Little boy Michael still resides at our household. Yesterday I found a fairly close library hiring TWO positions (I never got a call back about the school library, though this is possibly due to my parents accidentally turning off the answering machine and NOT TELLING ME FOR TWO WEEKS. ...I may call them back tomorrow to make sure they never tried to call me. If I get up the guts. ^_^;) but filling out the applications took the ENTIRE day, as toddlers and things that take attention to not screw up do not mix. (It wasn't till FIVE page redos later that I realized I was scanning the thing to send by email anyway, and that any screw ups could just be edited out in Photoshop/Gimp. ^_^;)

I used to secretly roll my eyes a bit at those women at my old work that never talked about anything but their children. Kid stories are all well and good, but NOTHING else? The ENTIRETY of your interests? Now I know those women may very well have tried to have other interests and pursuits. Maybe they just couldn't find even an hour out of the day to pursue them. Even when the thing isn't there in the room with you, you can't entirely concentrate because YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL BE BACK (and it will be back. Right after it has finished off a handful of cookies and two cups of sugary malt milk.)

I did get to be there in Michael's phone reunion with his mother, however when he looked absolutely thrilled for about five seconds, then pushed the phone away in the manner of a young man who has certainly been most grievously slighted and IZ GONNA DOS IT BACK2U. Then he tried very hard not to cry.

But baby is sleeping now, and cover letters finally finished and sent away. I was feeling really optimistic for a while, actually, since there seem to be so many more library positions popping up again lately. Thinking I'd get plenty of chances to apply and interview at lots of places, I started feeling more optimistic about my chances with this library.

And then I remembered math class, and that probability (ignoring slight performance and situation differences) does not increase just because something has been done multiple times. Certainly, the probability of getting a desired result at least once over twenty tries is higher than over one, but each situation, whether the first or the fifty eight, still has the same probability of being successful (assuming you're not improving with each try, which I am likely not). Thus while this is my fourth or fifth application for librarianship, my chances on these particular applications are no higher than all those other times I failed.

I hate you, math class.

My confidence was shot till I started doing my cover letter, an activity of the sort I always dread till I remember that making a cover letter takes twisting the truth through writing skills and I have those and also English is a lot more fun than math.

Damn, though. I should get to article writing now, only (as the writing of this entry was interrupted by the waking of Michael who promptly cried for half an hour upon realizing we were home alone and then took me downstairs for hours of Put the Yu-Gi-Oh Cards On the Mini Pool Table With The Mini Pool Balls and Then Hit Everything With Drum Sticks fun) my brains feel so empty right now. I'd do something to get them chugging again, only...I know it's really a futile effort. ^_^;

Yesterday and today were supposed to be Getting Back To Being Productive In Job Search and Article Writing Days besides the Nanowrimo last minute more-like-a-party-write-in, only little cousin Michael is staying at our house while his mother rests. And despite a night of quietly crying himself to sleep at this abandonment, he's very energetic through the days.

I actually like playing with Michael, only this ends up being very unfortunate since it means that he likes me, so that even when I DON'T like playing with Michael, being a babbling little boy who can't even talk that well yet, he's rather slow and does not notice this. Even more unfortunately, it seems my parents aren't any faster than him (or they willfully refuse to be any faster) and send him down to play all the time (and then ask me in the minutes here and there when he is not around me, 'So how is job searching going?' with absolutely no irony in their voices at all.) rendering me unable to sit down and pull my brain together enough to read email much less do better things.

So today I escaped to the house of the Jennies in order to get more done, only a kind stranger has adopted me to do SantaThing (...ah, which is to say they, er, paid for me, hahaha) ^_____^ So I perhaps did spend a while dinking around on the site being excited. And then, well, after getting to the Jennies, surely the new House episode should be watched first, just to get it out of the way.

And that was how I screwed over the rest of the day because I CAN'TS FUNCTION ANYMOREEEEEE.

DID YOU SEE? Not only did House askj;dlkasalskjd when Wilson aljd;akslgda but then in the end they lks;dkfasladkf* and they're so totally marrieeeeed. Only even better than that is that they didn't just drop that totally pandering to House/Wilson fans stuff out of nowhere, but actually spent the episode emphasizing some things that are actually good about their friendship. And it showed them LAUGHING TOGETHER. I have been very sad that cute as the House/Wilson parts always are of course, and as nice as it is to see their dedication to one another occasionally, they are not shown being friend-ish and joking/happy together barely at all anymore. I would have liked to have known what they were saying, but in the end they were very amiable at least, and, and, and....maybe this shows hope for things to come?

Glancing at the House/Wilson com, there seems to be word that the next episode is supposed to be EVEN BETTER (and titled “The Down Low” hehehehehe). Why must it be in so long? T_T

But yes, now my brain is frazzled. Useless. Aaah. Bad.

* This is the new, extra excited version of spoiler tag.

Aaah. Peoples replied to. (AWW. Entropy was withholding the knowledge that they had new raws for DOLLS from me cause they knew I'd obsessively worry about/work on them if they gave them to me, and they were thankful for me working on the last volume extra fast for the anniversary releases, so they thought they'd hold them back to give me a rest, hahahah. It's sad they have to do that. ^_^ ...But I am thankful, lol. This month kind of sucked. <3) Novel Koushien caught up with. (Two other posts created to ask about innings and fic length, but I shall wait to post them since people tend to reply less to each if you post things too close together, hahaha. Maybe a day apart...) It's so nice to get back on track. ^_^

No Oofuri translated of course. ...I know when I'm beat. And this month, Oofuri translating is beat. Rather than be sad about that I shall let myself go phew, and then be all the more ready to start that up again in a few days. Heheh. It's a shame there is no such thing as internet cake. By the time a translation gets posted, there surely should be call for one.

As to books.

Pride and Prejudice was in that Victorian style (or is it just much of old books? I admit I don't really know. ^_^;) of telling/narrating a bunch of stuff rather than showing them through scene, so while it's really much like the movie I actually liked it less *very plebeian.* Also the main came off as more Mary Sue in the novel somehow... The fun and funny bits of the dialogue/story were all, er, spoiled for me by the movie, and since I really don't like that prose style, there wasn't much more for me to appreciate from it.

Brothers by Ted van Lieshout was about gay boys but has no incest in it at all. I swear I knew beforehand it wouldn't go there, I swear. ^_^ I just...like reading about male bonding/relationships in any way/shape/form (^_^; Reading stuff like this actually makes me feel even more Bad Feminist than reading yaoi or m/m stuff. Cause with those things I can reason it's just the kind of thing that turns me on. With this...it's clear I'm not reading for that. I'm just reading cause my brains are irrevocably convinced boys are more interesting than girls).

It's about Luke, whose brother died six months ago and his mother is about to burn his things to say goodbye. In fear of his mother burning his brother's diary, Luke claims it as his own and starts writing in it himself. Eventually he starts reading his brother's entries and writing back to him “in the margins” (even if no diary has margins big enough for all that text, haha), and has a dialogue with his dead brother through which he copes with the loss and comes to terms with being gay. Here's a bit of it:

Dead boy: "Mom said [Luke] had to go [to carnival] because she wanted to get him out of the house just for once. Alex (as a clown) and I sang and danced our way down the street, followed by Luke in a big raincoat of Dad's and a hat and a pair of large sunglasses. I thought he was mean to be a child molester."

Luke: "No, a spy, you idiot!"

^_^ These boys are adorable. ...Er, of course that's not really the best or even funniest quote (just the shortest I remembered), but the point is, this book doesn't take itself unrealistically seriously, and had me in huge, uncontrollable I'm-glad-I'm-not-reading-this-in-public stupid grins quite often. And it can be very emotional/sensitive without being sentimental.

The diary dialogue is...a very weird feeling, cause it really does feel like he's talking with his brother...only his brother is dead. ^_^; I sort of want to say “disconcerting,” only without the negative connotation. It's the goodweird. Only the diary dialogue ends after about 2/3 of the book, and while it's still good, it's a little more the usual coming out/coping with death stuff and it loses the really original feel (and much of the humor) the middle gave it. It's still very good overall, though. I'm now veryveryvery sad that this author has clearly written many more things but that they are not available translated in English. And I don't think this must have sold terribly well since it's only got a handful of reviews on Amazon, so methinks this does not have a high likelihood of changing. T_T

Next, finally, is the book Jennies lent me, Dead Witch Walking. I swear. And I'll try not to take forever reading it, too cause after this I want to read The Left Hand of Darkness and I shall not let this get in the wayyyyy.

Hello, internet! I'm back! I'm sorry I sort of checked out for the Thanksgiving/novel finishing season. But now that that's over with, you and I will be free to renew our bonds and take our relationship to even deeper and more meaningful levels. It all starts from here.

Nanowrimo novel DONE. Had some sort of hiccups when I accidentally started liking my characters half way through (they really aren't any good or worth liking. I think I was just so mean to them that I started feeling sympathetic), causing me to write slower through the very unwanted desire to do their feelings more justice. And then when my novel turned out to be almost 1000 words shorter in the Nanowrimo word count validator than in my Open Office document. ^_^; BUT IT'S DONE.

Finished Pride and Prejudice and read a short YA novel Brothers by Ted van Lieshout, and I'm extremely amused by how I can tell where in my novel I changed from one book to the other. I think the prose is mostly the same, but the dialogue has some sometimes lol-worthy noticeable differences. It even seems to fluctuate within the time period when I was reading Pride, I'm pretty sure depending on how recently I'd put the book down (whether it had been earlier that day vs a few days ago). One character in particular seemed particularly susceptible to changing. He kept the same personality, really, he just...went back in time a little. Linguistically.

Hmm.

Cast of Characters
Punkin......An assistant duck breeder
Tean..........A linguistic time traveler

This makes my novel look so much more interesting.

I'd write about the books....only maybe I'll do that as a reward for myself after I answer some of these built up messages. ^_^;

I will say I love the idea of the new Local Book Search on LibraryThing. It (ideally) lets you look up all the locations (book stores, libraries) you can get a specific book in your area. I sort of figured they'd try it eventually, but I wasn't holding my breath on it. Only...sort of as expected, there don't seem to be many stores in my area with their books listed. I'd love to be able to search local used book stores... But they're trying, anyway, and maybe in time...

Every year, I want to do SantaThing and every year it seems like I COULD scrape together the money...only then it would be silly, as I've a list long enough of books I know I want, so why pay for ones someone else gets me and who does not know my taste as well? B-but I could do it, and then I could get the package and put it under the tree (*cough*or hide it since it would probably be full of gay*cough*) and open it on Christmas...and then I would have something fun to open on Christmas, instead of the money, jewelry, or clothes my parents always get us. ^_^; (Brother tries, but he's often broke. ^^)

But in the end, if I'm going to spend money on books when money is so tight, it should be for books I KNOW I want. Next time I have money to spare on a novelty of an idea like this, then maybe... ...Always maybe next year. ^_^;

EDIT: In other news, the leaderperson at the Nanowrimo group apparently thought I and the Jennies were a lesbian couple. And then Pock had to go and tell her she was mistaken. *sigh* My dreams of being part of embarrassing relationship misunderstanding hijinks foiled again.

In the land of good news, characterized primarily with it's heightened amount of talk about GAY SEX as opposed to OTHER THINGS THAT ARE NOT GAY SEX (tch, then what are we even discussing this for?), I was so exhausted last night that I was on the verge of falling asleep hours before my bed time. So instead of doing something productive I decided to download gay porn, since that seemed like it would take less effort than translating, job searching, reading, or watching a real movie or tv show. This resulted in me sitting in front of the computer for an hour or so constantly falling in and out of sleep to gay porn. I'm pretty disappointed this didn't give me more interesting dreams.

I have slowly rotated my sleep schedule so that I am now awake during the day time. However this has resulted in me only being able to sleep for 4-5 hours since my body is confused with me, which has resulted in my signature sleep-deprived-poofy-red-flaking-right-eyelid-rash. It was also accompanied by my right hand peeling, though I do not know if this was sleep related or you-didn't-use-gloves-when-you-washed-the-dishes-did-you related.

The result, however, is that I am awake during the day. Which resulted in me walking upstairs to find the sun shining through the highest window above the door in a way it apparently only shines in the morning, because never before have I seen the GIGANTUAN, INTRICATE SPIDERWEB which this light revealed. It stretches from the walls to the potted plants to the bannister, and the long pull chain for the fan is at its center. And it's pretty awesome. And also a little disgusting. But I just didn't have the heart to destroy it. I hope the family does not either. It's our magical daybreak spiderweb.

Job search: 3 LIBRARY ASSISTANT POSITIONS OPEN. ...But only one in a location/schedule worth perusing. Still, I hope this bodes well, as before I could not find even one opening even in the unreasonable locations for the longest time.

I don't know why, but planning for Novel Koushien seems to make Izumi/Mizutani fic develop in my brains, even though I was not at all trying to think of them as I have no intention of using them for that. Unfortunately, it did not develop the current fic, but mounds of possible sequel ideas, one plot plopping down this morning almost completely in its entirety. I'm itchin to write it...only besides business, I really ought do the first one first. ^_^;

It is possible that in my scramble to write articles to make my student loan payment and buy some actual food to put in the house (mmm, olives for breakfast*), keep up with nanowrimo (failure!), becoming obsessed with Heart of Thomas/Hagio Moto, and doing the Novel Koushien stuff that I may have possibly chanced to lose track of my personal soft deadline to get another Oofuri chapter around now. But it's ok. I'll finish my articles yesterday today and edit my resume to fit a certain job I saw, do a 10k nanowrimo day tomorrow, get a little job searching under my belt so I don't feel bad for having not gotten much of that done in the past few days...and then there will be Oofuri. S-Surely. Maybe I'll even do two chapters close together again! A-And there will be cake!

But have I told you about my obsession with Heart of Thomas!? I was a little worried about getting into the art of an old manga, but it was actually decently appealing and expressive (if a little confusing at times) and even sort of attractive. I liked it much better than what I saw of Takemiya Keiko's art in To Terra. And the writing was...weirdly good at psychological suspense/tension. Not something I'm used to with BL. Very surprised, very interesting, and I was a little sad in the latter half when there wasn't as much and it was a little more...normal (relatively speaking ^_^;) falling in love stuff. And my heart was never in that, either, since I would have preferred the main character end up with his best friend rather than the new kid he barley knows, as it seems to be going. *sniff* (Poor Oscar. He was so patient. T__________T Must...have...doujinshi...S-Surely there must be some with this being so famous, right? Only so old...Fic in English must surely be hopeless as well T_T) It's still good in its own way, though.

I think I've gone to check if thew new/last chapter has gone up like 3-4 times so far today. ^_^; It looks like they're only released around once every 80 days, but it's 78 days from the last now, hehehe. I don't think I've done the check-a-scanlation-realease-ever-second-I-have-down-time thing since Sakende Yaruze/Shout Out Loud was being scanlated. It feels so nostalgic, heheh. Nowadays I'm usually the one making the scanlations, or with the few I do read, they're to irregularly released for me to be able to wait about like that.

I also read a rather odd short manga by Hagio about a girl with a conjoined twin who sapped her “nutriments” (^_^;) but only a few of her series seem to be scanlated and none of them are finished scanlating or even close besides Thomas. T_T I wish They Were 11 was not out of print... It's a good thing I don't have much money, or I'd be buying her manga, and then I'd be tempted to scanlate it, only it would be rather scary to subject a manga by a famous mangaka to my bad translating.

Though reading Heart of Thomas was kind of one of those 'Wtf, Japan?' moments. I mean, you've got a lady writing a story about a thirteen year old boy who's been ( spoiler ) and is totally screwed up and learns to heal by falling in gay love with a kid who looks like the other kid who killed himself and left main character a letter saying he did it for his angsty preteen love of him. And then you say, “HEY. Let's run this in a magazine aimed at elementary school aged little girls.' and then, 'Huh, it's not popular! But why!? It's the 1970s, little girls these days should be eating this up!'

Wtf, Japan? WTF?

*This is not to say that before I bought food there was nothing to eat for breakfast but olives, but to say that after I was able to afford food there were olives to eat for every mean breakfast.

Someday, I know I will be appreciated for all the hard work and effort I have put into this writing job. Someday, I know, after all the excessive hours spent researching for these $7.50 articles, after struggling with the vague copy editor requests or the strange way they insist upon APA's bewildering rule of no serial commas, I know that someone, someday, is going to come up to me and say, "You're Nora Huynh Kitchen, aren't you? Your article was the best, most thoughtful and descriptive account of How to Cut a Cone Shape I've ever seen in my entire life." That is the moment I wait for. And it will come.

I just know it.

(Though actually, the cone article is a $15 article. And really, if that isn't showing appreciation for my writerly skills, I don't know what is. Cause they certainly weren't paying for real, useful information, I can tell you that.)

So I's been thinking in my Naono writing misery. 10 Nishura boys paired all possible ways = 45 + Hamada/Izumi, Hamada/Mihashi, Kanou/Mihashi, Junta/Kazuki, Rio/Junta = 50, and 50,000 word novel/50 pairings = 1000 WORDS OF GRATUITOUS SEX PER PAIRING. In other words, not hard. ...Only I've already started something else. And I could just do it for next year, only I'm totally never doing this again.

B-But. But woudn't an Oofuri Nanowrimo novel of gratuitous sex be fuuun? I was thinking... Maybe if the community got together... We could go to NOVEL KOUSHIEN together. It wouldn't REALLY qualify for Nanowrimo being from multiple people, but it would be ever so entertaining. *sniff* Only barley any people would probably participate... Maybe next year if there's a new season (a comment on the last post on the Oofuri com says there's a possibly confirmed rumor (^_^;) of a new spring season...) and people are feeling more enthusiastic... But doing it now doesn't *hurt.* Most people don't make it to Koushien the first time, after all! ...Only it would just be embarrassing, posting on the com to see who wants to do it and getting like 3 replies, one of which is a friend being nice, another of which is a person who thinks it's great but won't participate, and another of which thinks it's a stupid idea. ^_^ *sniff* Plus I'd feel bad cause I probably wouldn't participate with all the other junk I'm doing, plus a stupid feeling of obligation to write something good because I was the one that started it. ^_^; ...And not participating when you start it is lame.

I'd go console myself with Hagio Moto manga (I think I may be becoming a Hagio Moto fangirl), only I already did that yesterday, and must reallyreally get back to the moneymakings now. T_T

No scanlations this time, actually. Hehe. ^_^;

Library job not go to me. *sniff* The lady called me back and said Encouraging Things and insisted quite vehemently that I keep trying to find some library to work in and that one surely must open up eventually and seemed to think I had a good chance. And she seemed to mean it quite earnestly (as opposed to having the 'just saying the polite thing to the interviewee' vibe), only she also seemed to very possibly be the sort of lady that could tell anyone just about anything unreasonably optimistic and mean it with complete earnestness. ^_^; Nice lady, though. And her library was about two medium-sized rooms and one large hallway big, yet it had a manga section more than triple the size of our capital city's library. ^_^; (With all of Hikaru no Go. And yaoi.) I'm sad I didn't look before the interview, as now I will never have a chance to compliment it. ^^

Nanowrimo goes decently well. Fell behind the handful of days to spend a little time planning, and have been doing double word counts since to catch up and shall be there in a couple days (though yesterday was skipped in favor of bringing this wonderful Oofuri to you <3). Conclusion: Writing without putting any thought into style or execution is sort of like slowly pressing nails through the top of my foot and out the bottom but minus the excitement.

I know some people might learn valuable things from wrimo about not letting yourself use mistakes and imperfections as excuses not to write or finish things, but in the case of the attitudes exuded by most of the wrimos I've seen at the write ins, I think my brother is quite right in calling this, 'National Pretend You're A Novelist Month.' I guess there's nothing really wrong with having a NaPrYNoMo, except for the lack of awareness by so many that that's what they're doing. I feel a little over-dramatic saying it, but it seems like sort of an insult to real novelists to think the things most people create during this month novels. I mean, everyone knows first drafts are shit, but real novelists put good hard thought into that shit. Some not-real novelists do it, too. They sit down and try and try and think and think and write shit. And much as I love to insult crap writing, I still respect that about fifty bajillion times more than much of this rather amazingly fantastic wankfest. (Though to those wrimos that do try, or that do keep things in perspective, or that are just doing this for silly fun and know it, absolutely more power to you.)

Plus side, though, I think my brains got so fed up with the senseless word dumping and fed me some ideas for hopefully somewhat less senseless IzuMizu fic. Most will likely not fit in quite right and turn into drabbles that will never get shared or written, and the leftovers aren't enough to start writing again, but it's more than I've gotten from teh brains in some time, so that's nice. Especially since one of the drabble ideas is full of thinly disguised sarcasm and sentences full of words picked with careful selectivity and is generally so full of self-indulgent word-tinkering and excessive deliberation that it is almost sure to be completely unworthy of being shared with anyone, possibly OOC, and the perfect cure for all this wrimo-itis. ^_^

( To the chapter! )

Would you like to know my secret? My secret is that after posting the last Oofuri chapter, I was feeling enthusiastic and went on and finished this one the same night, and then intended to withhold it for a week to get a little ahead in the translating so I don't fall behind my one per week goal if I get busier later. ...This is how long I lasted. ^_^;

(Blarg, and I want to scanlate some of the pages from the next chapter, but can't seem to get Photoshop to install on Fappy III. So I've got to learn to use Gimp. Hope does not slow me down terribly. ...I shall be sad if scanlating turns out not to be an option on this computer. T_T)

Word on the street is that chapter 74 of Oofuri is full of fantasticawesome. Glancing at a handful of pages confirms this (gaaah, stop spoiling yourself) and now I want to get there soooooo bad. T_T This is good news, as the recent chapters (in the 60s) have not at a glance looked terribly intriging, and many confirm they've been less engaging than usual. (Why I've never yet gotten around to catching up ^_^;) So this turn of the tide is most welcome. (And of course one hopes this is indeed a turn of the tide rather than a blip of happiness that will soon fade.)

Library interview...went well enough that there's no reason for them *not* to hire me, but considering the hugegantuan STACK of applicants they were interviewing and the lady's admitting that she was interviewing more people than she ever had before and ever intended to because of the flood of qualified applicants that came in in just the handful of days they were accepting and they really should have taken the ad down sooner... I'm not exactly going to be horribly shocked if I don't get it.

Still. They had *plastic* book marks. Big ones. (...Is it bad that likely the most memorable thing about myself I displayed in the interview was my tendency to collect cheesy library bookmarks? ^_^;)

Nanowrimo went through a good amount of planning yesterday. ...Today was supposed to be the rest of the planning and perhaps writing. But....but I want to read Oofuri. T_T ....It was supposed to be a simple story about ducks. Which turned into a simple story about a former assistant duck breeder. Which turned into a simple story about a former assistant duck breeder who sawed apart his master when young, and now has to find five people like him so that the government will not collapse. Which I imagine is pretty par for the course as far as wrimo novels go, only I haven't started writing it yet. Why all the random, brain? This isn't a good sign, is it?

( A real battery )