word clouds and post nano buds

Nathan Bransford made a word cloud. The first thing I thought when I saw this was: Wow, orange is a pretty color. The second thing was: A lot of people I like say orange is their favorite color.

But the third thing, ooooh the third thing: I WANT A WORD CLOUD!


The majority of it is about French, because of my last post, but it doesn't matter. It's so beautiful. If you want to make your own, go here. Saving it was a bit of a hassle, but they go over that in the FAQ.

Also: I like pink. It might be a 'girly' color, but I think it's pretty and passionate and fun. Red's good, too.

I'm meeting up with my writerly friends tonight. It's our first post-NaNoWriMo write-in, and I can't help but be a little apprehensive that I won't be able to write without that massive pressure--or that I'll feel too much pressure with all these intelligent people typing away next to me. I also worry that I may go crazy on caffeine and leap across the counter to steal all the delicious desserts.

Oh my.

Now I'm just going to float to my meeting... ON MY WORD CLOUD (look up).

Erika

little things 2

Ack. So, because I was too busy dancing the night away (I'm serious, guys. This is like, a new record for socializing.) to post yesterday, here's a recap of good things from this week:

1. Power outages
2. Reading by candlelight
   
3. Empanadas
4. Dancing Queen
5. Dancing with other people, no matter how badly. Just moving for a single purpose.

I went to a 'Latin Night' last night, and I danced. A lot. For those of you who don't know this about me, I am a dreadful dancer. Okay, so it's not that shocking. Anyways, I was literally dancing till one in the morning last night, which was super embarrassing by also ridiculously fun.

What about you? Got any little things to shout about this week?

the most beautiful places: picture time

All pictures are from here. Hope they inspire you, in one way or another :)

the most beautiful places

"America is my country, but Paris is my hometown." -Gertrude Stein

Two summers ago, my family went to Paris. Well, to be fair, we went to visit my mum's family in the Czech Republic, and ended up spending a week in Paris on the way home. "Ended up." That sounds so casual and chic. Actually, I had been planning and researching our trip for about six months, and basically freaked out whenever we did anything that wasn't on the schedule.

Ah, to be fourteen and obsessive again.

Anyways, that's definitely not the point of this. The point of this is that French--the language and the culture--is really beautiful. I know everyone talks about how beautiful and alive Paris is, and sometimes it sounds like it can never live up to it's reputation, but it does. Definitely.

I live in Canada, and take French in school*. The class is pretty repetitive and boring, but knowing that it gives me the opportunity to maybe, someday, travel or live somewhere so amazing is really nice.

I want to live in one of those places where you're so awed and inspired by your surroundings that life feels like a painting.

Also, I got my copy of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins today (link to her fabulous blog here). That and my current WIP are getting me in the mood for some French!

My language skills are so far from proficient. But I thought I would share a few helpful verbs, just in case you ever end up in Paris.

*By the way, my level of French is probably like kindergarten to someone fluent.

Rappeler = to remember

Je rappelle = I remember, I am remembering, I do remember
Tu rappelles = You remember
Il/Elle rappelle = He/She remembers
Nous rappelons = We remember
Vous rappelez = You (plural + formal) remember
Ils/Elles rappellent = They (masc/fem) remember

Souhaiter = to wish

Je souhaite = I wish
Tu souhaites = You wish (ha)
Il/Elle souhaite = He/She wishes
Nous souhaitons = We wish
Vous souhaitez = You (plural + formal) wish
Ils/Elles souhaitent = They wish

Aimer = to love

J'aime = I love
Tu aimes = You love
Il/Elle aime = He/She loves
Nous aimons = We love
Vous aimons = You (plural + formal) love
Ils/Elles aiment = They love

baby animal of the week: seal

So, I feel like I should be blogging something with more substance. That will come soon, my friends, I promise. But, as today is Thursday... BABY SEALS!



OH MY GOSH SO CUTE. Today my day has been not so great. Which is why I am immensely looking forward to the day when I get to graduate high school and go and live my life somewhere else. Hmm... The Arctic Circle looks better and better every day.

Have a brill rest-of-week.

australia day

Happy Australia Day!

As I live in Canada, I have to wait until July to show my true patriotic passion (or something like that). I've never been to Australia, but I would really like to. I'm convinced that, post-graduation, a few of my friends and I should spend two months in Australia. Well, it kind of varies between Australia, New York City, Peru, and the moon.

But if you live in Australia, or if you've been there before, I would love to hear more about it. What's it like? What's your favorite part of Australia/favorite thing to do/strangest thing you've ever seen there?

Also, as I have a deep, burning love for marsupials, have you ever seen a kangaroo? Or a wombat? Or a koala?

I'm sorry that basically all of my ideas about Australia are complete cliches. Here's a completely relevant picture of Jesse Spencer to make it up to you.

IT'S JESSE SPENCER!

"Holy Haberdashery, Batman!"

Oh, Batman. When I was little, my brother and I loved to watch Batman cartoons on TV. One Halloween, we were even going to dress up as Batman and Robin. My brother cut the Batman logo off of a cereal box and taped it to his t-shirt--but then, at the last second, he changed his mind, wore loose-fitting clothes, and dressed up as our dad, instead. So I was Robin. Just Robin.

Because I just had my English provincial exam, I'm going to through some terminology at you guys. Robin is a foil for Batman. He's the young, naive, sometimes-misguided sidekick who asks stupid questions and relies on Batman for answers. Batman is as wise as he is tough, and is always ready to impart his cool genius through gems like, "In good bat-climbing as in good driving one must never sacrifice safety for speed."

The point is, they just don't work without each other.

So I thought I'd spend today looking back on the wisdom of Batman. His over the top morals--Robin's overuse of the word "gosh". It was good times. It was the best of times. Also, you can thank Batman for teaching children everywhere the importance of grammar, paying parking meters, dental hygiene, and pureness of hearts.

Robin: "You can't get away from Batman that easy!"
Batman: "Easily."
Robin: "Easily."
Batman: "Good grammar is essential, Robin."
Robin: "Thank you."
Batman: "You're welcome."

Batman: "Better put 5 cents in the meter."
Robin: "No policeman's going to give the Batmobile a ticket."
Batman: "This money goes to building better roads. We all must do our part."

Robin: "Holy molars! Am I ever glad I take good care of my teeth!"
Batman: "True. You owe your life to dental hygiene."

Batman: "Haven't you noticed how we always escape the vicious ensnarements of our enemies?"
Robin: "Yeah, because we're smarter than they are!"
Batman: "I like to think it's because our hearts are pure."

Robin: "That's an impossible shot, Batman."
Batman: "That's a negative attitude, Robin."

All quotes are from here. Have a great day.

little things 1

Because I can never think of anything remotely worth blogging about (sorry!), I've decided to post little things that make me smile, every Saturday. So here we go:

1. New toothbrushes
2. See-through teapots and flowering tea
3. Books in alphabetic order
4. That funny feeling you get when you think about someone you really like
5. Chewy ginger snaps

What about you? What makes you smile today?

Erika

baby animal of the week: penguin

In honor of the extremely slushy and snowy weather I've been walking through all day, I bring you the baby penguin:

I wonder if adorableness counts as a method of self defense. Like, leopard-seals-can't-even-bring-themselves-to-eat-you cute.

Hope you have wonderful weather,

Erika

tuuuesday

I have exams next week. Oh my gooooosh, I need to study, extremely lots. Sometimes I feel like if I try to stuff anymore information in my poor little head, I won't be able to remember my name, or where I live, and I'll just wander around without a home or a place for the rest of my life. Which, compared to the alternative of no studying whatsoever, sound, eh, alright.

I've been studying plate tectonics and poetry terms. What? I can't wait for my English provincial, when I start listing the layers of the Earth and their thicknesses, rather than talking about situational irony.

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. One week from now, I will be done my exams, and that will be a very happy thing. Till June, when they multiply.

So we'll end the day on a positive note. Sunflowers are happy... right? Where am I? LITHOSPHERE!

(image from weheartit.com--let me know if it belongs to you!)

Have a monumental (damn it--I should've used that on Monday!) week, boys and girls.

Love,
Erika

in defense of fanfiction

I feel really bad that, all of the times I've mentioned fanfiction in the past, I've referred to it as something that takes time away from "real writing". Just because the original work on which your story is based was written by someone else, a good fanfiction still begins with an unique idea.

Maybe it's just me, but I often see people describe fanfiction writers as something "less"**. The main purpose of a fanfiction (and sorry for using the word so many times--I can't seem to think of a decent pronoun) is to entertain. Like all stories should. Writers = entertainers = story tellers. It's the same thing, no matter what your genre or starting point is.

Some of the most creative scenes and characters I've read have been in fanfictions. That's why I love sites like fanfiction.net that provide a place to publish your stories. Writing fanfiction isn't just a fun hobby to exercise your writing muscles--you can get feedback and critiques on your writing, plus make a few friends who are interested in the same things as you. Okay, sorry, way to sound like a greeting card. But think about it--let's say you really hate the ending of a book (for example, the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). By writing a fanfiction, not only can you write as some of your all time favorite characters, you can control the outcomes.

The one good thing about fanfiction not being considered as important or artistic by some people as, say, writing a novel, is that you don't have to take yourself too seriously. Come up with a username, write a story, and put your work out there. You can have fun with random scenarios, one-shots, and the most ridiculous dialogue (the term "Merlin's magic panties" came up the other day). And if you want to improve your writing style, why not work at it while doing something fun?

In short, yes, I write a fanfiction. No, I'm not a crazy fan-girl, and I don't spend all my time on it. In the future, I want to be writing novels--but writing fanfiction is a really fun way that I can connect to people who like the same books as me, and apparently like my writing. Huh. How about that.

**I'm sorry, I really don't me to generalize, but bring up "fanfiction" in a conversation has always made me feel weird and kind of inadequate compared to those people--you know, the ones who read Tolstoy when they were six, and are working on their latest work of speculative fiction.

I want to have fun with writing. I believe that I like having fun.

city of updates

I don't know if anyone else is a massive Cassandra Clare fangirl (we can be friends!), but I have seriously been falling down on my duties as a City of Bones freak. Not only has the cover of the fourth book in the Mortal Instruments series (City of Fallen Angels) been revealed, Lily Collins has been cast to play the main character, Clary, in the movie.

OH MY GOSH Cover:
NO WAY Lily Collins:
If you haven't read the series, and thus have no idea what I'm going on about, here's one of my favorite quotes from Jace, the MMC:

"I don't want to be a man. I want to be an angst ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes them out verbally on other people instead."

so that's why

For the past few days I've been obsessing about That's Why I Dumped You (.com). It's a site where people anonymously share their reasons for dumping their boyfriends/girlfriends/others. A few of my personal favorites include:

• Because you acted like I was the unreasonable one when I gently explained that I thought the Loch Ness Monster probably didn’t exist.

• Because you used “bomb” and “legit” in every other sentence. This dessert is bomb… dinner was legit. We’re in grad school. Stop talking like that.

• You got mad at me for not watching you sleep. Why would I watch you sleep?

• When I talk about simple movie quotes you looked at me with a blank face. HOW THE F**K HAVEN’T YOU SEEN ‘STAR WARS’?

• Because when I told you Jurassic Park was a book before it was a movie, you assumed that meant it was based on a true story.

• I prrrrromise you, Ke$ha is not as “respected” as you think she i$.

• Because you threw out cold pizza. Because you don’t eat cold pizza. Because, what the hell is the matter with you?

Ooooh, that explains a lot. Just kidding. Hope you all had a fabulous Thursday!

baby animal of the week

Because I had to. Also, who else's life is seriously lacking adorable baby animals?

Also, all of my friends who've visited Australia have told me that you're not actually encouraged to hug koalas. What?! Well, there goes my life's dream.

Matched

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.

(From matched-book.com)

I thought I would love this book because of the plot, and the dystopian world it's set in. It automatically made me think of books like The Giver and Hunger Games. But what I really loved about this book was the language.

Every line of Matched was like a well crafted poem. Despite the fact that it took place in a futuristic society, a lot of the book felt very close to home. The emotions Cassia goes through, her guilt and anger and happiness, all felt very real. Not to mention what was going on with the Society--they gave out information and technology very sparingly, and destroyed so much of what was beautiful and wild in their world. Like the summary says, the Society decides who you love, where you work, and when you die. Having so much freedom taken away from you sounds like a nightmare, and I couldn't put the book down once.

Matched is definitely one of my favorite books of 2010 (it came out in November, I'm just slow), and I would recommend it to both teenagers and adults.

I just wanted to quickly go back to the poetry of the novel--it was one of those books that I'm sure I'll read a few times. Once, in the heat of the moment, just to get to the climax as soon as possible, and again, later, to read over every word and cherish every beautiful, tragic syllable.

One of my favorite quotes from the novel is this:

"I think of how perhaps the best way to fly would be with hands full of earth, so you always remember where you came from."-Ally Condie (Matched)

9.1.11

whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy

I wouldn't ever want to be frozen, as in, cryogenics. Because after all of that time, cold, alone, it would be like dying and then being woken up again. Always asking for five more minutes.

I am fifteen, going on sixteen

Hellooo,

Today is kind of a big deal to me because it's my last day of being fifteen years old. My 16th birthday is tomorrow, and since I won't have a lot of time to blog, I wanted to do what a friend of mine does on her birthday. Sixteen wishes for sixteen years.

1. Leave the country. I should probably flee the country now, before the RCMP starts tapping my calls... No, just kidding (and hey, did you notice how RCMP sounds so much less intimidating than FBI or CIA? Come on, Canada). I just want to go somewhere amazing.
   
2. Eat less meat. This is actually one of my New Year's resolutions, too. I really see the benefit of being a vegetarian, and I'll do my best (but, oh my god, meat is tasty).
3. Get my L. When you turn sixteen, you can take a written test to get your Learner's permit and--no way!--drive. Oh my gosh, I am horrified already.
4. Go to writing camp. This will be my second summer going to the Penticton Youth Write Camp, and it was so fantastic last year that I can hardly wait till July.
   
5. Start a 'wrock' group. Aka Wizard Rock--I want to write songs about Harry Potter.
6. Learn to swim. Don't get me wrong--I can swim. If you toss me into a lake or ocean or other large source of water (but don't), I can keep myself from drowning, and move a bit, too. Unless there are sharks. Okay, bad example, but I want to be a better swimmer, like, swimming lanes and such. Oooh, athletic.
7. Stop biting my nails. Finally! I have been biting my nails for... basically my whole life. I hate it! This year, I will have longer nails!
8. Write a book. This is where I say, in my pompous British accent, that I have written a book. Well, okay, a first draft for NaNo, but I'm proud of myself. And if I did that, I can write another, right?
9. Make a new friend. Okay, lame, I know. But I love meeting new people, especially people that I really "click" with, and having another friend like that would be absolutely fabulous.
10. Walk more. Instead of getting rides to school or work, or taking the bus, I want to do more walking.
11. Drink more tea. This goes without saying, really. I'm honestly surprised that I've been able to survive without caffeine for so long.
    
12. Write every day. Whatever it is! This kind of goes along with not being afraid to write, and not being afraid to screw up. Something I want to work on.
13. Read tons of books! Maybe 16 can be the year I finally read War and Peace--or, at least, Lolita. Oh, and a bunch of YA books, too.
14. Be unafraid. I was going to write "be fearless," but I don't know if that's the best advice. Like, I'd prefer it if I stayed afraid of killer bees, because that's mainly for self-preservation. But I want to stop being so afraid of screwing up or saying the wrong thing or being too weird to do what I want.
15. Be open to love, in all its forms. I know, I'm bordering on motivational-speaker here, but I really feel like I need to work on being more... lovely. And loving more. Just, all that love stuff.
16. Be happy. With myself, my hair, my body, my friends, my family. With my job, my houses, my day, my age. I just want to learn to be more content and grateful for everything I have right now, and work towards even more.

Awww. Sorry guys. Didn't mean to go all overboard on the mushy feelings towards the end, there. But growing old makes me sentimental *sniff*

Anyways, I hope you're having a fabulous year. Mine has been... eventful, so far, and not in a good way. Because I forgot to say this earlier, I want to wish you luck, love, happiness and all the perfect words for 2011.

Take care,

Erika

flesh

"Meat is the decomposing flesh of an animal that did not want to die." That's what Peta said about Lady Gaga's meat dress, and it has me thinking. I don't need to eat meat. I can survive quite well--maybe even better--without it.

Or can I?

I think being vegetarian is super. Okay, so that sounds a little halfhearted. I think that people who have made a concrete choice not to eat meat, and stand by it (or try their best) are doing something good. I don't think we really need meat nearly as much as we think we do, or as much as we simply enjoy it.

But maybe I'm just another animal who doesn't want to die.

2.1.11

Sometimes it's hard to stand by and do nothing.

Other times, it's easy.

2011

Happy New Year!

So, today is officially January 1st, 2011. The only January 1st, 2011 in ALL OF SPACE AND TIME AND HISTORY :O

And I've already spent an hour playing my brand new ukulele instead of doing grammar homework.

New Year's is all about setting goals, right? You plan out what you want to do over the next twelve months, which is easy, because, after all, you have twelve long months to accomplish all of your lofty goals. For instance, this year I want to:

1. Blog at least twice a week, every week
2. Learn to play "I'm Yours" on the ukulele
3. Write two first drafts. Not sure of what, exactly, but I have ideas.
4. Be able to swim much better than I can now
5. Read more adult fiction

Urgh, so dull. I'm sorry. The things I want to do, and be, in this coming year are hard for me to write down. I want to be happy, and open, and loved. I want to be so much more.

Love,
Erika