Vital Vocab 28 - Hiatus Cont. (Updated!)

Vocab: truncate, ubiquitous, vacillate, utilitarian, undulate

Commonly Confused Words: course/coarse

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon

Hi, all.  

I think my weekly Isaac Bade posts have been truncated not only by my hiatus, but by the end of the school year.  This is the third-to-last Vital Vocab of the year, I've been told, and so Isaac is gonna have to stay the course and sit with that broken arm for a bit longer.  Now, I was sort of vacillating about where I really wanted this story to go, but beneath the coarse, utilitarian fluff posts and regrettable, ubiquitous stress, I still really like him.  Isaac is a cutie; among other things, he's smart, and artsy, and quiet, and I just really appreciate him as a character, so I think I'll keep him to revisit later.  And also write down all the other stuff I know about his story, that I never actually incorporated here.  Because, even if I didn't have a perfect storyline, it did undulate with little story arcs, so that's something to work with.

Until next time!

-Allie

UPDATE: I actually will be sending you guys a full Isaac Bade story!  I chose him as one of the protagonists for the epistolary story I'm working on for Creative Writing, so you guys'll get to read it before the school year is out!  So I guess you could say...

(courtesy of: tumblr)

UPDATE 2 (which is slightly less important contextually, but still worthy of note): Ava's Demon is back from its hiatus!  Which makes me particularly happy because it'd been on hiatus for a little over a month.  Which was unfortunate.

Vital Vocab 27 | Vital Vocab 29

Vital Vocab Dictionary

Vital Vocab 27 - The Hiatus Continues (Update)

Vocab: tacit, tangent, tenable, tantamount, trenchant

Commonly Confused Words: bear/bare

Grammar Focus: parallel structure and semicolon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!

I love the internet.
(courtesy of: Amazing Creatures blog)

That said, hi all.

First thing's first, not seeing a need to be tacit, I'll just say, I've never been particularly trenchant about how I get my homework done.  Which is how I managed to miss Vital Vocab 26.  Sorry about that; I was doing a research paper I'd gotten behind on and Vital Vocab got lost in the bare flurry of end-of-unit procrastination. So that was fun.

And now, in this Vital Vocab, the hiatus continues.  Were this still just due to my own failure to outline, I would have written some little tangent of a something (even if it wasn't Isaac-related) to keep you all entertained.  But unfortunately - and I may have said this before (or something tantamount to it) - during or directly after bearing the stress of a something-or-other (usually school), I fall into this small pit of total writerly emptiness.  So I tried to write through it, but after a few hours of sitting and staring and writing and deleting, it became tenable that this is the most I can give you on my midnight deadline.

So.  Sorry for the lack of post.  Until later, my dears!

-Allie

Vital Vocab 25 | Vital Vocab 28

(Vital Vocab 26 does not exist.)

Vital Vocab Dictionary

TFiOS, Children's Stories, and Tiny, Mexican Men

Hello all.

Time for a jam-packed media post!

I was actually gonna post about how to defeat writer's block, but that actually began to give me writer's block and I couldn't deal with the irony.  And yesterday, my friends and I spotted three lovely copies of my favorite book, The Fault in Our Stars (TFiOS) on my English teacher's desk, and the movie's coming out on June 6th [link], and I haven't read that book for - jesus - almost two years now.  (One and three quarters?)  Also, Mr. Parker (English teacher) said it isn't sad, which I kind of have to fundamentally disagree with.  The Fault in Our Stars is a very sad book.  The protagonist has terminal cancer.  Her friend has eye cancer.  Her love interest...well, he doesn't have cancer anymore, but that's beside the point.  But so, I read it in the summer before eighth grade, then thrust it in the faces of all of my friends, and they came back and told me they had to stop at this one particular scene (and a few others) because they couldn't read through the tears.  (Alix actually told me I'd "broken her feels" because the book gave her too many.)

Now, that isn't to say you shouldn't read it because it's sad.  I've actually noticed recently that all good books are sad, or at least have sad parts.  I think that's because you can't really confront the world's problems without including some sad stuff.  (I would like to link to something here, but it's too spoiler-y, so maybe I will...later?)  And if you don't confront the world's problems, your book is really just...a book.

Anyways, the point of all my ramblyrambles here was to say this: I'm reading TFiOS again, and because I haven't done an audio reading in ages (and because those are fabulous fun), I would like to post it here.  But because it's All Rights Reserved and I don't have permission to use it, that's copyright infringement, which is just generally a bad idea.  So I will look into it!  And if, by some miracle, I manage to get permission, I'll update this post, or maybe make a new one with the recording.

So really this part of my post is just a review.  READ TFiOS.  O-O

However, I did promise for this to be a media post, and something I realized today is that I never showed you guys the last project I did in Creative Writing.  So here, I give you...

A Giant Mess

My junior high is located right next to an elementary school, so we went to visit a kindergarten class, and we each got a little kid to write a story for, and I illustrated mine and everything and just, just, gosh.  That project made me happy.  I took my kid's name out of the dedication though, 'cause she's like five, and this is the Internet.

The one other thing I wanted to share in this post is that yesterday morning, I went to a Rotary breakfast thingy and they have an orphanage/school place in Mexico that they were talking about and they gave us these on our way out the door.

they made pen people!  and keychains!  (it's a sombrero.  it says Guadalajara.)

hehe!

  

and that just made my day.  :3

Thanks,
-Allie

An Appreciation for Musical Stuff

Hello, all.  Happy Friday!

In this post, I would like to acknowledge something I particularly love: great movie soundtracks.

Now, I realize this is primarily a fiction blog, but I made my tagline vague, and besides, why pigeonhole myself?  This is my blog, I do what I want.

So!

Music post.

If you ever go to my Grooveshark, you will see I have a slightly obscene number of playlists.  Most of my friends have like, three?  Four?  Fun stuff, sad stuff, party stuff, etc.  I, however...I have eighty-nine.  Ye-aah.  I like to listen to most things in albums, and I like a lot of things, and this is a very simple way to access them.  And it's not like Grooveshark puts any limit on your stuff, right?  So...yup.  Currently eighty-nine.  Makes sense to me.

It looks a bit like this:

 

Exactly like that, actually.  Sometimes, you just need to show the internet your four-and-a-half pages of musical taste.  It's satisfying, somehow.  Like maybe you're a cool kid now.  (Not really, though.  Despite my 89 playlists, I still don't know anything about music.)

Now, those playlists are all lovely, but there are a few I'd like to focus on now, which are all in...

this part.  (minus "Night Visions."  sorry 'bout that.)

That's right.  Movie soundtracks.

I'm not sure movie soundtracks get the appreciation they deserve solely because, well, nobody seems to listen to them!  You'll be fully aware that a movie has an incredible musical score (that's what it's called, right?), but when you're done watching, you just...move on.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I just...I just want to...show you some things.

Fewest Words
Alice in Wonderland (2010) - suspenseful and mysterious, of course
Coraline - creepy and awesome, almost French-sounding, but not quite
Howl's Moving Castle - pretty and waltz-y and god I just love that movie oh gosh!
Inception - very intense, in case you didn't already know
(UPDATE) Ruby Sparks - this is mostly just fabulous instrumentals.  in the middle, there are a few songs with lyrics, but most are in a foreign language, so they don't really count.  a beautiful movie, and if you haven't seen it, I recommend you go find it wherever you can.  like, immediately.

Most Uplifting
Juno - various artists, like Kimya Dawson, just being cool and stuff
Meet the Robinsons - including "Another Believer" and "Little Wonders"
We Bought a Zoo - I haven't completely gone through this, but if you've ever seen the movie (which I fully recommend), you'll know what to expect.  happy and whimsical and a little music box-y and just...hopeful
(UPDATE) Happythankyoumoreplease - lots of cute, happy indie/folk-y songs.  this is one of my favorite movies because gosh, it's just so adorable and happy and uplifting!  watchitwatchitwatchit!

Some Wonderful Misc.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - storytelling and feels-y and adorable and Neil Patrick Harris + Nathan Fillion + Felicia Day = AWESOME and if you haven't seen that, spend 45 minutes on youtube.  Go.
The Great Gatsby - some rap and party music, and I'm not sure what genre "Young and Beautiful" is, but it's good.  I recommend it.

These are all lovely, and all make good writing music (for me, at least), and I just, I fully recommend the lot of them, even if you haven't seen the movies they're from.  I hope you can enjoy them!

That is all.
-Allie