Wasting time like its free

It seems repetitive to comment on the fact that I'm a bad bad blogger... but I'm going to do it anyways. I just can't seem to remember that I have a blog. My life just isn't that interesting and I've always been told that its bad when a writer has to write about writing. But anyways, here I am posting again. I'll try my hardest to make it worthwhile, lol.

My last post was June 22nd which seems like forever and a day ago. Since then I've been obsessed with Sarah Dessen. For those of you who don't know who she is, she's an amazing young adult writer. She has six or seven books (and that number might be low...) and she's had two of her books combined and turned into the movie "How to Deal" staring Mandy Moore. She's phenomenal. All of her books are written in first person point of view and she truly captures the minds, voice, and emotion of girls who are in their late teens and nearing the end of high school. It's like she still is 18 or she hangs out with a bunch of them. I've read five of her books and am completely crazy about at least four of them. If you don't feel it necessary to run out and buy all of her books like I did, I HIGHLY recommend "The Truth About Forever" and "This Lullaby"

Also, excited/sad because my days at NOVA have ended and I have less than three weeks before my classes at George Mason start. I'm not sad about starting at Mason, (more excited/nervous) but I am sad about leaving Creative Writing and Bob. I'm going to miss all of his crazy stories and rantings. My Tuesdays don't feel quite whole since class ended last week. On a positive note, my classes this fall at GMU are totally going to rock. Two classes in particular I'm excited about are a Sports Documentary seminar (part of my homework will be to go home and watch sports!) and American War in Literature and Film. I've already started reading one of the books for that class and it's pretty intriguing. A definite read for anyone who wants to get an insider's view on the war in Iraq. His style drives me a bit nuts because he jumps around a lot, but it's a very interesting read. I started it this morning and I'm already halfway through.

I was trying to get through some of the classic books before classes started. Made it through Gone with the Wind (an accomplishment in itself since its almost 1500 pages) and started reading This Side of Paradise by Fitzgerald before the parcels full of school material started arriving at Mom's house. Since I'm working full time and also going to school full time, I want to get a jump start on require reading for school so that when assignments pop up this fall I just have to review the material. This is a strange concept for me, because I used to think that people that were this prepared before hand were nerds. My, how my views have changed since high school... Anyways, after reading GWTW, I sat down to watch the movie, which has always been one of my favorites and so I was really looking forward to it. Memo to myself and to everyone else out there: if you are in love with a movie and then realize it was also a book...think LONG and HARD about if you want to read the novel, because chances are it's going to totally ruin the movie for you. Now, some of this isn't GWTW's fault. It was made in the late 1930's so there are no special effects to speak of, some of the acting is really cheesy, and the sets aren't the best. But I swear the speed through 600 pages in the first hour and a half. I think my favorite part though is when Rhett and Scarlett are fleeing Atlanta with Melanie, Beau and Prissy and Rhett says "we have to get out of here before the fire reaches the explosives!" and the camera cuts to a stack of boxes that are clearly labeled EXPLOSIVES. I'm thinking: c'mon Hollywood.

I've also been typing. Had a dry spell there for a while where it was really REALLY hard to get through this one scene in the book, but I typed my way through it (or TYWTTE as Bob would say) and now I'm looking forward to getting to the parts I actually want to type. Not that I didn't want to type this part, just that the conversation between characters didn't come as naturally as I wanted it to and I got frustrated with my descriptions because I feel like I always describe things in the same way. My plans for the rest of the night are actually to take a shower to cool off, grab a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone and write until Top Chef comes on at 9 tonight (restaurant wars! My favorite!).

Shoulder is feeling better (finally) but I whacked my knee on a cabinet at work yesterday and now that hurts like hell. Starting to feel like I can't win. But hopefully I only bruised my kneecap and once the black and blue mark goes away it'll feel better.



Alright, just almost had a coronary because I hit the backspace button and it took me to a different screen and I thought I lost this post. So instead of posting pictures of the books I've been reading recently, you all will have to read back through the post and use your imagination. lol.