The Sarcastic Pat on the Back

Ah, yes, it's the I-should-be-studying-but-PROCRASTINATION time of the year. Last exam coming up next Wednesday.

My Camp NaNo journey has been a complete failure so far. I've written less than 2k in three days. Turns out pantsing is just not for me. I'm an obsessive planner, and I should have known better than to suppress the urge. Yeah, sure, studying got in the way of planning, but since I didn't really study at all and chose to procrastinate instead (and hence should REALLY be getting to it now) it wasn't a good excuse. So now, since I am determined not to give up, I will have to plan a whole novel in a matter of days once my exam is over. And then I will have to write about 3k a day to finish in time.

And I have myself to blame for that. I think I deserve a sarcastic pat on the back.

The Taxes

Blog post. Haven't done this in a while.

I should really be doing my taxes right now. I should have just done them in January and move on. But no, I always leave things to the last minute. Welcome to the life of a professional procrastinator. Ooh, alliteration!

Watched The Fellowship of the Ring with my dad yesterday. Which was weird. I basically know those movies by heart, and I love them to death, and then my dad kept pointing out things like, "Okay, if those woods are dangerous, why do they have to go through there? Why not just take another path?" And I had to come to the realization that fate is a really neat way to drive your plot. It's just because they have to. It's where they're supposed to go. It's what is supposed to happen. Which is, admittedly, very bad reasoning.

Going to spend two days with extended family. I don't know who exactly is going to come, but probably loads of old people. Friends and relatives of my grandparents. Shame I have hardly any cousins actually in my age range. I'm sort of looking forwards to it, anyway. But sort of not, too. That was a very strange not-sentence.

My excitement for Camp NaNo has sort of drained again. I just really want my stupid exam to be over and be able to jump up and down and squeal because it's SUMMER and SUMMER is AWESOME. And also, start writing my novel and see where it takes me.

Also started watching the TV show Girls, and I wonder if I'm gonna end up like Hannah. Unemployed, broke, and with dreams too big for me. Because let's face it, studying English is just not gonna buy you a job. It's a pretty useless degree. That is pretty, and degree-y, and useless. And the word degree-y totally doesn't work.

Ah, yes, the joys of being a wanna-be writer, who enjoys thoughts and coffee and books and puns and invented words. I'm basically programmed to be a faliure in our efficient, capitalistic, progress-oriented society. Except maybe that I'm furthering the economy with my coffee addiction.

The Bookish Life Ambitions

I want to read more books. I love books. I also want to work in a book shop at one point in my life. It would be awesome if I got a job at the local English book shop.

Still trying to decide which subjects I should study. Planning on going to the career advice centre (wildly invented a term there for what we call "Berufsberatung" in German) this week or next week. Probably next week.

I'm almost done with reading the parts of the Odyssey I have to read for my upcoming exam. It seems to be a book mainly about humans doing what they're told to do by the Gods, and eating lots of meat and drinking "the sweet wine". As if wine is sweet. I am slightly confused by that. But as far as "school books" go, I am actually rather enjoying it.

I set myself the goal of reading 30 books until the end of the year. Which should be managable. I am currently in the process of reading three books, two of them were recommended to me, the third one is the sequel to a YA novel I have previously read. I have to say that I forgot most of what happened in the first book, but I remember that I practically devoured it, so it must have been good.

I am just procrastinating here. I realize that I haven't actually got anything interesting to say today.

"Even if you can't see the light of day doesn't mean it's not bright outside." That's a line I intend to make into the chorus of a song. It just popped into my head while working the other day. I work in a place with absolutely no daylight, and every time I come out of the building in the evening I am slightly surprised that the sky is still there. Also, sometimes, I go in and the sun is shining, and eight hours later I come out and there's a whole lot of apocalyptic rain.

...yeah, I really wanted to use the word "apocalyptic" in this post. Is it weird that "apocalyptic" reminds me of "eucalyptus"?

The Book of Thoughts

Today is Sunday, and I feel like I should post something.

I have recently bought an adorable little notebook (it's green!) that I will henceforth refer to as the Book of Thoughts. I intend to write random thoughts that strike me as particularly clever at the moment in there, so it will be a collection of my own rubbish wisdom about life, quotes I like, and just realizations I've had and I think are worth writing down.

I also have a (or rather many) book of ideas, in which I write story ideas. I don't really have a diary anymore, but I used to have one in my early teen years. I wonder sometimes if I will regret it later in life that I didn't keep a diary because memories tend to get lost, and a diary is one way of keeping them... but I never was very good at writing about my life. It all just seemed so insignificant. No, scratch that, I should say it all seems so insignificant, present tense.

And anyway, I've got a blog now, blogs are cool. (Not what I meant to say, but couldn't help it.) I've got a blog now, which is sort of like a diary. Although admittedly, I don't really post that much about my life here... because it is all BORING INSIGNIFICANCE.

*cries tears of unimportance*

Not really. I'm rather content with my life. And I'll leave you on that cheerful note.

The Post-Exam Post (Oh yeah, I just did that.)

So now that exam craziness is (albeit temporarily) over, I think I should do something productive. If I don't give myself a clear task, I'll just waste away in front of my laptop and watch youtube videos all day, while occasionally checking on twitter and concluding everything with an epically lame blog post. Yeah, I'm just lazy like that. And very fond of doing nothing all day, thank you very much.

So, what is it that I could fit into my everyday life every day? I have two ideas, and I think I'm just gonna do both. I have decided that after a very long break (never got past my post Harry Potter depression... not really) I will take up reading again. I do want to start studying English literature in the fall, so I'd better be prepared, or something.

Also, writing a book has always been one of my goals in life. And I've got tons of ideas (well, no, that was an exaggeration, but I do have a few ideas) but I never really get them down on paper due to overthinking/underplanning. So I will try and write a bit every day from now on. I could resurrect my old NaNo project... Hmm...

So that's it for today (well, tonight, really) and I'll see you next time.

(Yep, definitely watched too many vlog-y videos today. That sign off was so youtube-ish.)

(And what's it with adding random endings to nouns in order to make them adjectives? Adjectives will one day take over the world.)

(And what's it with putting stuff in brackets?)

(Yeah, Marlin, you should really stop that.)

Great, I'm talking to myself again. I think I'm in need of a friend. Or a roommate. Or a friendly roommate. Or a roommate-y friend. Best case scenario: I end up with a roommate who is also my friend. Reality: I end up with neither.

The Pre-Exam Post

Ah, yes, the blog. I keep forgetting about this, but then I suddenly need a place to rant or get rid of some random thoughts that keep me from concentrating on more important things... and that's when I come back here. Not that random thoughts are unimportant, but they don't further my academic career very much, as opposed to, let's say, studying. And random thoughts happen to be the perfect concentration prohibiters. (Or is it prohibitors? Is that even a word? My mind has gone fuzzy with all the Latin vocabulary I've been forcing into it as of late.)

Yes, so, you might have noticed an undercurrent theme to this post. Yes, it is studying. Got my Latin exam tomorrow, and I'm actually so nervous that I'm feeling slightly sick. Never had this before. It is an all new (and unpleasant) experience. In fact, I should be cramming some more information into my head right now, but I just need a break. I need to breathe, walk around a bit, look out the window... and then battle on!

I am a rather ambitious person, and I expect a lot of myself, which leads to a lot of pressure. It's not exactly good for my body, apparently, because I've been battling with a sore throats and headaches, and now nervousness/sickness. But the headaches were probably due to a lack of sleep. (I almost wrote "sleep of lack" here. Which sort of proves that my brain has definitely reached "mildly clouded" on a scale from "clear" to "fuzzy".)

Yeah, just ranting. I don't like exams. I become a wreck before exams. I usually pass them without too many problems, but I just get nervous. Not during the exam, but before. During the exam, I usually enter a stage of odd calm and extreme concentration. (I'm not so sure that the noun "concentration" can be described with the adjective "extreme" right now...)

This post will take no end if I don't forcibly end it. I could keep on ranting and talking in circles and writing phrases that I'm not sure are correct English and then wonder out loud (or, well, in writing) whether they work or not. So I'm gonna end this forcibly.

(As in now, Marlin!)

(Okay, I'm going.)

The... I-don't-know-what-to-call-this-Post

I don't like picking up the telephone because that puts me in a situation where I have to make reasonable conversation with strangers.

Also, I realized I really can't do Script Frenzy because I'm close to failing my Latin exam, which I want to avoid at all costs. But for the short time I was resolved to do Script Frenzy I realized that writing scripts is actually kind of awesome. It's almost like jotting down notes. You don't have to be all that specific about description and setting, you can just write dialogue, and then the occasional cool shot that's been stuck in your head... Well, I probably wasn't doing it right, but the way I was doing it actually made me write faster than when I'm trying to write an actual novel.

So maybe I should do first drafts in script form from now on.

I want to go to London. Like, soon. That's always been a dream of mine, but I'm afraid I'm stuck here for at least a year and a half longer. The prospect of moving to a foreign country for six months is kinda scary, but also very alluring. Just being free of everyone and everything that surrounds me all the time here... yeah, sounds pretty awesome to me.