Obligatory bookshelves post
It’s certainly no Bookshelfporn, but in time I will have a bookshelfporn-able bookshelf! (These are three different shelves. And yes, they are different colors. Woe is me.)
Click to enlarge!
Hi, I'm Angela, a girl with a blog on five different psyches:
girl,
geek,
reader,
writer,
gamer
Choose your poison ♥
It’s certainly no Bookshelfporn, but in time I will have a bookshelfporn-able bookshelf! (These are three different shelves. And yes, they are different colors. Woe is me.)
Click to enlarge!
This has been on and off in my head for a while now. October is just around the corner, and November soon after that. The time to decide is now: Do I set myself up for another failed NaNoWriMo?
November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. Every November, writers and aspiring writers go for a mad dash to 50,000 words–a novel–by the end of the month. That’s around 1,667 words a day. There is no entrance fee, there are no prizes. None except the exhilaration of accomplishment and a first draft of a novel.
Or not. (As in my case.)
The earliest NaNo “manuscript” I have is 2002. I haven’t joined every year, because some years I feel kinder to myself and opt not to fail again by not even starting.
So what went wrong all those times? I’m not entirely sure. Everyone loses steam at some point in November, but not everyone who loses steam fails to turn in the 50,000. At some point, I’ve just always ended up not finishing.
So, um. Out of ideas. Why is 50,000 words of substandard frenzied writing so difficult to do when I can write 2,000 word journal entries without blinking an eye? (Not really, but you know what I mean.)
Yes, I am crazy. I must be a masochistic this year, as well, because I’ve decided to give it a shot. 50,000 words in 30 days. 1,700 words a day.
What story? A completely new one. One that I’ve wanted to write for some time now, but I kept putting it off because I didn’t have enough research done. It’s semi-historical in nature, so while I know I could never make every single detail just right, I didn’t want to rush in blindly. Sadly, the research I needed was research I could only really do in the Philippines. There are likely some texts and information I can get online, but very little, and not all reliable. I can sense that most, if not all, of whatever I write for this story would be useless.
Then why even bother?
Because if I don’t bother now, when? I’ll never have the luxury of time to do enough research. And once I get into research mode, I’ll just do that–research. There won’t be enough, because it will always be vague, as histories go. So my story won’t be strictly historical. Well, maybe that’s all right. Maybe I can rectify things later on. Maybe.
But for now, it’s time to try again.
I think I’ve finally found the whimsical.nu layout that I will keep for a while yet: this one. One that I won’t want to completely redo after two weeks, one that I don’t feel like cringing at after an appropriate time has passed. Better yet, I not only still like it, but I like improving it.
Previously making blog themes for me has been “code it, put it up, stare at it for a while, want to revamp; rinse and repeat”. Once a layout was up, it was up. That was it. I’m happy that this one isn’t. That while it’s “done”, I see places where I can improve it, not because it was bad in the first place (okay, not everything is not-bad) but because it would just plain be nicer that way.
A living layout.
Since its birth:
/bow
Yes, I survived! Last night was the fist time I’ve hosted a dinner party without any help from, well, anyone else. I had three families over (my aunt’s, and two cousins’ families) for a small housewarming dinner. Ten adults, and six kids (and one baby!).
I have been a nervous wreck for most of the weekend: I was sick for two days (Wednesday and Thursday) so I did not have enough time to get my shopping done at leisure. I went to the grocery thrice yesterday. (I need a new wire trolley.)
I’ve never really cooked for other people in my life. Okay, there were a few times that I did (Christmases, that sort of thing–but my mom was always around to ask/bug/wail to about why so-and-so isn’t happening in my dish). But I’ve never cooked, not really. I can feed myself, but that’s pretty much it. But I went and tried three dishes for tonight’s dinner:
(Yes, you can tell I am a fan.)
They’re all relatively easy dishes, but I’ve never done either of them before. I’d say the runaway winner here was the meatloaf: no leftovers! I borked it up a little though, as I had “halved” the recipe but forgot about it midway and ended up putting the whole 1 cup of cheese, but then there is no such thing as too much cheese, isn’t it?
(That, and the sad fact that I can’t find a broiler pan. I compromised with a roasting pan with a roasting grill, with aluminum foil over the grill, cut with slits to let the oil drop through.)
(Oh, I also left out the white wine in the pasta. Not because I don’t have any–I actually bought white wine just for it–but because I have no corkscrews. How fail is that?!)
This certainly isn’t something I’d love to do on a regular basis (omgsotired) but the sense of achievement after is rewarding :)
Most of my comfort movies/shows are adaptations of classics, and usually Austen ones. Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of watching BBC’s Emma (2009) miniseries, starring Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller, and while a relative newcomer, it has very quickly shot up my list of comfort movies.
To be frank (pun not intended), at the start I was feeling very ambivalent about Romola’s Emma. She was quite clearly spoiled, though in a relatively good-natured way. She was very expressive, and talkative. She flopped around the house and whined. At times, I actually felt like she was channeling Julia Sawalha‘s Lydia Bennet, almost flouncing on the seating. I felt like facepalming when she’d try to wheedle her way out of things. Lots of facepalming with the Harriet/Mr. Elton situations.
NO CAEK?!1!one!!
I was also not very sure about Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. Knightley. I’ve never really thought Jeremy Northam made a very good Mr. Knightley, but I didn’t think Jonny was, either. Where I’ve heard people say Jeremy was too handsome to be Mr. Knightley, I thought Jonny didn’t look authoritative enough to be Mr. Knightley: needed a bit more stature, presence, a sense of command. He was like a secondary-character brother.
I told you so!
But you know what? All that was amazingly perfect.
Emma is a spoiled child. She’s used to getting her way, and her natural wit only pushes that along. This Emma feels a lot more emphatic than the Emmas I’ve seen before (with the exception of Cher in Clueless, but then she isn’t “Emma” now, is she?), her emotions more on the surface, but that expressiveness pays off because she’s more “accessible”. You can see all her sincerity and earnestness even when she’s coming up with a laughable idea. And as the series progresses–you actually see her maturing right there, on the screen. Her movements seem to be more graceful, her expressions more moderate, though losing none of its earnestness and vivacity.
And Mr. Knightley? Well, he is an almost-secondary-character older-brother type of person. He never figures into Emma’s life as a primary character until much later: he’s always there, always around, but never in the spotlight. But even as someone in the wings, the miniseries didn’t forget him: the transition between older brother to possible lover so smooth. You see him talking in all seriousness, in his unaffected manner, that he thinks Emma is beautiful and that he loves to look at her–and then in almost the same breath talk about her flaws. Like a brother, a father. And then much later you see the looks last longer, the dawning realization, the jealousy of Frank that is there but doesn’t make him act ungraciously.
Thwarted in everything, maybe even beer
I loved the marked, but not overdone, contrast between the young, impulsive Frank Churchill and the mature, earnest Mr. Knightley. Rupert Evans was a very believable Frank Churchill, who made us all think he really did like Emma, but whose actions later on pointed otherwise: and yet to do it with a lot of charm that you can’t help but forgive him. It doesn’t show Frank to a nice light, but I loved the scene where Frank just arrives at Donwell after encountering Jane Fairfax leaving: he is cranky, pessimistic, and looks to be quite thoroughly spoiled, but you feel the height of his distress at the words he had exchanged with Jane off-screen.
A tentative friendship
And Jane! I have to say, I loved Laura Pyper‘s Jane very much. I didn’t think so at first: I’ve always had an image of Jane in my mind that was a lot closer to Polly Walker‘s of the 1996 movie: stately, aloof, elegant. Inaccessible, except to admire from a distance. But Laura shows Jane’s feelings, her uncertainties, her fire: her firm, emphatic refusals of Mrs. Elton’s nosy ministrations, her joy at the ball, her morning walks. I loved the scene where Emma rescues Jane’s letters from Mrs. Elton’s prying, and the two share a smile: you can see how much the two could become friends, and feel a little sad that they don’t until the end.
I think however, that what completely sealed the deal for me was the ending: the pivotal moment when Everything Is Revealed. I loved how it kept much of the original dialogue, but it was very well executed that not only does it feel natural, you can really feel that these are two people who have known each other for a long time, agonizing, trying to find their way through.
Proposal scene
“You will not ask me my secret? Yes, you are wise; but I cannot be. So… I must tell you–”
“No, please don’t tell me! Take a little time to think of what you are going to say, for once said it cannot be unsaid!”
“…I will obey you.”
Emma’s expression, that agony, knowing she has hurt him with her outburst–you could almost hear her going “oh &^%$”, cursing herself roundly, wondering what in the hell she was doing, before turning back and running to him, telling him to wait.
You could hear his frustration, as he started to interrupt her that he doesn’t want to be just friends, his faraway look in the attempt to master his emotions.
These crucial moments, I feel, solidified the series for me. I’m a big fan of Pride and Prejudice and BBC’s 1995 production of it, but I think this adaptation trounced Darcy and Lizzy’s similar scene (which is probably not a very fair comparison: Darcy and Lizzy’s shining moments were mostly their verbal sparring, which is of a different quality as well).
I would really have loved to hear Mr. Knightley’s “You are silent, absolutely silent! At present I ask no more,” lines, but I suppose that never really translates very well on-screen.
(The same happened in Darcy and Lizzy’s final proposal scene: we never really hear what Lizzy said, exactly, but the BBC adaptation also supplied words. In both scenarios, it was done well; but whereas Austen said Lizzy “forced herself to speak…immediately, though not very fluently”, Emma was silent: a marked difference from her usual wit that shows how affected she is.)
As for Emma bursting into Donwell screaming that they could not marry, when I initially saw the trailer clips, I was quite shocked and dismayed, and quite ready to hate the series then. When that scene came, however, it did not jar as much as I expected. It made me cringe, but with the excellent proposal scene just moments before, it was forgivable.
The last scene with her father, and with Mr. Knightley, were both the right sort of tone to end the miniseries with. Simple and poignant, and all the more accessible to all of us, memorable and true.
And that’s what this adaptation was for me: slightly modernized in handling, but made more accessible; memorable and precious.
I realize this is like, four years late–but I found this gem a few days ago and it’s THAT good. DM of the Rings is a web comic by Shamus Young that wonders–what if Lord of the Rings was turned into a tabletop D&D game? What would the dungeon master and his players have done?
I’ve never played traditional tabletop D&D (almost want to give it a try now!) but this comic has been a hilarious ride from the first strip ’til the last (it probably helps that I do play computer RPGs). I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud from reading a web comic as much as I have with this one. There are references to pretty much any popular topic somewhere in the strip, which led to the aforementioned chuckling. Also hilarious and interesting are the commentary on each comic, either by Shamus himself or his readers.
It’s definitely worth a read: if you like LotR, or D&D/RPGs, but especially if both!
While trawling about looking for ideas on writing, I came across an interesting blog (albeit seemingly dead, and with a default WordPress theme): Reviews in Haiku. Each post is a review of something, written in haiku-form.
I’ve never been much of a haiku person, but it was a challenge I wanted to try out for myself. A link he had on the site pointed to Start Writing Haiku, which is a wonderful document filled with beautiful lines. I think I must discover this form of writing more.
That said, here is a review in haiku, for tomorrow’s review on BBC’s 2009 adaptation of Emma:
Unlikely actors–
Hot summer, lively-warm tones,
Scenes well-played: oh yes.
Stay tuned!
I’d like to share a very nifty, quick-to-whip-up piece of code I use for the book reviews I will be doing from here on out, in my Reader category: a short JavaScript snippet to hide spoilers (you can see it in action in my Mockingjay review). You see, I suck at making book reviews: I always inevitably talk about things that is best left to be discovered by a reader. So to help myself and anyone who might chance upon my reviews, a spoiler protection feature for my blog sounds just about right.
WordPress has a feature that lets you force users to click through to the post’s dedicated page: essentially, hiding anything under the “More” tag when viewing in the blog index/posts list.
This works as a quick solution: but this didn’t really feel very “bright” to me. That’s an extra click and page load, and it means that I can’t have multiple spoilery sections in a single post. I don’t exactly know why I will need multiple separate spoilery sections, but far be it from me to set limitations on my writing style!
I went and used JavaScript to hide spoilers in the page. I did so for a couple reasons:
My library of choice is YUI3, but the same should also be relatively easy to do in other libraries, or even just plain JavaScript.
The script basically retrieves any and all tags with a class name of “spoiler” and hides everything inside that by lowering the opacity to 10%. This way, the user has a tantalizing, indistinct view of just how much they’re missing out by not reading the book/watching the movie! ;)
The script also adds its own text to the entry via JavaScript, saying that there are spoilers ahead and they can click on the text to toggle visibility. It’s not an actual link, but I wanted to style it slightly like a link–but you really have full freedom as to how you’d like the spoiler toggle warning to look like.
(As always, the best place to put the code below would be at the end of your page.)
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yui.yahooapis.com/3.2.0/build/yui/yui-min.js"></script>
<script language="javascript">
YUI().use( "anim", function(Y){
Y.all('.spoiler').each(function(o, i){
var id = 'spoiler-' + i;
var spoilerToggle = '<div id="spoiler-toggle-'+i+'" class="spoiler-toggle">Warning! Spoilers ahead! Click here to toggle spoiler visibility.</div>';
Y.on( 'click', function(e){
var opacityValue = ( o.getStyle('opacity') >= 0.9 ) ? 0.1 : 1;
var anim = new Y.Anim({
node: o,
duration: 0.25,
to : { opacity: opacityValue }
});
anim.run();
}, '#spoiler-toggle-'+i );
o.insert( spoilerToggle, o );
o.setStyle('margin','20px').setStyle('opacity','0.1').setStyle('padding','10px');
});
});
</script>Without any HTML tags with the class “spoiler”, the script will not run unnecessarily, so you’re pretty free to use it for any page or post type.
To add styles specific to the spoiler toggle, you can use:
.spoiler-toggle { /* style for whole warning */ }
.spoiler-toggle span { /* style for toggle "link" */ }You can use the above code for almost any other similar purpose. You can change the element it hides by changing “.spoiler” at this line:
Y.all('.spoiler').each(function(o, i){making sure that what you put in is a valid CSS selector (i.e., #some-id .some-class element or similar). It will then apply fading in/out to the whole element.
You can also well as change the wording of your toggle, or completely change it out to a different element (an image, or what-have-you) by changing the HTML at:
var spoilerToggle = '<div id="spoiler-toggle-'+i+'" class="spoiler-toggle">Warning! Spoilers ahead! Click here to toggle spoiler visibility.</div>';making sure that you leave the outermost div with its ID intact.
Hope it’s useful, or helps you think of other ways to improve your site. Website improvement never needs to be a full-blown affair: a couple low-hanging fruit, small details here and there, makes the work worthwhile. ♥
I love fruit shakes, fruit juices, and other such drinks. It’s one thing I miss the most in the Philippines: the proliferation of fruit drink stands. You can’t walk 10 minutes in a mall without bumping into one of these things when you’re there!
Sadly, this is not true in Singapore. Oh, there are plenty fruit stands in the food courts and hawker centers, but it’s just not home.
And so, my blender is seeing a lot of action. Last weekend I bought bananas, apples, oranges, lemons and strawberries, mostly to snack on and cut up for dessert. However, what I’m using them for the most now is for making fruit juices and shakes! I have at least one a day for the moment.
It’s crazy easy to make myself a nice, worthy drink, and cleanup of the blender is pretty easy. I usually put in two different kinds of fruits, a cup or two of water or milk, and some honey. Sometimes I add in some ice cubes.
And after, I rinse off the blender body to remove most of the visible fruit/food particles and slush, then I put in about a cup or two of water, a bit of liquid soap, and blend the mixture. Since I don’t usually put sticky stuff in my drinks, this is usually enough for cleanup. Then I can use the diluted, frothy mixture to do the rest of my dish washing! :D
Here are two of my favorite drinks:
The result is a creamy banana shake that is not too banana-ey. There is no strong tomato taste, but you occasionally encounter bits and there is a slight tartness to the drink, an edge that wouldn’t have been there with just the mushy banana. It also looks pretty good! Creamy beige with a touch of pink and spots of red.
Perfect as a pick-me-up for the mornings. I squeeze the juice out of an orange and put that into the blender. As for the apple (I use a Fuji apple), I sometimes leave the skin on, when I don’t have as much time to peel it–it makes the juice look pretty nice, what with small specks of red. I just cut it into smaller pieces and take the core out. They all go into the blender.
Then a cup of water, a teaspoon of honey, and I blend away. I haven’t tried using milk, as I think the citrus and milk together just won’t suit my stomach. It’s perfect as a healthy breakfast drink though, very bright and perky.
I’m doing some more experimentation with a couple other fruits, although I admit I sometimes wonder if I’m crazy to try some combinations out. :x
A recent article on WoW.com caught my eye: would you list [World of Warcraft] experience on your resume? Previous musings on the subject and the recent hullabaloo on RealID have pushed some introspection on the subject in my head, and the article reminded me of it.
Silmarien after learning she got the job
Playing in a social capacity in World of Warcraft entails talking to people, managing people, and organizing people. Oh, you can play without ever talking to other people, but a good number of people also employ quite a number of interesting skills while in-game:
Those are only a few of the things that people pick up as they progress into the game. You have people developing and practicing everything from leadership skills, marketing and brand management, team buildup, analysis, financial acumen…you name it, somewhere in the world (…of Warcraft) a player will probably be enhancing his skills on a certain work-related (or work-enhancing) skill.
In a lot of industries and communities, being a gamer has a lot of negative connotations: this is one of the reasons why there was strong resistance to Blizzard’s initial RealID designs that required you to reveal your real full name on forum posts.
WoW players are seen as losers and no-lifers; people who sit in front of the computer and eat chips scattered all over the keyboard; people who scream, swear and throw tantrums at every little thing (link NSFW due to language); people who stay up all night and show up half-asleep and zombied out at work. With a lot of people, it won’t matter if you look very dapper in a coat and tie, that you graduated top of your class: you just get crossed out because you’re a wildcard. “Ha ha, he plays WoW, must be a loser.” *toss*
And that’s a shame. Oh, there must be “losers” in WoW, there are plenty of those in my humble reckoning. But there are losers everywhere. Some guy might play tennis but he parties all night and subsequently always shows up half-asleep and zombied out. Some guy might be your average joe, but he sits on the couch five hours a night and fifteen hours on weekends and eat chips all day. You don’t scoop out the crud by ignoring WoW players: you just might be passing up on someone who applies himself really well to the job.
I remember this one time (no, not at band camp) when a colleague and I had to interview a couple people for an opening at our company. We went through the short stack of resumes as we went along, and came across this one resume which boldly announced “World of Warcraft Guild Master” in his extra-curricular activities, along with guild size, responsibilities taken, and improvements done (like, “raised guild recruitment levels up 15%”, how cool is that?).
My friend and I both play WoW and, of course, mentioned it in the interview. Cue ten-minute animated discussion about his guild and how being a guild master was like (and possibly, uh, other things too).
You know what? We were able to shortlist only two from over a dozen resumes given to us. He was part of that short list. He was conversant, alert, he knew his languages, and his experience was solid. We could see he didn’t take himself too seriously, that he knew how to work hard and stick to his guns while not turning into a monster in the process.
I’ve already mentioned World of Warcraft in my resume, but honestly have not thought of expanding that to include actual activities within WoW: space is at a premium and I already have it relatively full. Maybe if I ever am foolish enough to start my own guild and stubborn enough to stick with it ;)
Its inclusion was a very deliberate action on my part, however: I don’t want to be in a company that would look down on me because I choose to kill Internet dragons with friends.
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