Megacon!!!!!

Megacon is this weekend. I am stoked. I love conventions!!! This will be a little different for me. I will not be costuming. I know, I know, shocking! The reality is that costuming can take anywhere from 45 minutes (simple Jedi, or Narcissa) to 2 hours (Atris) to get ready. That doesn’t include time to get out of character as well (make up removal, shower, then getting dressed up as yourself!) I have a paper due, a test due, etc. I wish I could tell you I was the person who can get those things done a week or two ahead of time but I’d be lying.

No fears! I wil have tons-o-fun. I love running around in my cool t-shirts too. Some celebs I want to meet will be there (Hello Chris Sabet!!!!) and some I want to see again (Tom Felton, I’m looking at you.) In addition to all that I have 14 students coming along! Most of the Anime Club is able to make this trip and that makes me happy. We are gonna have so much fun. Did I mention we are staying at the Peabody Orlando?

I’ll be taking my new book Oath of Office as well so I can read myself to sleep. I'll also be seeing old friends I only see at conventions (Hi Lupin! Hi Steve! Hi Maya-chan! Hi everyone else who is too many to mention!)  And missing friends who used to come but have sense moved away (I miss you Celine!!)

I’ll be tweeting and Facebooking pics, have no worries there. It’ll almost be like you guys are with me! Speaking of which, will any of you ACTUALLY be there with me? If so, find me and say hello!! 

Don't Forget To Be Awesome, and Be Excellent To Each Other, and May The Force Be With You!
DJ/ Darth (now Jedi!) Yume/Cissy/Bulma/WhateverelseYouKnowMeBy

Martian Death Flu, North Carolina, Free stuff, and Reading!

The Martian Death Flu has had me at its mercy for five solidly intense days. It feels like three weeks. I believe I am starting to recover and I hope I am correct. Christmas is SO SOON! I would hate to be ill during the festivities. Lots of OJ, Vitamin C pills, more Thera-flu than I can recall, and tons of rest have been my friends. Also, I have a loving relationship with a box of Puffs Plus with Lotion now.

Unfortunately I was sick during FINALS WEEK! I did get my results back on my Statistics and Research final and I got an 81. Not what I wished for but so much better than it could have been. I felt like death warmed over the night I took it. I’ll not complain about the B. I am still waiting on the results of my other final, and a term paper. At this point I’ll be happy with passing grades instead of my usual stressing about OMG MUST MAKE BEST GRADES EVER!

I had to cancel my trip to North Carolina because I was just too sick to drive. Also, who wants to purposefully pass the Martian Death Flu to other people? Not me. So I have to go at another time. I will though. Nothing will stop me indefinitely.

In other non sicky news, I got chosen to sample some products and review them for this company. Then a few days later I got another offer from a different company to do the same. I feel really excited about that. My beauty blogging is paying off already! I need to do more vlogs also. I’ll review stuff in vlog format in addition to blogging. I don’t have an awesome camera though. I have horrible lighting too. Horrible. I’ll work on it though. Nobody starts at the top, right?

In other other non sicky news I met my Goodreads challenge for 2011!! I am super happy about that. Granted it wasn’t a dramatically difficult challenge, but considering I work full time and go to school full time and am a single parent, I think a book a month is a reasonable challenge. I am setting myself up for 13 books next year since I have to take one semester off due to financial aid thingees. Should I go for 14?!?! 

Nerd vs Geek – an internal conflict

The first thing I am is a writer. Basically it is write or die for me. Sometimes even interoffice memos become colored in floral adjectives and seasoned with spicy verbs.

Normally this pays off when I am trying to write a paper for college. The ability to bend words to my will can help me express knowledge of the material in ways that a rote memorization test simply can’t. If a class requires writing, I can pass it, and usually pass it well. (Unlike math which sucks my very will to live!) My GPA (3.45 currently) is very important to me so I work hard at college, which I attend full time while also working full time and being a single mom. Why yes, I am a fan of torture, thanks for asking!

Another talent/curse is that I can relate anything in the world to something geeky. I can find a way to make your spilled coffee relate to something Yoda said, or something Link fought in the Ocerena of time, or something Spock found on an away mission, or something Dumbledore told Harry in secret, etc etc etc.

What happens at times, though, is that my nerd self starts getting over run by my geek self. Last week I struggled hard. I even went public on Twitter and Facebook with my struggle. One of my classes this semester is Building a Sustainable Society – aka an environmental course. The topic at hand was a term paper on wildernesses that remain and how do we feel about their protection and destruction. Then we had to discuss any wilderness areas around us.

My first thought  (literally) was “Chocobo Forest!” At first I laughed at myself in a way of appreciation for my geeky humor. Then I started on a serious project. But the Chocobo Forest wouldn’t leave my brain. That’s when I hit the social networks. I really thought my interwebz people would remind my nerd side to take charge. I was so wrong. They fed the geek side. By the way, thanks for all the “Screw the grades, go for the geeky!” comments. You guys are the best enablers a girl ever had.  The struggle internally grew. Would my teacher appreciate some fictional world from Final Fantasy? What if I also included the Forest of Endor, or the Hundred Acre Wood, maybe the Forbidden Forest?? The possibilities were endless!

So was the risk of a B. Or worse.

In the end I stayed true to nerd and gave my very best and serious effort. (It paid off, I got a perfect 100% score.) Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have still gotten a good grade if I included fictional places in a serious effort to explain why forests are needed.

I can’t help but wonder if my other nerdy/geeky friends find this conflict inside themselves as well. If so – what do you guys do about it? Which side wins?  

Buddha

My son is a self-proclaimed Buddhist. He declared this somewhere around the age of 10.

The University I am currently attending is a private University. It is also a Catholic university. I am not Catholic. (I’m not anything really. I’m a potpourri of many things.) We are required to take a religion course regardless of our major. Instead of all the Catholic classes I chose Eastern religions.

This class was as fun and enlightening as I imagined it would be. I loved so much about the course. But I have to be honest; it was also one of the harder courses I have taken. I am pulling an 83 right now. I am floored that I am making such a terrible B in the class. My final exam will make me or break me. If I get a C I will actually cry. A B makes me sad but not devastated. A B is really a fine grade all things considered. Still, I was so sure I would do better.

All in all I learned a lot and really feel more enlightened to so many things. A lot of the ways I had always felt about things are apparently not so isolated and weird – they actually mean something in other religions. It is a nice feeling.

Also, it helps me with Trey’s Buddhist life. He knew some basics when he declared this a year ago (two years ago almost?) but now I was able to say things like “Hey, did you know blah blah blah?” and we can talk about it. I even bought him a Buddhist statue. It is a healing Buddha (some of you know how disabling his allergies can be). (Side note:  I also bought him Tibetan healing beads made of yak bone – he said that’s as manly as a bracelet can be. Yak bone! And it looks really good on his wrist.)

I’ve always said my son was an old soul. He talks a lot and he is in so many ways a very typical 11 year old boy who is kicking in the door of being a 12 year old boy. But also, Trey is a wise soul. He has more patience (in some areas) than adults I know. His wisdom of friendship and life is often beyond my own understanding. Maybe he was a Buddhist in a previous life. (I have always believed in those, it just makes sense to me.)

What is the point of this post? A little whining about my grades (which I totally want to blame on a hardcore teacher {because he is insanely hard!}, but I know as a student it is ultimately my own actions that make the grades), an expression of my gladness to have learned that others do think the way I do, and also just to say that I am glad to understand this part of my son a little more. Overall, I think I just needed to make the end of that class something final. Working full time and going to University full time and trying to run a family as a single mom is a lot of damn work. A lot. Sometimes i just need a ritual ending. Maybe the end of each semester should result in a reflective post.

This is not a reflective post I suppose. It’s a bit self-indulgent to be relevant to anyone else. Still, it felt good to get these things written down. 

On my way to the BA!

With the AA now behind me (thank you math god!) and the BA looking me dead in the face, I have to stay organized. I was generally a good student anyhow so this is not a new proclamation or anything, but with this semester I am undertaking a full course load on top of working a 40 hour workweek (and the kids and general life stuff). I cannot risk assignments slipping up on me. I spent a good portion of my morning searching for an ideal student academic planner. I have realized there really isn’t one. I have a planner on my desk I never used for work so I scooped it up to use for school.

The classes are interesting and I am enjoying them so far (day 3!) but they are extremely busy classes. Every single day I have something due. I may be able to take Sundays off, maybe. The structure of my university (so excited to be in a real university!) is 8 week courses instead of the traditional 16 weeks. So I have half the time to do just as much work. I like this process actually. Being busy keeps me focused. With no time to procrastinate then I can’t find a way to do so.

Two classes at a time, 8 weeks each. Then the very next day I start the next 8 weeks for the next two classes. This makes 12 credit hours in 16 weeks which is standard academic normality. At this rate (fall and spring) I will graduate spring of 2013. However, I am not a student who takes summers off unless it is because of financial reasons (financial aid can be tricky about summers). If I can get my courses covered financially I will go during the summers too and that will dramatically change my graduation date. I’ll know more on this later.

Side note: I wish I was sharing all this with Linda. I really wish her boyfriend hadn’t kicked me out of her life. I’m learning to live without her, but I miss her.