaking to several people, who all have been saying to me that I should 'just be a mum' for awhile, I've realised that yes I do want to be a mum, and that I am already a mum and will hopefully within the next year be mum to more than one child.
It's the 'just' at the front of it all that scares me. JUST, as in, only, as in, nothing else. JUST never seems like enough, JUST suggests that it's not advancing me at all. And it feels like everything I have been doing for the last however long means pretty much nothing.
I mean, I can see how just being a mum would be wonderful. I love the days when I'm just being a mum and forgetting that I'm a student and everything else. We have wonderful days when I'm just being a mum (we have wonderful days on other days too, but I think the best ones are when I say 'to hell with everything else, today I'm just going to be a mum').
But it goes against my families work ethic. Which doesn't seem to really mesh with my personal family oriented ethic, there is some clashing going on there that's for sure.
My brains going, but you have to work, or study, or in some way be furthering yourself, making some money, working on a career (that's my Dad talking). And other parts are going - well that was smart, doing all this learning only to do sweet F all with it.
I'm sure I will love being a mum and being able to dedicate myself to it more fully than I can right now. But part of me is freaking out at the possibility that it means all the other parts of me will be put on hold for awhile.
I'm determined not to let that happen. I have other hopes and dreams. Other things I want to achieve, things that I am sure I can make work with having children and dedicating a lot of my time to raising them and giving them all the love and attention they deserve and need.
I can be a person and a mother as well right? It's possible? I don't have to be swallowed whole by motherhood do I?
Will I even care when it happens though.... or will being swallowed whole just happen so naturally that I don't even realize it's happened?
I over think everything.
I really do.

I need to get motivated and finish my degree, and then maybe work on learning how to relax and enjoy having spare time when I have it. And I need to learn that it's ok not to totally overload my life with a million different things - having a million different things on the go at once doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to be fulfilled. Right?

motivation

Can be such a fleeting thing. Seriously. This morning I felt great, I was going to do so much. And now... I started feeling dizzy again, and it's not helping me want to do stuff.
Apparently the effects of a concussion can last a few days, so.... tomorrow I should be set, but I at least want to make a start on writing 'Dream Dark, Dream Deadly.' I was thinking about it yesterday, and I think I know where to take it now, how to get back into the writing of it.
I left off at a really bad place, usually I would say that it was a great place to leave off (the beginning of a scene filled with action) but the fact that I left it for more than a year makes it not such a good one. If I had come back to it the next day it would have been fine, but no... life gets in the way sometimes.
However, I can't let that stall me for any longer, sometimes the best (the only) thing to do is just keep writing. Write past the block, write complete crap if thats what it takes, but just keep writing and make your way through it - it's easy enough to go back and make it better later on.
And with that. I'll sign off, and write. Procrastinate no more.

suprising things

Well, it's been an interesting weekend. Certainly.
On friday I found out that carrying on my studies to become a registered psychologist was no longer an option (they changed they requirements and I hadn't realized, and I can't move my family in order to fill them). I was pretty gutted. I'd finally decided what I wanted to do, only to find that after all that, I couldn't.
But that's ok. I'm quite happy with it now! I feel less stressed, more alive, less confined. It's funny how sometimes even the boxes you build for yourself can feel like prisons, even when you're not entirely aware of that.
I looked at a bunch of other stuff to study, seeing as I am almost afraid of not being a student, I've been one for the best part of my life - even when I was working full time I was generally studying something.
I'm not going to study though, at least, I'm not planning to. I'll have finished my Bachelor of Arts, and that has been a goal for a long time so I might just enjoy having finished that.
I am going to work part time, though I have no idea what as (which is fantastic!), I'm going to finish organizing the wedding, I'm going to start trying to get pregnant, and I am going to write, a lot. 2008 is going to be a big year for me, a very different year, and I just can't wait for it to arrive.
I'm looking forward to not having study stress pressing in on me, and I'm looking forward to finding out what it's like not to be a student, just to be a person. I'm actually even looking forward to working, and I am so excited by the possibilities that my writing has. Next year I am going to work on my novels, edit them, polish them, and I am going to submit them. I'm going to develop my skills even more, and probably dedicate more of my time to the kiwiwriter's challenges that there will no doubt be endless of.
Man I can't wait!
The upshot of knowing that there is an end in sight to my studies is that I'm actually enjoying studying more. Making the most of it maybe. The rest of this year is going to fly by, and there is just so much to do. For once that doesn't freak me out, I feel totally up to the challenges that lie ahead.

The End is Nigh (Challenge)

So it officially started yesterday, I am just beginning today.
I thought I better, otherwise I'd probably end up putting it off too late to actually get what I want done.
I am really looking forward to the completion of this particular story, though I know getting back into it is going to be a lot harder than I would like it to be. Which really, seems like such an odd thing. I know whats going to happen, I know the basic outline, I know the characters fairly well - which should mean that it's not so hard. But it is.
Ah well.
There are a few other things going on this month as well, including the first round of assignments for my new papers. 3 of them near the end of the month.
The first lot are the scariest. After you send them you worry about whether you did what was required, because you don't know the markers at all, and in some cases you're not entirely sure what it was they were asking for - thankfully most of my papers are pretty clear cut, at least, at first glance anyways ;-). But after you get them back, you kind of know where you stand. Whether you actually get what you're trying to learn, or whether you need to really work a lot harder at it.
I've stopped worrying so much about my grades though, I should be able to get them high enough to get into Masters, and if I don't then it's not the end of the world. There are always going to be other options, other paths and avenues for me to follow, which is a pretty exciting place to be in really.
Anyways, I better go and study, or, go and write. One or the other lol