First 365 coming to an end

Day 355

Well, what can I say? I had so much I wanted to write earlier this morning while I was at work but I think I’ll be keeping it short I suppose.

When I first started this 365 Project, I had in mind to get so many things done! Profiles I wanted to do, stories I wanted to work on, ideas I wanted to add details to.

Looking back now. I realize it didn’t happen the way I wanted to. Yes, I wrote every day, some days not much, others more, but I didn’t do what I really wanted. Profiles done? One. Done at the very beginning of the projects. Old stories in the works? Barely added to them. Added new ideas to the list though. So many.

I can’t say I’d want to do it over and change it all because I know it would be just about the same. With the project being over, I won’t say I’ll stop writing, that would be a lie. I’ll try to keep on writing, I did set myself a yearly goal of words so I’ll be trying to achieve that much.

As far as my Photo 365 project is concerned, it may start up a little later than previously figured but I won’t cancel it altogether. It might just take a moment to really start it up. Currently I’m in something of a fierce dump, both writing-wise and photo-wise. I’ll work through that.

On a side note, we have a new cat. Though he is on a bit of a trial. He’s acting a bit feral at the moment so we’re giving him a week or so, hoping he’ll get used to the house and settle in. He is making progress and even my own baby of a cat is patience incarnate with him so we figure he’s got something worth saving.

And well.. I guess this is it for today.

I wouldn’t call this account a blog. I think a blog is a place where you write about stuff that interests people, stuff that has a goal of sort, a point. About food, cooking, life, love, music, what have you. No, this is a journal. I just write about personal stuff.

Looking back and other pointless things

Day 325

Or so I could call this one.

Took a photo that should look quite similar to one I took in December 2008. Same subject, mostly same angle, mostly same dirty window between the subject and my camera, can’t be helped that one but still.

Click for full view, of course.

Looking the older one over, I realize I didn’t take it quite in the same direction as last years and it might explain why it’s so dark.Not altogether happy with it. Mostly because the window is dirty and with how the tree is settled in the corner, I couldn’t have taken the shot from outside. That and my lighting leaves a little to be desired as well, the tree is too dark. I may try to take the shot again in the upcoming week. I took the shot rather quickly since dinner was just about ready. Looking the older one over, I realize I didn’t take it quite in the same direction as last years and it might explain why it’s so dark.

Reset the camera numbering system as I did January of last year. That way I can keep track of how many photos I’ve taken in the year. I like keeping track.

When my payday comes around, I will be buying a belated Christmas gift from myself to myself, with love. It will be a little expensive but worth the price I will be paying for. After that, I’ll be laying low on the ‘let’s buy stuff!’ front. Still, this year I want to get my hands on this tunic because it’s simple and gorgeous. I can wait a little while as I know it’s an item that sells a lot and I doubt they’ll be taking it out of the store.

Otherwise I’ll also, eventually, be trying to find a camera backpack that carries on both shoulders. Though not that heavy at a simple 6lbs of equipment in my current bag, carrying it around on a single shoulder for more than twenty minutes at once (the time it takes me to get to my bus stop every day) makes for a painful start of the day, to be honest.

With the gift card for Omer de Serres my brother gave my for Christmas, I bought a new sketching pad and two pencil kits. One with charcoal for ‘life art’ and the other with pencils from 9B to 6HB. Maybe a lot for someone who doesn’t draw much yet, but I want to draw more, so I’ll equip myself the way I see fit.

The manikin I bought for myself a little before Christmas was given a name as well: Keith. Why? Because it sounds like ‘key’ to my ears and I hope he will be the key to my development and also because Keith, in a roundabout way, also means ‘wood’.. and that’s what he’s made of. AH.

So.. that’s it for this one. Photo project will be started up in February, unless I’m mistaken. When this one project currently in the works ends. Maybe earlier. Not sure.

Of children and families

Day 324

For about a year now, a little more maybe, my grandmother has been on my case about having children. I don’t mind overmuch though it is getting to be annoying. I’m the youngest of all grand-children, there’s seven of us in all and out of those seven, four have children of their own, giving my grandmother six great-grand-children.

So why hound me about it? I live closest to her. I suppose she believes that if I had children, she would see them more often than she sees the rest of her great-grand-kids. ‘I’m just waiting for you now.’ or ‘So when are you going to have kids?’ just for the sake of example.

Last holidays, Christmas 2008, I told her that chances would be, I was more likely to adopt than have my own. Her reaction? She blew a fuse. There was no way she wanted me to adopt! Pfft.

The problem and issue here, is simple: for one, I have no one in my life and with the way things are looking right now, I don’t think that’s likely to change any time soon, even if it does stink to a certain level. Plus, with the person I am interested in, kids wouldn’t be too strong. AH.

Two, at my age, my three generation (all on mom’s side) had to go through/already had gone through the big operation because there were health issues to consider.

Doesn’t help that as of the past year and a half or so, I’ve had issues of my own and I’m just waiting for the annual doc visit to have a look over at it, get myself an appointment with the proper specialist and all. What stinks with that one is that said annual appointment should have been in September but doc’s been delayed and we have to wait until July of this year! It’s nutcase and insane, that.

I hadn’t minded waiting back when I first had the discussion with my mom because said appointment should have been right there, near the end of ‘09 and it hasn’t come to pass yet. Those issues are pretty damned painful when they get to it. The kind of pain I’m folded in half for and wishing I was dead.

Well we’ll see.

Enough of that rant.

Christmas out the window, New Years approaching

Day 317

Yearly project nearly over. It’s amazing, I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel as if it was quite that long ago.

So, Christmas has come and gone. For a few years now I haven’t really felt as if the holidays mattered much. I just don’t feel the ‘cheer’ of Christmas time. This year, mom told me she felt much the same but we still put on a happy face and drifted in and out of the family celebration as we usually do.

With a few mishaps along the way.

My aunt, my mom’s sister where we usually have Christmas dinner, for one. Her fridge died right on the twenty third. All food that could be frozen was put in the freezer and a new fridge purchased.

My grandmother, on mom’s side, water heater started to leak and on the evening on the twenty fourth, she called my aunt (same one whose fridge up and died) for help. Why? She called us on the twenty third to tell us about it. My brother even offered to make some calls to find a plumber and grandma refused. Why? She didn’t want to pay up a single penny to anyone since the apartment owner-folks type were supposed to take care of it.

Gift wise, well we’re still a little tight on the money department so gifts were relatively simple this year. From mom, for my birthday, she gave me tickets to the OSTR concert (the symphonic orchestra in our city), which was wonderful, and for Christmas, she paid for my visit to the hairdresser where we added in some red streaks in my hair. They came out a little too copper for my taste but it still looks good.

From dad, cheap shot he is. He gave me his guitar a little earlier in the year since he wasn’t using it enough and he told me to put a bow around it.

From grandma on mom’s side, a little money, miraculously though she forgot my birthday again and will next year as well, I don’t even bother reminding her anymore, and a few extra gifts from stuff she doesn’t use.

From my aunt, a lovely, gorgeous bracelet that I’ll have to take a few links out of (will take it to the proper folks for that) because it’s too long at the moment but it’s gorgeous.

Left on the list is my other aunt on mom’s side (I don’t think aunts ever gave us gift on my father’s side) whom we will see… well I don’t know when, and my grandmother on my dad’s side that I know we usually get money from as well.

Most of the money I received, all of it really, will be going into the price tag for an iPod Touch. One I’ve been eying for several months now.

Oh, gift from my brother: a gift card to an art store. Can’t wait to go back to drool over stuff. I can’t draw over well, but it’s because I don’t practice much. Practice makes perfect, I know I might never get to that point but still.

What else?

Well, once this year project is over, and maybe a little before, I’ll start up on my second one, one photo a day for 365. It’ll give me reason to keep on taking photos.

And now for some resolutions:

1. Keep on writing.
   I want to write at least 100,000 words a year starting from 2010. Which means about 275 words a day, not much, so I’ll round it to at least 2,000 words a week, which, at the end of the year should boost me up to 104,00 or so words. Oh, and I will keep track with a file. Overdoing it a little? I just want to keep track, is all.
2. Take more photos.
   I realize I’ve barely touched my camera this year. I mostly only took photos when people wanted me to. Christmas parties, reunions. I need to carry my camera around more often, for that, I need a two-strap bag. Anyone ever carry over six pounds of stuff over one shoulder for more than half an hour at once? Not altogether easy.
3. Start drawing again.
   I don’t draw much and when I do it’s structural, nature. I need to try and define my own hand in drawings of people.
4. Keep on drawing on projects I’ve left behind too much.
   Alexander, Micah’s Life, Taking the Plunge, KOMA Project just to name a few. If I ever want to be published, I have to work.

I think that’s it for now. If anything else, I’ll add up.

Lack of update.. Win?

Day 299

Fail!

How long has it been since the last update? Pretty damn long, I don’t have any valid excuses and to be honest I don’t need any excuses. This is my own blog after all, I update when I see fit, even if I know lack of updates may lose me some readers… do I even have any readers?

Well no matter.

NaNoWriMo has come and gone, while I knew I couldn’t stick to a single subject for a whole month and write over 50k words for it, I did mostly as I had last year. Last year I had a list with a hundred theme and wrote at least 500 words for each. Reading them over at this point, it makes me cringe.

This year instead, I had one subject a day, two when I had time for more (that happened only twice), and my personal daily goal was for 1,800 words. I hit my personal goal every single day, on two days at the beginning of the month I doubled that.

For a good part of November I actually worked eight hours a day (eleven to eight at night, I had to leave at nine fifty which didn’t leave overmuch time to actually write between getting up, taking care of the dogs and preparing to leave) so I only wrote at night.

Those eight hours were usually split between two parts of the company as a whole, administration and accounting so by the time I was home, I was worn but still sat down to write because I needed to, because I wanted to. I need to write more. Adding NaNoWriMo to my yearly wordcount (I swear I should start keeping an Excel word file!) I’m a little over the 110k words so far. Not taking into account all the talking/plotting I do as I figure it does count but shouldn’t since it’s not writing-writing.

A project I started last year but barely worked on this year is Alexander (for lack of a proper title for it yet). I have all chapters plotted out and ready to be written. I just haven’t felt like writing for that one yet.

This year, projects include: Taking the Plunge, where I saved some of my works from NaNo ‘08 and worked on fixing them, making them longer. At the beginning of this project, I had saved fourteen titles and now I’m down to eight, if not six. It’s fine.

Second project is my KOMA Project, a story about a man from the now-times who suddenly falls into a coma and his parents, not wishing him to die yet, have him put to cryo-sleep, out of which he’ll only be coming out some thousand years from now.

Micha’s Life is yet another project in the work. I also have everything plotted out but have had little desire to work on it. Set in the steampunk era, I hope to eventually do something worth reading with it.

Modern Fairy Tales. Who hasn’t thought about doing that? I want to change their stories enough to make the basic, original idea shine through but not keep it to that. Also a project that was partly started but hasn’t really gone anywhere so far.

Epoca. Work on which I started to work more presently this year. A name I want to change and eventually will when I come up with something better. I had even started up an explorer’s journal but it drifted into the abyss like many other projects. Not completely forgotten, just set aside for now.

I have to say that the year has been a little rough in the writing theme and I hope that next year will be better.

There are so many other things I could write about, complain about, sigh about but I don’t think there’s much of a reason to. Those who need to know about them already do and that’s what should count. I don’t live my life for it to be shared with millions of people, I live my life as it is and when there are things I think could be shared, I share them.

So that’s it for now. I have no excuse for the lack of update, but as I just mentioned, this blog isn’t about updating every day with useless, pointless stuff. It’s about me wanting to share some things with the world, now and again. I may merge an account or two together, I’m not sure, but we’ll see.

Photo blog, 365 project and more… I think?

Day 248

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve uploaded this. Does anyone even read this thing? It’s always been more a personal thing than anything else but I’m grateful for anyone that does come up for a read, it feels good.

So here’s a short update on things and life:

Have another 365 project being worked up, haven’t started yet but I might start it up before I finish the one currently in the runs. This one will be a Photo project, so one photo a day (at least one, if anything) and the blog they shall be posted up on is here (will open in a new window).

I have been writing a little every day but not as much as I wish I could or should. The writer’s block has been somewhat present no matter where I look or what I do though I’m trying to overcome that. I think today will be a writing day, there are a few things I want to scribble down so there’s to hoping it’ll get through.

Work is work. It’s not the best work in the world but it pays so I shall be keeping my whining and complaining to myself. The team’s nice and cool, so it’s a plus.

Lesse, is there anything else? I don’t know, might be a post on CS later on, but it’s best to not keep our fingers crossed for that one.

And sadly, that’s about it.

Ah, no wait. Also preparing for NaNoWriMo though I know this year again I won’t be able to write a -novel- per say but I will write on several different subjects and hope to snag the 50k words as I should.

Not Today

Day 211

It’s been nearly ten years since I last wrote poetry. Been feeling a little down as of lately and this came out. It means what you want it to mean. This isn’t a call for attention. It’s just an escape.

Pay attention
      and you’ll see
Nothing hidden
      bare for the world to see
Dig a little
      to find me
A dip to the other side
      the real me

Off a bridge?
cliché.

Train tracks?
messy.

How would the world see me,
how would the world judge me?

Is there nothing left of me?

Running on empty,
Carcass fed to the hungry
I can’t just leave you be.

Why won’t you save me?

Thoughts and comments are welcome but I won’t reply to anything asking me how I’m doing and if I’m alright. This isn’t a call for help. It’s just a poem. I’m fine.

A small thing

Day 195

For the past two months, though I have kept on writing just a little on the side, I have had little to no inspiration whatsoever. You consider me most surprised that I’ve been able to create new characters… though I’d have to say they mostly created themselves.

This post won’t be long, there’s little to offer or so I figure at this point.

1. Went to Québec City’s Aquarium yesterday. It was a bit of a let down, I was expecting more than what I got. We didn’t go into the ‘ocean tunnel’ as the line was long as hell, it was already one thirty and if we wanted to go in without waiting in line, it would have been around fifteen to three. From the top, it was a gorgeous site and I really would have wanted to go. Maybe if we go back in winter we’ll have more to look at. That and the polar bears ought to be more happy. It was hot as hell that day.

I did get a few nice photos and those I’ll be taking care of either tonight or tomorrow.

2. Two jobs still going though I have two weekends off from the Madonna House since it’s so quiet. Xittel, on the other hand, does keep me busy. The customer support team (ours) moved into a brand new building this weekend, there’s still plenty of dust around and it’s not as clean as I wish it could be. The cleaning crew starts in next weekend, I’m told. Otherwise, it’s spacious if a little cool at the moment.

3. Had to take a few of my pair of pants to be fitted again since I lost damn near 25lbs since last November though I personally still want to drop at least fifteen more, then I’ll be happy.

That seems to be mostly it. New characters running around. Chance, for one, a race car driver, Thierry, Sasha and Nika (nicknames for the three of them) whom are university students.

I also know it’s been over forty days since my last written update and I have no excuse.

Work, odd hours, more work

Day 155

It feels as if it’s been forever and a day since I last updated, and I apologize to anyone who, if anyone, reads this.

Life’s taken odd turns. I still work hours here and there at the Maison de la Madone. It takes a lot out of me despite that I’ve been working there for already two months.

Tomorrow I have an interview for a job that is actually in my branch though it has a lot to do with the phone itself. Still. It’s 20/h a week so I imagine it’s half-days, either eight to noon or one to five. Or two full days and a half or something, we’ll see tomorrow. Keeping my finger crossed.

Despite my not caring much for the phone, I would still rather be doing a job in my branch rather than grunt work in a dining room.

One has to admit though, the work at the Madonna House is hard and taxing on the body, but the team is wonderful and it is hard not to like spending them with them all.

My left knee, however, is giving me trouble at the moment so I appreciate the days off. I work Saturday evening and then morning and supper shift on Sunday. It’s quite though it’ll get more hectic. Not sure I can handle hectic so much so I’m hoping to be able to snag that other job. I guess I’d still be open to weekends at the Madonna House though.

Other side of life, I talked with one of my friends yesterday, we were discussing writing and I realized that since the beginning of the year, I’ve barely written for 65k worth of anything in all my scrambled projects. Most of that in my Alexander story. I need to write more.

In the midst of nowhere

Pfft. Day 137

At times.

At times I wish I could start all over.

Be a nobody. Have no experience, know nobody and be known by nobody.

Then I tell myself: Oh wait. I already am a nobody. There are just some things I wish I could forget and leave far behind. There are things I already forget that I wish I wouldn’t.

Why can’t things just go the way they should? Or is it that things do go the way they should which isn’t the way I wish they would?

Bah.