Michigan Trip (plus, More Senior Pictures)

I feel like I should post something about Thanksgiving. But I'm not really sure what. We've had a great time in Michigan so far! It's fantastic to see family again, and everything feels really familiar after spending a month here over the summer. I also got to visit Cornerstone University with my parents (I think I told you about Cornerstone...) Anyway, I really like it. It's probably at the top of my list now! We also stopped to see some friends who recently moved to Indiana. It was great to see them again! We had a blast!

All week, us kids have been hanging out with cousins, aunt and uncle, and grandparents and making rubber band bracelets (kinda like this)

It's fun, and a great project for having something to do with your hands while you're just sitting around. Also, the kids figured out these bracelets make great shooting rubber bands, so they've been setting up empty cans and plastic cups on the pool table downstairs and shooting them down. Very fun :).

That's really all that's been happening, I guess. It's been great though!

Oh, another thing. I can post more of my senior pictures now! Ready?

 I really like this one :). It's one of the few that turned out well in the group with my dress. I just love the  dress itself, and it looks really cool in the woods, if I may say.

I like how this one is close up. From a photographer's perspective ;), it's just a pleasing picture (it looks really good when the subject, in portraits at least, fills most of the frame.)

This is another one that I like a lot. It's good composition, and the angle is a little unusual but still nice to look at. I'm too much of a photographer...

Well, that's about it. Oh! My usual Hobbit update: 14 days! Very excited! I also want to see Thor 2... Anyway, that's all. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Various Interesting Things

23 days till the Desolation of Smaug! :D

Anyway, I think what I'm going to do today is just post various pictures (from Pinterest) and tell you what they lead me to imagine. So this will be kind of random, but hopefully fun :).

This picture just has 'inciting incident' written all over it (not literally...) But really, I imagine it being the start of a story. The main character's village is burned to the ground and she escapes and has to go on a quest to... and that's where my idea plops down and won't keep walking. Story goals seem to be a consistent problem. I could also see this as an 'embracing destiny' scene, where the hero decides to start on whatever her quest is and can't go back 'cause there's nothing to go back to.

Ok, so it hardly gets more interesting than this! I mean, she's just a normal-looking girl--t-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes. But she's standing against a huge stone wall and playing a cello. Which means she probably lugged the cello all the way there. It just makes me wonder 'why?'. I don't even know what I would do with it, but seriously, a cello! I could understand a violin or something hand-held (we saw someone playing bagpipes once in Kansas City) but you don't see someone playing a cello on the sidewalk very often...

This one has nothing to do with stories or anything really, but it makes me laugh every time I see it. It's just hilarious. Yeah, that's all I have to say on that one.

I have a whole Pinterest board devoted to nautical-looking things. Like this. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but those old-looking ships just fascinate me. The weathered wood, the ropes and knots, the familiar shape of the ship's wheel. It's just cool! Plus there's maps and compasses and stuff like that. I don't really know when it started... Actually, it's part of why I wanted to make my character Bryllen a sailor. I guess it's kind of a weird thing to be fascinated with, but... oh well :).

This kind of looks steampunk to me, and I'm not a huge steampunk person, but this is still cool. And, I mean, seriously, this girl and her cat are walking up a skyscraper! Or something like that. They're just standing there several stories up on the side of a building as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Which is very interesting, to say the least.

I pinned this picture of Santa's sleigh being pulled by a dragon, but it's not working to put it here. It's on this board if you want to find it. Not only is it funny, it makes me think of a highly entertaining re-write of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas with fantasy creatures and worlds and whatnot. Said poem doesn't exist (that I know of) but, hey, maybe it will someday :).

This is just epic. I love it. Someday I'm going to do this in a story. The actual flower language is cool as it is (I think there's more than what this person says, but they are pretty generic) but if you could send a message like that^ in a bouquet of flowers... Like I said, epic. Codes are just cool.

This is another one that makes me laugh. But it's kind of true. I just like it.

Well, that's about it. I have lots more interesting pictures, but I tried to pick some of my favorites. Which one do you like best of these? And I'd love to see some of your favorites from elsewhere!

Various Updates

Writing: Still plodding along in Other Worlds! I'm enjoying it very much, but I have quite a few important things to figure out yet. Like the Story Goal. Actually, I kind of know what that is (to stop the villain) but I don't know what exactly the villain needs to stopped from doing... it's a bit of a problem, but I'm working on it. I also haven't given anything a name yet. Literally, nothing has a name. I have a list of at least 16 things (including characters) that I need to name, and those are just the major things. Without names, I end up using either really long explanations every single time I mention something or abbreviating it to one or two letters (last time I called my ally 'UG' for months--short for 'Unnamed Guy'). Needless to say, it's a little confusing even for me. Plus names just make things seem more real. But I like to spend some time getting just the right name. (Actually, there is one exception to that. I came up with Captain Zavier's name on the spot, but I didn't know how big of a role he would play when I did...)

Fish: See them up in the corner? There are now five: orange, green, greyish, white, and red. They don't have names yet either, but for some reason I feel like naming my characters is slightly more important. Also, I noticed that if you put your cursor over the square where they live, they follow it. Like they're waiting for food :). Anyway...

The Hobbit: 30 more days till The Desolation of Smaug comes out in theaters! (December 13 is the big day--one month form today!)

College: I visited Sterling College (in Sterling, KS) about a week ago and liked it a lot. They have a Writing and Editing program that I'm very interested in. We're planning to visit Cornerstone University (in Grand Rapids, MI) when we go up there for Thanksgiving, so that should be fun. Cornerstone doesn't have an editing program specifically, but with their location they're able to offer some possible internships with 'real' publishing companies. So, yeah, I'm just deciding between those two. In the meantime, I'm working on applying for outside scholarships in hopes of covering more of the cost. Not too hard, just extra deadlines :|.

Senior Pictures: Yup! Mrs. Emery took them for me... a couple weeks ago, I think, and we got them back yesterday! :) It was a little bit of a different experience having my picture taken (I'm usually behind the camera) but it wasn't too bad. And we had a gorgeous day. Anyway, I'm very happy with them (Thanks Mrs. Emery!) No, I'm not going to torture you all. Here's a sampling. :)

There are more, of course, but I don't want to show you all of them at once! (a.k.a. I can't get them to upload for some reason...) Anyway, enjoy!

The Second Hobbit Movie!

There are 37 days until The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug comes out in theaters. Let me say that again: 37 DAYS!!! :D I'm extremely excited!

If you've read much on my blog at all, you have most likely seen that I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan. Tolkien fan, really. And if you read this post you saw my review of (ok, thoughts on) the first Hobbit movie. Basically, I loved it. :) And I've been waiting almost a year for the second one.

It's going to be so incredibly epic! The trailers leave me with a gigantic grin every time I watch them. Oh, here's a link to the trailers: click here. So cool!

Anyway, as far as I can tell, the movie is once again going to differ from the book. (So read the book first!) They changed some things in the first movie that continue a bit into the second (apparently). I will say, though, some of the changes definitely make sense. In Tolkien's other work (namely The Silmarillion and the LotR appendices) he does mention other things that are going on at roughly the same time The Hobbit takes place. These things aren't specifically mentioned in the book of The Hobbit, but at least to me they fit in logically. So, yeah. As much as I'd like all movies to be exactly like the book, in these it doesn't bother me too much if they're not. It's just exciting that they're movies :D.

Also, in preparation for the movie, I'm rereading The Hobbit. We read it last year as a family before the first movie came out, and I thought it would be a good idea to refresh my memory (so I can more easily identify changes they make). It's just as good as ever! As far as I know, I'm still reading through the part that will be in this next movie. And I'm speculating how far they'll go in the story. I have ideas, but I really can't know for sure. I'll just have to wait.... *sigh* I'll just watch the trailer a whole bunch more to pass the time :).