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.