Yes, I Did It Again

I changed my mind again and wanted to have a more subtle, simple design, and something light and fluffy.  Less Darth Vader.

You like?

My kitchen smells like brownies.  That picture is not of brownie batter, it’s of cake batter, and it’s an old picture… but aren’t you just craving brownies now?  Err… if you like chocolate, that is.

I have dinner tonight with Sammy and then work in the morning.  Yuck!  Tomorrow is a special day at work, and it always brings out the jerks.  I don’t get why people complain about something that’s free.  But whatevs.  Then work until Wednesday.  Bah.  Work.  So excited to go back to school.  School a week from Monday! Squee.  But wait until a week from Tuesday and I’ll be complaining.

Ramble ramble.

Your Grammar is Riddikulus!

I grew up in a great school district, one that always challenged me, and I am grateful for it.  I was able to be in an advanced reading program and math program while I was there, and it was awesome (okay, the math not so much…).  One thing I never truly learned in school (elementary, middle school, high school, even college) was grammar.

This is the point when you give me the O.o look.  I seem to be able to form complete sentences.  I only you fragments and run-ons for choice moments.  Capitalization greets the beginning of each sentence, while punctuation kisses it farewell.  Semi-colons are used properly, and I seem to be able to tell the difference between “there,” “they’re,” and “their”.  What’s the big deal then?  What is this nonsense about not learning grammar?  See, I never said that I didn’t learn grammar.  I said that I never learned it in school.

Where did I acquire my understanding of the construction of the English language, then?  In sooth, I gained enough from constant reading to be able to grasp elementary mechanics.  But that level of grammatical understanding wouldn’t get me very far in the world.  I actually learned most of my grammar courtesy of FictionAlley.org.  Oh yes.  I said it.  I learned grammar by writing Harry Potter fanfiction.

FictionAlley is a specialised website, so if you want to submit something, you basically need to rock.  You need to have excellent grammar and perfect spelling, and you need to have a plot.  Believe it or not, they actually want you to be able to write… otherwise they kindly refer you over to FanFiction.net (the horror!).  But I am stubborn, and so I kept revising and revising until it was right.  So, in my freshman year of high school, I went from writing like this:

“Kris? Oh! There you are.” Kris’s new friend, Alyssa LeBonjou, a famous horse breeder and trainer from France, stepped into the stable and rolled her eyes “I should’ve looked here in the first place.”

“Hi Alyssa.” Kris stopped grooming her favorite horse, Sandrilene’s Wishing Star, more commonly known as Wish, to acknowledge the newcomer’s presence.

To writing a little more like this:

“That was an awesome story!” Peter squealed once they were out of the professor’s hearing range.

“You should write fiction,” agreed James.

“You should read my homework essays,” Sirius responded, grinning ear to ear.

Remus scowled. He had read Sirius’ essays many times, and most of them ended up with the subject being burnt to death or sold into Muggle slavery. “You should be worried about your grades at this point in life,” he pointed out.

Since then, I daresay, I have improved further, but both these pieces were written within 2 years of eachother:  the former in early 2003, and the latter in autumn of 2003.  I was always proud of my achievement, fueled by obsessive fan girl writing, even though I had to learn to edit harder to get rid of things like word overuse.  However, in trying to stay true to the canon, I became a character writer (because you have to know the characters inside and out or you get ripped apart in reviews).  Learning grammar in Potterverse, however, is the reason why much of my English is British-English.  I try to catch myself, but words like “colour” or “specialised” may be spelled incorrectly by American standards.  I don’t mind so much, actually, because it’s still correctly spelled somewhere.

In other writing news: I have posted a new section on this blog which you should see in the upper right-hand corner, called “Scribbles“.  I’m planning to post bits and pieces of writing there; writing that isn’t a flash fic.  At the moment, there is only fanfiction (in honour of this entry, to be sure), but I imagine that other things will pop up.

In other Harry Potter news: I just discovered Evanna Lynch, Bonnie Wright, and Emma Watson on Twitter.  … Oh yeah, and Daniel Radcliffe, too, but I’m not as big of a fan.  Sorry, mate. (yeah, I know, how can you be a Potter fanatic and not be in love with Dan Radcliffe?  So shoot me.  Err.  Only don’t really.)

So.  What about you folks?  Have you learned any important life lessons in nontraditional ways?  Miss something in school that you had to teach yourself?  Have you ever dared to tread the embarrassing paths of fanfiction?  Share your stories!

Be True to Your School

“Be true to your school / just like you would to your girl or guy / be true to your school / and let your colors fly / be true to your school.” ~ The Beach Boys in Be True to Your School.

I had a brief discussion with one of my managers today about high school.  He said he hated his high school, for various reasons.  It made me sad, because I loved my high school.  It was (and for the most part, still is) a really fantastic school.  I don’t know whether I just had a fantastic graduating class, or if my love of learning overwhelmed the crappiness of high-school-ness.  One way or the other, I really had no response to give to him about my opinion.  Why was my high school so awesome?  … Because… it… was?

I think maybe I was fortunate.  I had loyal friends.  I had good teachers, interesting classes.  Even gym class wasn’t all that bad.  Granted, it was at the time, but it was an every other day class for a few short weeks.  And health?  Only a couple months of torture.  I really can’t think about much bad to say about my school that was actually the fault of my school.  I had fall outs with friends, fights, certainly, but nothing directly caused by school.  Just individual things from specific people.

I must be lucky.

There are a lot of people I know who hate their schools.  Most of them, it’s a general hatred of school.  A lot of people don’t like being forced to learn things they’re not particularly interested in.  And many of the remaining people dislike the people they go to school with.  I had a great graduating class and I had some amazing teachers.

To those out there who don’t like their schools; try to take the most out of your education.  If you have to be somewhere, you might as well take advantage of it.  Learn as much as you can, have as much fun as you can cram into your schedule.  Don’t spend time wishing you were somewhere else, because if you do, you’ll lose all the time and the opportunities to grow as a person.