Friend Getting Married, Writing, Karate, Resume, Katimavik

Well, I just found out that one of my friends is getting married and wanted me to be a groomsman, but that it will occur while I'm at Katimavik. Arg! People keep getting married and having children! They really need to stop doing that! Makes me feel like I'm falling behind. I mean... congratulations! I mean... what? I didn't even know this guy had a girlfriend!

Urk...

...Wadda story-topper! I'm all "Oh, I got into this program," and he's all "Oh, that's cool! Too bad you'll miss the wedding... Was gonna ask you to be a groomsman..."

...No, I'm mad with jealousy and I know it. Not his fault, and I shouldn't act such away when he was going to bestow such an honour on me.

Well, I just learned about this so it's weighing pretty heavily on my mind, but I don't have anything more to say on the topic, so I'm going to... go update my comic... and then resume writing here.

Okay, so I updated my comic. And I just remembered that I already updated today! First time I've updated twice in one day.

I resurrected my Drunk Duck account (webcomic hosting site) that I hadn't updated in four months, the reason being that, for some reason, my uploaded comics were coming out in a strange size. They didn't used to do that, and dA offers a resize function, so I thought that I had figured out how to work DD previously and had just forgotten, especially since I have my original images on my computer, but no resized ones, meaning that I never resized anything through my own image manipulator.

My brother theorizes that it's because I was using a different scanner at first, and it sized things appropriately, whereas the new one doesn't. I conceded that this was a plausible theory and finally gave in to search for an equivalent size and start resizing all my comics...

Oddly, my Drunk Duck account has my comic ranked well over the 50% marker for every series on the site. Not bad for someone who hasn't updated in four months, right? I have a theory about that. See, I have one comment, and that commenter gave me a perfect 5. So that means I have a perfect 5 star score overall!

For the first time since... I dunno, my first five deviations, I got a little attention on my dA account. I have 20 deviations now, by the way, two watchers, one favourite, and 120 pageviews (not including myself).

Anyway, the new attention came from a person usernamed IQUnlimited, who informed me that I had submitted the 1244444th dragon-related deviation. I asked this person if that was a significant number, and they said that it had five fours in it.

*Shrugs shoulders*

Asked some pals from my old account how to activate the displayed collections feature, and someone told me she thought that was something you had to pay for. So either she's wrong, or some of these people who say they don't have paid accounts are just lying.

My most difficult task was due today in my creative writing class... The rough draft for the final story, but since she was late getting feedback on our story outlines, she's giving us until next Thursday, and then we get another week to touch up our story, extending the four week program to a five week one.

The workload is a bit harsher than what was advertised. The original published curriculum said four 1-page assignments and a 10-page short story. Well, the first was 1-2 pages, then there was a rewrite for that assignment, the second was about 1, the third was 4, the fourth... 6-10 pages, and the final project also 6-10.

Actually, it's different than the public course outline, and looks larger, but to be fair, it's probably about the same length. After all, the reason I said the 6-10 page rough draft was the hardest assignment is because the 1-2 page assignment rough draft was a lot harder than the final copy... Most of the core writing stays the same from the rough draft, so the final assignment shouldn't count as a full 6-10 pages, and the 10-page minimum was changed to 6, and 10 became the cap.

She says we all have such diverse voices and that we're all doing great, so I guess that means I'm not in danger of failing. On my first paragraph assignment, I was supposed to analyze ten first paragraphs from ten novels and write my own. I did all the analyzing, but forgot to write my own. It would be pretty hard to flunk the entire course because of that, but I'm an extremist, so I still worried.

...Hmmm... Maybe I could appeal for an extension, since she's fallen behind so many deadlines...

Serious creative writing is a lot more embarrassing than any other form of writing. I look back on all my reviews and comics with a good amount of pride, but I'm terribly embarrassed to read anything sort of literary that I did. And it's embarrassing to write it now, too.

So, you know those guys who sometimes share their dojo with us? Well, they changed the name of their dojo to the head sensei's last name and "Karate", like school! And they changed their symbol from a yin-yang to the silhouette of a guy kicking, like our school! Except their silhouette is kicking higher! Those... those jerks!

Hey, want to hear some weird disadvantages of being large, karate-wise? Being large is mainly advantageous, and most people already know the reasons for that... Increased strength, range, harder to move etc, but it does have it's disadvantages. Ever heard the saying "The bigger they are, the harder they fall"? Well, apparently it's true. The bigger you are, the harder it is to throw you, but if it does happen, the effect will be more devastating. Also, a larger person will try to keep a smaller person at a distance... In the area where they can hit them, but they can't hit back. But if a smaller person breaks through, their agility in close-quarters is superior. Also, larger people are more susceptible to strangling, strangely.

...So those are all tips in case you guys need to fight me.

Hey, should I put my karate and work at Mom's bead business on my resume?

Concerning karate, I was thinking it wasn't relevant, but I would put it on once I hit blackbelt, anyway (first degree though... I wouldn't wait longer). Turns out that anything you put on a resume is fair game so long as it impresses the employer, and I fear that anything between white and black wouldn't be universally recognized on sight. However, someone recommended I put it on right now as a yellow belt, just because it would illustrate that I have gone up at least one belt rank. Someone else recommended I wait until I turn orange (third belt)someone else that I wait until green (fourth) and someone else until I turn brown (eighth).

As far as the beading business goes...This is something I've considered for a while, but since the business has slowed down a bit for the Winter months, I sort of forgot to think about it at least on this level. However, Louise mentioned it in my reference letter, so I'm thinking about it again.

Oh, by the way, the beading business has been kind of on-and-off. Looks like the Farmer's Market is genuinely mainly for farmer's during the winter months. Looks like they won't get a steady spot until Spring, when the farmers move their product outside again, opening up spots on the inside of the building.

Yesterday I watered my cacti for the first time since I got them at Christmas. I used to have a whole bunch, and I killed them all. So this time I waited for them to give me a cue for when I needed to water them. They finally began to show a bit of a bend at the top, and I took that for a sign of dehydration. So far this looks like an alright move, as they absorbed almost all excess water in the dish-thing at the bottom of their container. After 24 hours, I got rid of the excess.

Ha, when I go to Katimavik, I hope the leader isn't too amped to get a crowd of peppy youngsters. Because I'll probably wind up like, "The air's too fresh, the sky's too high, the ground's too dirty, that squirrel's too fast! In my day, squirrels knew how to go at their own pace! These newfangled squirrel's are all rush-rush-rush!"

...I don't act too youthful, I fear...

People keep asking me why I didn't go for the 9 month program. Gimme a break! 6 months is a long time! It's half a year! That's approximately one 160th of a lifespan! A significant percentage! And I'm no spring chicken! Besides, Ways2Work was four weeks, and that felt like ages!

You know why time perception increases with age? Because time perception is memory-based, and you only remember important life events, and the younger you are, the more you're learning. Once you get a grip on things, not as much stands out, so it feels like time is accelerating. This is why the only way to be happy in life is to enjoy learning and working. The saying "life is short" is foolish. It's the longest thing you'll ever live to experience! A day would take what you perceive as years if you fully acknowledged every moment of it.

That's why Ways2Work felt so long. I was in a state of reevaluation... Almost like a second childhood, so I was seeing the world with new eyes and relearning many things. Four weeks felt like four years, and I brought as many memories from it.

I expect to learn a lot! So this program will take a long time!