My own niche

Well, back to school is always crazy busy, but I think I'm settling into a schedule (not necessarily a *sleep* schedule, mind you...) and now I'm noticing that I've completely neglected not just LJ but every other online forum-type-thing I participate in. I've been MIA. I'm not sure I have time to change that (or want to change that), but I don't like dropping off the face of the earth permanently. So, I'll try to do something about that...eventually.

But I have been writing fanfic. So, "Knight of Zero" will be finished in two more installments (written, but not typed/edited), and the stand-alone Tables Turned, featuring Kallen and Suzaku, set during R2. There is the obligatory multichapter backstory (it seems that's all I write sometimes!), but I will not start posting that til it's finished. Really. So that is on the back burner, and I intend to set aside Code Geass and go back to some of my other fandoms where I've left loose ends dangling. In particular, I want to finish up with my Zack Addy story, because I'm close to the end of it. I don't have the rest of that planned, though. And I have two chapters of my Silmarillion epic that I wrote but just don't like and maybe even lost, so I don't know what to do with. Or maybe I'll just write a humorous mega-crossover that has been hanging out in the back of my head for ages. If I do that, I'll likely only post it here ;).


And a happy birthday to dawn_felagund and sevlow! Two authors whose work I admire, certainly. I hope you have a great day, ladies!!

What Code Geass Character Are You?
Hosted By theOtaku.com: Anime

I don't do these quizzes very often, but I did this one out of curiosity. I am not nearly so devious as him, have no mind for strategy, and am NOT a complete ham. Oh, and I'm not trying to take over the world or start a world war, either. And I love my dad.

But I do love my younger siblings and I claimed to be intelligent. And even though I never told the quiz so, I am stubborn.

Anyway, I think that putting people in boxes, whether for something like this or for something more sober like the Myers-Briggs or Enneagram misses large chunks of who they are by focusing on the more cliche aspects of their personality.

Yes, I know, I'm a complete goof; I'm complaining about flunking a personality test. Maybe I wouldn't be so bitter if I didn't always flunk them. I've taken the Myers-Brigg (for real, not on the internet) twice...and gotten different results. Oh well. I will just continue to be the world's most reclusive extrovert. And it shouldn't be any big revelation that labels are useful, if limiting. (And yes, a little tweaking got this quiz to tell me I was Suzaku. Or Jeremiah. Apparently, my personality is masculine even when I select the really girly flower choices!)

Oh, and as for Code Geass? I'm finding I like it on a lot of levels, not least of which is the redemptive streak towards the end. Lelouch makes it quite clear in the very first episode that he's this close to going off the deep end. He is, while we're pigeon-holing people, a Magnificent Bastard. But it also has very pretty music.:)

Some examples: Ending one, with lyrics (and just the pictures)
Their national anthem: All Hail Britannia What, you mean these aren't the good guys? ;) But it's rousing...like the Imperial March. And it's in English!
The Epilogue is in Japanese, though...so guess how the war ends? ;)
And this is what happens when you let CLAMP do your character/costume designs: R2 ending 2

And even the background music is great. Beautiful Emperor...er, Pirates?
Innocent Days They're prepping for the final battle here, but it just sounds so...hopeful, doesn't it?
I Became a Bird A lullaby in a locket
The Master or, Lelouch pwns the world in his crowning moment of awesome :) All Hail Lelouch!

I should add that rather than addressing all those not-quite-finished fanfics I've left dangling about, I started another. I know, I'm hopeless. But I'll finish this one, and then get back to some of the others. Really.

New fic: Knight of Zero
Spoilers for everything, as a heads up.

Hmmm, I've been busy traveling. First stop, AnimeNEXT in NJ. I had to miss Otakon again, so it was great to get to this con. I met some wonderful people there and had a blast. Short version: Had fun, watched some Japanese schoolgirl anime, danced with Alucard, and spent more money than I wanted to. ( Long version )

Next up: walking 150 miles through New England on a pilgrimage of sorts with the Missionaries of the Eucharist. Short version - Vermont is beautiful, sleeping on floors can be quite comfortable, and joining a Fellowship for a quest is always a ton of fun. ( What we actually did )

Work sent me to Chicago for a week. I got to meet up with my uncle briefly. It was good, but I'm glad it was a one time thing. Travelling for work isn't nearly as fun as travelling for pleasure, even if the expenses are covered. At least I got to meet some really great people.

I also made it down to North Carolina to visit my sister. Let me just say that when you go to a beach on a military base, the air traffic is much cooler than the planes that fly by with advertizing banners in Ocean City. When normal people go to the beach, they relax - lay out in the sun, play in the waves, maybe read a book. When I go to the beach, my goal is to build a giant sandcastle. Really, more of a ( sand fortress )

But now that my job has started up for real, I have a shorter leash. I won't get to travel as much, but I do have a new laptop. My own. My preciousss. My birthday present. :) Oh, speaking of birthday presents, the new chapter of FMA came out, and I find that I have about 12 episodes of the new anime to catch up on - very cool! I watched the anime of the ( Count of Monte Cristo )


...and all of this is just to say, I haven't been reading LJ at all. So, if something awesome has been going on, I'm afraid I completely missed it. But comment, and I'll go read back entries in other people's journals. Oh, and no fanfic progress either. Not likely to happen soon. I should re-emerge in mid-September, once I get into the swing of things at work. Hope everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere had a great summer!

( Tribute to Rich Mullins )

So what is this post all about? Basically, I took a walk today and I can smell the honeysuckle from my room and I played with maple helicopters – I love spring! Even if it's been raining and miserable for a week straight, today was beautiful. There's a nice cool breeze this evening. And…I stumbled across a Rich Mullins song I didn’t even know about not too long ago, and wanted to share it with you. He never recorded it in a studio, but this live performance was recorded shortly before his death. It is on the Jesus Record. Enjoy!

The song "Homeless Man" starts at 3:49 on this video, and goes til 6:31. It's about Jesus, but a side of Him that St. Francis and Rich Mullins both saw, while I often forget.



Enjoy! You can just skip over the first part - I can't find a copy of the song alone.

Well, Costume Con was ridiculously local for me this year, so I went for the day. Had a blast! The masquerade was fantasy/sci-fi tonight, and it was....wow. Just, wow. There was some funny stuff (like, Santa the Grey? Not-quite-Godzilla?), and some mind-blowing costumes - a butterfly (who won the 'kitchen sink' award for having *everything* in her costume, including lights and amazing fluttering wings). The two groups that did the best job were both Steampunk, though there was a family who did George R. R. Martin who got a bunch of awards. Legolas+Eowyn steampunk was great - it's too soon for pictures yet, but if I find any online, I'll try to come back and link them here. One thing that was cool about this was that original designs are kind of...encouraged. It's not strictly a "recreate a movie/anime character" thing.

I wore my Son of Fëanor costume, because it was the only thing I had I wouldn't be embarrased to wear around such serious costumers - at least I did the chainmail myself. I didn't do anything to fix it up for this; just took it out of the bag and put it on this morning. Ah well; I was there to see, not to be seen. Compared to that company...I can't sew!

One thing that was great about this con was that it was so easy to meet new people. I mean, at cons, I've never had a problem saying hi to people, but this time it was okay to hang out with people or start chatting about how they made their outfits. I saw a BloodSeras and a Pip (not together), so that was cool [Hellsing cosplay]. I got to tell people that I was from the Silmarillion, and they knew what I was talking about :). Even at ALEP, no one really knew who I was, so that was impressive! Oh, and I knew the Alphonse wasn't an Ed.

The experience was certainly inspiring. I hope to get a costume finished before AnimeNEXT, and maybe think about LanFan for Otakon - finally, a girl with automail! But...the real costume idea that has been rattling around inside my head is an ent. I know I can do them better than the Musical did. Even though I'm only 5'3" and I've never done anything like that type of construction. I saw a felted wool hat today that would have been perfect - pillbox shape, with bracket fungi :) Obviously, I have to do some sort of stump over my head, so this just gave me ideas how to flesh that out - all I'd thought of were little twigs. I have access to as much sycamore bark as I want, so, that might work its way into this somehow. I was always disappoint that sycamores weren't really part of Middle Earth, anyway.

Granted, I've been thinking of this costume for over 2 years. So, we'll see if it ever makes it to the paper planning stage, let alone the "I'm actually building it" stage. Storage would be a major issue.

Edit: Pictures!

brief overview of con
a smattering of different costumes
pretty dresses
detail on a couple of anime costumes
historic costumes
more awesome costumes

So...if you are at all involved in FMA fandom, you know they've decided to remake the anime based on the storyline of the manga. And if not...now you do :)

To see the first two episodes (perfectly legally) in Japanese with English subtitles, go here: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Obviously, no English dubs yet, but I imagine that's only a matter of time. You might have to be a little patient with the buffering.

In general, I'm very excited about this project, because I like some of the manga-based storylines that never found their way into the original anime (mostly cause the manga wasn't written yet!) I'm not sure how the manga is going to end, but I'd like to see this "alternative ending" played out on screen. I also look forward to different story arcs for Mustang, Winry and Scar. And let's face it - Hughes! Nuff said. I have some reservations whether this group can pull off the...necessary gravity...but we'll see.

( My rambling review thus far (with spoilers for everything that I could possibly spoil) )

Fandom is so much fun! And I'll get a new episode every Thursday, unlike the manga, where a new chapter comes every month. Much fun!

Speaking of new episodes every Thursday...new fandom for me. The TV show "Bones" - great humor, quirky personalities, interesting character arcs, clever writing, (mostly) decent science...it's a good mix. You can also watch recent episodes of that online perfectly legally, at Fox's site or Hulu (in the US). I watched tonight and last night's episodes with my Mom, which was an interesting experience. I thought she'd be completely offended by the Death Metal show (since it involved crucifying a blood-eagled skeleton...), but it was the Bridezilla episode with all the sexual innuendo that she found harder to stomach. As she put it, they used to not say things like that on TV when she was younger...and they certainly didn't start tearing off their clothes for office sex on camera! I guess the pendulum has swung back towards the racier stuff of the 20's, but it is true that most TV shows are mostly about sex...most of the time :). But I like Bones in spite of that :P. Booth's "crappy sex" speech in 'Death in the Saddle' more than makes up for most of that. Oh, and the brief shot of the guy with the buzz cut staring at a bone? That would be Zack. He is my favorite character, but he's not on the show any more. Very sad. So I have to write depressing fanfiction explaining his absense: example. I'll probably go crazy if I keep it up, but at least it's fun! See: Zack and Hodgins' antics in the lab or King of the Lab Oh, and if you're curious? That actor is older than me. Even though he looks, like, 18, he was never under 30 while filming this show....

I must say that I don't like many TV shows. The only ones I was really a fan of were Star Trek: The Next Generation and CSI (the original Vegas one). So this is only the third one I can add to the list (I'm not counting kids shows I liked.)



Oh, and Happy Easter! He is risen, he is risen indeed! And this Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday, so that's my sister's favorite feast day of the year. (You know how I get into fandom? That's how she is about St. Faustina. Only...more hardcore. Much, much more hardcore....) To be fair, Divine Mercy is an awesome thing to get into :)

Happy Shrove Tuesday! (I like that archaic verb for some reason...shrive, shrove, have/has/had shriven....)



One of my students in homeroom asked me whether I was excited for Lent. I said it wasn't the sort of thing one gets excited about (yay Lent?), but at the same time, I am looking forward to making some changes in my lifestyle, and I intend to use Lent to do that. She is going to read the Bible each day, give up texting (which she doesn't do much of, apparently), and meatless Fridays.

I haven't finalized my choices, but if I put them on here, I will feel more accountable. I am giving up sweets - chocolate, cookies, etc. I have a terrible sweet tooth, so that is difficult for me. I am going to try to buy more fruit to get me through that ;). I am also going to walk a little bit each day. I know Lent isn't about dieting/exercising, but in my case, I am *extremely* lazy, so forcing myself to get out of my house and work up a sweat is a good idea. I want to pick some spiritual reading (likely the psalms), but I haven't made up my mind yet. I might read the psalms this week and then mix other things in as I go. Those are easy, becuase they just effect me. But what I really want to do is some other stuff - do things for my parents, etc. That is always....well, trickier. So, I'm trying to put it at one 'outreach' type of thing each week, depending on opportunities. Because I really don't want Lent to be all about me, even if I do need to improve some of my discipline and prayer habits. Oh, right - daily mass needs to make an appearance in here somewhere. Not necessarily every day, but I should at least try to get to some of them during Lent.

So, now that I think about it, I am kinda sorta looking forward to Lent starting. But only if I hide the chocolate tonight.....

I've been having a serial killer weekend. Watched Red Dragon - I'm sure I've seen parts of it before, but it was the first time I sat down to watch it. Alone, on my laptop in my bedroom, with the lights out, from midnight til 2 AM.

Maybe not one of the wisest things I've ever done.... Hannibal Lecter gets in your head. He's creepy that way. His 'charm' is always shocking, because of that undercurrent that is anything but polite.

The next day I watched the commentary. In the daylight. Read Ed Norton's biography on Wikipedia. I remembered him from Fight Club, but had forgotten it was him in American History X. He grew up in Columbia, Maryland, a planned community built by his grandfather. I recognized the grandfather's last name; big construction company.

( Me rambling about the story (with spoilers, obviously) )

But all of this is just to say....new fanfic!

Bad News - the end of Silence of the Lambs from Will Graham's point of view. Not happy - it's more like watching a tsunami come in...from the beach.

Happy New Year! I hope 2009 is off to a great start and you are enjoying yourselves. I spent New Year's Eve with my sister (and adorable baby niece ;)) at their new home in North Carolina, helping her make curtains.

From smor:
SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 85 films, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, and post in your journal. Then, put x's next to the films you've seen, add them up, change the header adding your number, and click post at the bottom. Have fun.

I did not include movies I caught part of on TV, so I have seen some scenes from movies that I did not select.
( List of Movies )

The White Council Awards

RP-lite, messageboard craziness. It was great fun, the posting was fast and furious, and I got to participate by presenting two awards.

Oh, and Numenor sank back into the sea, nearly drowning us all, and I have to figure out how to get the Sons of Fëanor back to Mandos.

But 'Lessons from the Mountain' won an award! It's a modest award, because it was only up against one other piece of writing - and the other was a short, original piece (not fanfic) so it really was apples and oranges. But I still won!



The story keeps winning things...maybe I should actually finish writing it one of these days....


Now to cook up some fish for dinner before it goes bad, and maybe actually get some things done this weekend. Important things, like making cookies ;). Or, okay, writing AP chem tests....

meme from redsnake05:

Rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature (not sexy)
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed you will ask them 5 questions.

Warning - I ask lousy questions when the subject is something other than high school chemistry. You have been warned.

( my questions )

And...a MEFA update.

It was very cool to be nominated this year. I've never participated in a contest like this before, and I probably should have reviewed more than just a couple of stories. Oops. But it was fun.

See all winners: HERE



(Click the banner to read my story)

You'll note the "Incomplete" tag; there are still two chapters left, but they are (mostly) written, and when I get them all put together to my satisfaction, I will send them off to my beta. Lessons to be learned: never write Fëanor; just ignore the elf altogether. Do not try to introduce new characters/ideas in the final chapter. It will feel too forced/rushed. But other than that, things are going swimmingly. Um, yeah. I suppose it is a...hopeful...ending, which is the note it should end on, but I am still not liking it very much. Maedhros' father ruins everything. *glowers at Fëanor ineffectively*

Fun Tolkien quote of the day: "All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know." ~ Tree and Leaf

Here is Last year's post of Christmas music. I know it's a bit early, yet; Advent just started.

So this year, I am just offering the many variations of "The Carol of the Bells"


Christmas Eve Sarejevo by Trans Siberian Orchestra

piano arrangement by George Winston

choral performance by John Williams (Home Alone soundtrack)

lyrics (and fiddle) from Celtic Woman

a capella by an Italian gospel choir - Voices of Heaven

a capella by Straight No Chaser out of Indiana (if you have not seen their '12 Days of Christmas' video, it is worth watching! ~ very funny :))

one person doing all the parts.

...and ending with chickens. Yes, chickens.


Please feel free to share your favorite Christmas music with me! :)

Generally, I try not to compartmentalize my life. Who I am at home is who I am at work is who I am when I'm just going out and about, spending time with friends, etc.

A friend noticed this in first grade. She saw that I was crazy in school, and wondered, my goodness, what must she be like at home?!...and promised herself never to invite me over to play. In third grade, she forgot about that, and invited me over anyway, and we became great friends...but only because she saw that I was no more crazy at her house than I was in school ;). The afternoon we spent throwing toys down the laundry shoot was all her, really...

But as I've gotten older, this is harder to maintain.

( MithLuin )

My attempt at contemplation. Clearly, weird things go on inside my head. :) I have never had a problem with things coming back to haunt me online, and only once have I had that problem in real life. But in that case, I went 2 states away and complained to a close family member, so it's not really my fault it got back to my boss. I didn't like that job anyway, hence the complaining ;).

What should I be doing? Grading papers. Lots of them. A huge stack, in fact. But I've been diligently avoiding that all weekend, so *somehow* it's going to magically get done between noon and midnight tomorrow. Not sure how that works...

In the meantime...

visited 32 states (64%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

But what fun is the map without ( the story? )

Summary:

Lived in: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware

Multiple Visits: New York, Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, Maine, Ohio

Single Visit: Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Mississippi, Alabama, Iowa

Drive-by: Vermont, Indiana

It's been ages since I've updated my lj; start-of-school does that to me. So, I've sorta dropped off the face of the earth in fandom; haven't posted (or read) any fanfic lately or visited many of my sites.

But hopefully I'll get into a bit of a rhythm with work, and have a little more time for writing soon. You know, after I grade that stack of papers....hmmmm.

But there's reason to stick around. The most recent FMA chapter (88) had its scanlation posted today, and the final (!) chapter of Hellsing is currently in translation, due to be posted any day now (no, I didn't look at the raws). FMA is building to a climax, so the last few chapters have brought back characters I'm interested in. In particular...I wanted to see someone for a costume idea, so I'm pleased.

I went to A Long Expected Party. It was *AWESOME* There really are no words to describe it, and the pictures don't really capture the experience, either. Basically, we went to the Shire and lived in Middle Earth for a few days, having lots of geeky fun and celebrating Bilbo's 111th birthday.

( ALEP )

"And now to bed, and now to bed!" as Pippin said. Speaking of...he had to be one of the coolest people I met there, and I really hope to meet him again some day.

Oh, how I wish I were in Sydney right now!



True, I'd be cold and hungry and sleep-deprived, but still, it'd be awesome to experience WYD again. It's so amazing to be part of a crowd of hundreds of thousands of young people decending upon a city and taking it over for the week. In Köln, everywhere you went, there were people singing, and a spirit of celebration. You see flags from all over the world - Iraq and Nepal stood out to me then, and this year I spotted China and Lebannon. You get mashed in a crowd of Italians. You hear all different languages. It's just...amazing.

I love the fact that the Church is universal. I thought it was awesome to meet people from everywhere - and then celebrate mass with them. It was fun to sing praise and worship songs in German when I knew the originals in English. It was like being part of a huge refugee camp [at one point, they were throwing loaves of bread out of the back of a truck, and I did have to visit the makeshift hospital tent], but without the fear or desperation (which I suppose means it was nothing like that at all). It was wonderful to watch my sister strike up a conversation with a Brazilian man, and when they discovered they'd both studied in Paris, switch to French as the most comfortable common language between them. It was equally amazing to walk into a church and have my other sister turn around to greet us - even though she was with a different pilgrimage group and we had no idea how to get in contact with her that week. It was just - an overall wonderful experience. (Besides, I got to meet truehobbit)

I watched WYD 2002 in Toronto on TV, and I'm watching this one on TV, too. It'd be wonderful to be there, but I can hope for next time. After all, I *did* get to see the pope this year - he was kind enough to visit me ;). He's an amazing man, and you can tell he is just so thrilled and happy to be there. And it never hurts to be reminded to seek out the good, the true and the beautiful in life.

At least part of me is disappointed that I didn't take this opportunity to visit Australia and New Zealand (or even my cousins in Hawaii), but I hope that this will spur me on to take an awesome trip of some sort next summer - maybe Ghana ;). And there's always the next WYD...rumor has it that might be Spain, but I'll know for sure Sat. night (my time).

Official WYD webpage

The Pope's addresses, from the Vatican's webpage (They'll go up after he gives them ;))

Addresses
EWTN TV coverage

What Hellsing Character Are You?

Thoughts on Hellsing: I like the manga better than either of the animes. I have serious reservations about it, but would like to see how the story ends. It is gory, and somewhat crude, and I know I wouldn't want to meet the man who writes it (in a dark alley or otherwise), but overall I like the characters (Integra Hellsing, Seras Victoria, and of course Alucard the charismatic and intriguing vampire.) The villification of the Vatican is never something I like, but practically inevitable in such stories. At least the characters are handled with some finesse, this time around - none of the fanatics are simply fanatics.

Ah, right, so this is where I admit to finding a new anime/manga and going on a bit of a binge. A free one, of course, because it's all available online. So, I spent most of last night awake reading decent quality scanlations, and most of today being asleep and dreaming strange dreams, because really, you can't read about vampires in the daylight...it just doesn't work ;). The story is very nearly over, so I'm glad I haven't been following it since 1997 or whenever it started. That would be a long wait, and the build-up towards the final battle would have seemed interminable.

I'm not a fan of vampire/werewolf/zombie stories, and I don't like horror. So, I didn't really expect to like this very much at all. But I do like questions about what it means to be alive or to be human, and so if that is the vehicle for exploring the meaning of life and death, I'm okay with it. But I do just skim through a lot of the battles, which consist mainly of cool posturing and maniacal laughter.

I have been doing so much travelling this month! Only some of it was planned in advance, so it caught me by surprise, a bit. I was in school til June 9th, so of course the beginning of June was full of crazy end-of-school-year business. Once I got that finished, I completely shut that part of my brain down as if it never happened, so by the end of the week (only the 13th!) I felt as though it had been *ages* since I'd been in school. Kinda scary how that works. Of course, in that week, I managed to find a place to live for next year, so I was pretty busy.

( Accounts of my travels )

Tomorrow, I get the key to the new place and move in. So, it's been a really busy month! My next project involves making my niece's baptismal gown, so I'll have to learn how to do smocking. I'm a bit nervous, but I've bought the fabric and cut out the pattern, so now it's just a matter of doing it in the next 3 weeks. My mom's making the bonnet, so hopefully she can help me if I get stuck, though she's never done any smocking before either ;).

Probably more than you wanted to know about my life recently, but meh. Move in is going to be crazy and drag out for a couple of weeks, most likely (I do not currently, for instance, own a bed), but hopefully I'll have *some* down time to get other stuff done.

Well, not really. Being a separate species, they do not have the same dialect. They tend to speak in regular English, just with outrageous accents.



Why is it a stealth baby? Because Dad is in the Marines, of course! I thought (for dad's sake) that baby should have something that was not pink. Hence the camo baby blanket ;)


( Pics with Captions )

Oh, and in case anyone is curious? Being an aunt is the BEST!

"Mommy, Aunt Mith is teaching me weird things!" ~ Dad calls into next room. The parents left her with us for about an hour or so while they went to church; I think that was their first break where neither of them was with the baby. So, parenting stuff is hard work!



Oh, and for those urging me to check up on the diploma - the college mailed me a letter saying I graduated, so I'm good. All I have to do is go pick it up (and check with the Business Office to make sure I'm all paid up). So that's done, finally. I'm doing continuing ed stuff this summer, but since it's non-degree based, I can deal with it better. No hoops to jump through!

I never had dreams. You know how some people have always wanted to visit Ireland or climb Mount Everest or become fluent in Welsh? Or just get married and have kids and live in a cabin in the woods somewhere. Or whatever. I never had any of that. There's nowhere in particular I want to live, no one I want to spend my life with, and nothing I'm really hell bent on doing. Mostly, I don't set goals, I just do stuff and live my life, and let it fall into place...or not. I know this is an odd way of doing things, but for me, it just *is*. When I was younger, this was not really apparent, because what you do next is usually just "go back to school in Sept." ;) Now that I'm older, I have to be careful to make sure this doesn't mean I don't do things. It's okay to be passive, but not stagnant.

But one dream did creep up on me and take me unawares. ( Story of a Dream )

I'm not actively doing much to pursue this dream. I don't know anyone in Africa. So, it might look like it has no connection to reality at all. But this dream is, somehow, behind the fact that I'm a teacher and the fact that I'm single. It's part of the impetus for me to move out on my own. So, it somehow has had a profound impact on my life decisions. I am secretly hoping it comes true some day, and have been quietly laying the groundwork for years, even before I knew what I was doing. The reason I mention it now is because the Frontiers of Justice people sent me an e-mail today saying there is a 'strong possibility' they'd be returning to Ghana next summer, and that I should look into the application process in the fall. So, we'll see. That seems to be an obvious next step, even though it's still not the actual real dream.