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Ever since I spent a few days in Paris last summer, I’ve had this idea bouncing around the back of my head that I need to go back. I know how hard it can be to find good work in France as an American, however, so I really didn’t do much with the idea. I poked into the possibility of getting another advanced degree abroad, but it all seemed like too much money—and very much as if I was just using education as an excuse to travel. But then a few weeks back I stumbled upon the existence of this teaching assistants program in France. The short of it is, every year the French government pays 1500 Americans to teach English in its schools. The pay isn’t phenomenal (just under 800 Euros per month, after taxes and health care costs), but it is enough to live off of. Oh, and did I mention? You only work 12 hours each week.

I missed the deadline for the 2011 program, but I plan on applying for 2012. It would mean starting my contract October 1, 2012, and staying for either seven or nine months, depending on which age level I’m chosen to teach for. My application will be due in January.

In the meantime, I’m doing everything I can think of to prepare. I’m working on my French every day (you need the equivalent of three semesters of college French, which I have, but I’m very rusty), researching the program like crazy, and doing my best to save as much money as possible (when I say the wage is livable, that doesn’t factor in my student loans at all, so I need all that money saved in advance). I also need two recommendation letters, one of which has to address my French skills. This is going to be my biggest stumbling block, I think, seeing as how I don’t know anyone that can honestly speak to that. So I’m looking in to signing up for an evening college class or something.

So this is what I’ve been up to lately. I fluctuate between being incredibly excited and incredibly scared, and I imagine these swings will only get more pronounced. But you have to be under 30 on the day the program starts, so I don’t really have the time to put it off. I’m young and able, and if I don’t do this now, I’m afraid I never will.

Also, as an aside for anyone who is intrigued and now considering doing something similar: Spain, Austria, and I think Italy have similar programs. And Finland has a program where you don’t need any language experience. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.

After nearly three weeks away from this blog (I can’t believe it’s been that long!), I’m back. I can hear my adoring public cheering; I just need to tilt my head a certain way, and the wind has to be right.

Yeah. Anyway. My absence was unplanned and really not all that fun. For the past few months I’ve been having pain in my shoulders (first one, then the other), and just over two weeks ago it got so bad that I couldn’t lift my right arm without massive amounts of pain. This resulted in me trying to do everything with my left arm (including vacuuming, which was a time consuming disaster), and let me just say now that if I ever lose full function of my right arm, I’m doomed. Doomed!

After a week of this, I went to my wonderful physical therapist father and got the diagnosis of tendonitis (yes, at 26) caused by too much time on the computer. I took half days at work on Friday and Monday and gave myself a no-computer-at-home rule, which I am only now lifting.

The worst part about this is how it’s affected my writing. When I enacted the rule I was at day 90 in my 100 Days of Writing challenge. I had missed 9 of my 10 days and was perfectly on schedule. Now I’ve missed something like 30 days and I still haven’t hit my 100. And so, as I said I would, I’m declaring myself a 100 Days of Writing failure. I think I might start again though, once I’m sure that this whole problem isn’t going to start anew.

But other than not meeting the goal I’d set for myself, I’m also now majorly behind on various projects. Until my hiatus I was on a role with this story, and now I feel sort of stalled. Playing with things in your head is, for me, not the same.

Anyway. I’m back. Yup.

In just a few short hours, my dog Jack will have been dead for a week. I was in Florida when my parents went to take him outside first thing Sunday morning and found him dead in his cage. There’s no official word yet, but the general consensus is that he died from a blood clot—a complication from the immune mediated hemolytic anemia he’d been suffering from the past two to three weeks. I cried on and off for two days, and even now, a week later, certain things still push me toward depression. We’ve lost animals before (I’ve never had someone close to me die), but none of those deaths ever struck me with quite so much force.

And yet, even while dealing with this (and a few other family medical issues that will not be discussed online), things keep happening to me that are, well, good.

My second book review for The Collagist was accepted, and this time it seems that I wrote a stronger first draft, which means I’m demonstrating what I’m learning. The revisions for a short story I’ve been working on are going well. I had a lovely time in Florida. And, finally, just tonight I found out that PANK has accepted a guest post I wrote for their blog.

The trouble, though, is that if I let myself dwell on either the good or the bad, I end up feeling crappy. Life goes on, yes, but I can’t help feeling that our dog, Jack, who was so full of love, deserves more of a reaction. Maybe if he were a person I could apply the logic that he’d want me to carry on, to let go, but I’m finding that I just can’t in this situation. And yet the world, minus the weather, seems to be throwing things at me for which I should be happy and grateful. Balance, we call it. Or, perhaps we should call it: Life.

Lady Gaga’s Judas was leaked early, and I must say, I love it! The song is, to me, metaphorical, about loving the wrong man, about loving someone who hurts and betrays you, and all the conflicting emotions that exist in this type of situation. To be sure, the surface story of Mary Magdelene and Judas works for me as well, I just love that there’s more to it.

From my limited research (if you can call it that), however, I’m finding that there’s a lot of vitriol toward the song, and toward Lady Gaga in general. A radio station here in Orlando premiered it yesterday and then had people call in with their opinions—over half (at the time I was listening) didn’t like it. (Of course, Lady Gaga was performing in Orlando at that exact time, so I feel like the numbers were skewed against her.)

I’ve thought about this response since then, and all the public response after Born This Way was released. And I’ve decided: This has more to do with Lady Gaga than it does with the music.

Okay, stay with me.

We live in a culture that oftentimes pushes against success. We to see a moderate amount, not sensations. This is evidenced in the people that call musicians sellouts when their music finally breaks into mainstream play, by the people (some of whom I went to grad school with) that find popular literature unworthy of attention. This is the girl that told me, in all seriousness, that she would never read Harry Potter for the sole reason that everyone else liked it. This is why we love to see celebrities fall, fail, why these days Britney Spears makes a splash in the news when she screws up but only a ripple when she does well. And now, I believe, this phenomenon has come to Lady Gaga.

She has her fans, of course. Loyal fans. People who tell her—and mean it—that her messages of tolerance have saved their lives. But she has also caused a stir with some of her antics, and so there is a substantial group of people out there who believe she’s had enough attention (or too much) and that it’s time for her to be done. It seems to me like the people who will go out to vote against something but not for something—the voice of the opposition can be so much louder.

And some people really don’t like her music. That’s fine. No one is universally loved. What gets me, however, is the people who then say that she’s not talented, as if their taste alone defines talent. I can’t stand Katy Perry’s music, but you won’t ever catch me saying she doesn’t deserve her record deal.

Anyway, here’s the new song. Enjoy it, or don’t. I personally can’t wait for the whole album, and I wish Lady Gaga all the success in the world.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had trouble falling asleep. Not all the time—sometimes I’ll go months with no problems—but regularly enough for me to think it’s something more than stress, drinking caffeine before bed, or something like that. I’ll often lie awake for hours, sometimes not getting any real sleep all night (though that’s relatively rare). As someone who gets easily bored with sitting lying around doing nothing, it’s pretty miserable just lying there, and it tends to stress me out, and then I lose all hope of sleeping.

So I tell myself stories. I always have. Lying there, with my eyes closed, I make up stories, sometimes more like daydreams when they pertain to my life, but usually these stories don’t feature me, or anyone else I know. Sometimes they’re of the conventional sort—imagining what happens in books past the ending, or in the gaps the author left—but sometimes they’re totally unrelated to any story I already know, and sometimes (of course), I tell myself my own stories, possibilities for what will happen next in the ones I’m actively engaged in writing down. However, as I get more advanced (for lack of a better word) in my storytelling, I’ve begun to notice a disturbing trend.

Sometimes, rather than sleeping, I stay awake so I can continue the story in my head.

This does not help me get adequate sleep, as you might imagine. Still, I’m sure it’s helping me improve as a writer, as a storyteller. Now if only I could get my brain to output like this when I sit down in front of the computer.

It’s halfway through April, and I’m doing dead awful when it comes to my yearly reading. In my first month of this new year, I doubled my goal. February was okay, but March was horrible. I don’t think I’ve finished a book in three weeks or so. I’m rather ashamed, truth be told. Especially since I wrote that post a while back about finding more time to read.

I’m working on a book review right now, which means I’m reading a bit slow (and trying not to distract myself with other books), not to mention all the insane drama that’s been going on in my life the last few weeks (dog almost died, two family members have had to go to the hospital, and I had to take my car in twice for repairs). But still, these are excuses, and I recognize that.

So. There are 18 days left in April. And I’m setting myself a goal of finishing 7 books in that time. I’m going to start reading more in those spare moments that crop up in my life rather than surfing the Internet, playing Dragon Age, and just generally stalling. But I’m writing this from Florida (got in this afternoon), which means I’m on vacation, which means I’ve got some spare time on my hands (especially the next two mornings since I’ll be hanging out at my cousin’s apartment while she works).

But you know what would really be good for me? If I turned off Food Network, grabbed a book out of my suitcase, and read awhile.

Lady Gaga’s latest single, Born This Way, came out a month or so ago. It’s the first track to be released from her upcoming album. Being the little monster that I am, I of course downloaded the song from iTunes the day it came out, happily handing over my $1.29 plus tax. A few days later I bought Avril Lavigne’s first single off of her upcoming album. (Are you noticing a trend related to my inability to practice patience?) These are both albums that I want to own and that I normally would have at least considered purchasing at the store and then transferred to my computer. Except now I’ve gone and put money essentially toward the strictly digital creation of the music. And since I’ve become a bit obsessive about saving money, it makes more sense for me to just use the awesome little Complete my Album option in iTunes.

Except I love album art. I do. I love it. I love looking through the entire design that goes into packaging a CD, from the liner notes to the back of the case to the font that’s used on the actual CD itself. That little image you get in iTunes, that shows up on your iPod—it’s cool and all, but I really like getting those extras in tangible form (plus, you usually get lyrics when you buy an actual CD). So that said, I’m thinking I might just go ahead and buy these albums at Best Buy or somewhere. There are worse things to pay for than art.

Check below the cut here to see some of my favorite album artwork, off the top of my head. Read more…

There have been quite a few things in the works for me lately, no small number of which related to writing. Some of which, such as my coming reentry into book reviewing, were planned and, hence, expected (the book I chose won’t be published until next month, so I’m still waiting, though I actually just sent off a request for an ARC; we’ll see what happens). Others have come as more of a surprise.

First and foremost, I found out last week that I will be taking a 50% cut in my hours at work. This is not unexpected with the work cycle I’ve seen in our office, and with the State budget issues, but the accompanying 50% cut in my paycheck will be depressing. However, I’m trying to look on the bright side, to think of how much time this will give me to devote to my own projects. When I do look at the move in this light, I really can’t see it as a bad thing.

Which brings me to my next item. I received my first ever personal rejection a few weeks back. It came right in the middle of a serious dip in my writing self-esteem, and I can’t say how much those few sentences have done to re-energize me. I had submitted the story on a sort of whim, mostly because I’d found out that a fellow graduate of mine had recently had something accepted somewhere, but since then, I’ve gotten serious about polishing and submitting work. It’s been difficult to balance this with the work on my novel, but no one ever said the learning stops when you get your degree.

Along with the rejection also came an invitation to submit a guest blog post to the journal’s blog. I sent something off last night finally (there were some issues that resulted in the slow turnaround time on the project, issues that I hope I’ll be able to talk about someday relatively soon but can’t right now), and now I just wait to see if they are going to accept it as is or if they want some revisions (or something completely different). When I get a final say so, I’ll post a link here.

I also signed up for a creative writing evening class. Not because I expect the class to substitute for the classes I had at EWU but because I miss the community of writing, of sitting around a table discussing work. I’m also thinking I might start a writing group. I know a few people who might be interested. The main thing that’s holding me back (that pushed me to this class before starting something on my own) is that I’m not sure how much time and energy I want to invest in something. But now that I will only work 20 hours each week… Well, it might be the perfect time.

Of course, eventually I’ll have to find some work that pays to fill those hours, but I think that, for the time being, this arrangement might work out to be something better than it first seemed.

If you watch V, there are spoilers in this post. And for the Wheel of Time book Towers of Midnight. And Mockingjay. And now to the post.

I just finished the season finale of V, which was amazing, full of mind-blowing twists and turns, and quite a few deaths (though apparently ABC won’t confirm any of the three deaths that I saw on screen tonight, nor the one that looks to be coming at the very beginning of next season). If you don’t watch V (why don’t you watch V?), it’s interesting to note a different format to the episodes, especially after I recently finished my love affair with six seasons of LOST. With the exception of the two season finales, the episodes don’t really leave viewers with cliff hangers. They answer questions, and usually pose new ones at the beginning of new episodes, which are then addressed. The episodes feel, in many ways, like mini movies (which sometimes doesn’t work for the format, but I can appreciate it all the same for this type of show).

But what I really want to talk about is the fact that the writers for this show have no problem killing off characters. Main characters. When the main cast isn’t an ensemble like LOST. Of course, I suppose the writers could bring the characters back next season (those Vs do have some crazy healing powers, though why they would heal their enemies I have no idea), in which case I would have to eat my words, but let’s assume that these deaths really did happen. Dang. No fear of losing the audience in these writers. (As an aside here, is 5 million viewers considered enough to get a show renewed? If it gets canceled after tonight I might cry.)

One of my favorite book series, the Wheel of Time, has the opposite problem. The good guys NEVER die (and the bad guys keep getting reincarnated). Well, Hopper dies, and Birgitte has been forcibly ripped from the pattern, possibly never to be reborn, and some very minor characters have died, but that’s it. It makes the bad guys look pretty ineffective, actually.

Neither approach quite works for me. I have to suspend disbelief in the Wheel of Time (which is saying something, considering I’m already reading fantasy) because when I stop and think about it. the fact that all the Super Boys and Super Girls are still alive, not to mention the twenty or so other main characters, I really don’t buy it. But then when a series just seems to start drawing names out of a hat to see who will go (the last season of LOST felt like this at times), I get sad and depressed because, hey, I was cheering for these people. And now the story needs to find some way to fill their holes.

So now I’m trying to think of stories (television or book or whatever) that have found a balance that I find agreeable. Despite the huge death toll, I think the Hunger Games trilogy does pretty well in this respect. It would be perfect if either Prim or Finnick made it out alive; I really struggled losing them both in that last third of the book, especially with how unceremonious they both are. And…I can’t really think of another one. I mean, obviously there are hundreds of books with no deaths where that totally fits the story, but that’s not really what I’m getting at. Suggestions?

There are no spoilers, if you care about that sort of thing.

Okay, this post is a departure from what I normally blog about, so bear with me (or, you know, don’t read). I promise this is more story-centered than combat-centered (which I also have thoughts on but will instead just whine to my sister about). Dragon Age II is the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, which I thought was an amazing game. One not without its flaws, certainly, but one that brought to balance nicely the things I enjoy in video games. First, the story was compelling. The world was rich and varied, the characters had desires and pasts and complexities, and the plot kept my interest (and continues to keep my interest through multiple playthroughs). So when I heard about the sequel, I was super excited.

Well, now that I’ve beaten the second game (which I only did so quickly because I’ve been too sick to go to work all week, but lucky for me, the couch doesn’t care if I breathe on it, or if I fall asleep on it while I’m in the middle of playing), I’ve got some thoughts.

It’s a fun game. Fun, but not amazing. And let’s just get this out into the open: I was a bit biased against it to begin with. Mostly because I really enjoyed my character from the first game (who, it must be said, was a major badass) and this game was selling a new character that the designers seemed to be pushing as somehow superior to my world-saving Warden in the first game. My new girl just worked in a city. So right up front, I was a bit annoyed that they were downplaying the plot set up to be so instrumental in the first game (the trouble with sequels, no?).

Story Within a Story

DAII also operated as a story within a story, where a character is narrating events that happened in the past. But the way the game was sold made this fall flat a bit. It was interesting to have it done this way (something I’ve never seen done in my admittedly limited gaming experience), but it starts out with the legend version of the true story where you can do crazy amounts of damage and all the women have absolutely huge boobs (sigh). The writers seemed to want to do something with how we retell factual events, but as this was only used one other time in the game, it seemed almost incidental. I wanted them to either cut it or work with it more. Read more…