Long Overdue Update

Okay, flatties.  No one's updated on this blog for years now, so I figured it was high time we all caught up!

The short of it for me, most of which you already know: Left grad school with a Master's in English, married my grad school sweetheart this summer, and am now working part-time/writing the novel.  I also started a blog, which will hopefully be a good resource for book reviews through a Catholic lens:

http://splinteredfragmentsoflight.blogspot.com/

It's not nearly as dramatic as the title makes it sound.  And I only did that since Tolkienroxmysox.blogspot.com doesn't quite set the right tone... ;)

Other than that, there's not much more in my life right now.  I will soon be adventuring off into home buying land, which I am not looking forward to, let me tell you. 

Go ahead and update...you know you want to!

Oddest Celebrity Sighting I've Had Yet

Raven Symoné--Yes, of The Cosby Show and That's So Raven! fame--at a lesbian bar in Hollywood. She left before any of the shenanigans (Read: Lap dances and shots being spat from the top of the bar) began, but still...

For the story of WHY I was at a lesbian bar in Hollywood at the same time as Raven Symoné, well, that's for another time.

Reckless Writing

Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Things have picked up and I'm in the thick of researching for papers. I have three of them, one for each class, and fortunately there's only one that has to be 20-25 pages, but still. You can imagine, it's a lot of work.

In addition, I have taken up the National Novel Writing Month challenge again, which has been going great. I'm currently at about 62,000 words, which means I've officially passed the requirement of 50,000 words, making me a winner. I'm in the midst of my final climactic battle scene and am hoping to finish the novel before the end of November, although with schoolwork picking up, it'll be interesting to see how rushed it turns out. At any rate, you can scan the synopsis of it, read an excerpt, and track my progress here, if you so wish.

Life is going quite well outside of school and novel land. I've made some good close friends who are keeping me sane, the weather has been dipping only into the mid 60's at the coldest (today it was 77!) and I can feel that Christmas break is nearly here. As it is, I'm preparing to gorge myself on Turkey Day. It's gonna be great.

I hope you guys are all doing well! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Only in LA

To be fair, it WAS outside a sleepwear store in Santa Monica. But still...That's hilarious! :-P

All Shook Up (And NOT by an Earthquake)

Well, ladies, it had to happen eventually, given that I am in fact an Asian female driver now in California...Emily and I were in a car accident yesterday, rear-ended by another guy while trying to get on the freeway. I was the one driving, but (without going into detail) it was 100% the other guy's fault, he even admits it, and both of us are a little sore but otherwise okay. My car is another story, but that's what insurance is for, right? I suppose the one absolutely fabulous thing about this whole ordeal is that I came to the hilarious realization that I actually do have State Farm Insurance, which made me laugh out loud that I never remembered that before.

Don't worry, my next post will have more fun news than that. :-D

For those curious about the damage (and all my fallen stuffed animals really make the image that much more dramatic):


~Jenni~

After the Storm

So I've survived my first official hurricane here in Houston, Hurricane Ike. It really wasn't that bad--at least not where I live. There was no significant damage to my apartment building (a few tiles are still loose but that's about it) and though a tree did fall down, it got caught on a power line instead of taking any houses out. Thank goodness.

If anything, things are really annoying right now because power still has not been restored to most people's homes in this city. At home I have water and that's it. No lights and no ways to cook as my stove is electric. Fortunately they are feeding us free dinners until the electricity gets up and running. Still, it's annoying and I had to clean out the fridge, but it still stinks. I didn't realize how much I took just having power for granted. They're saying it could take until the end of this week for everything to be up and running.

Rice has power which is where I come every day to mooch for my computer and cell phone. During the storm I stayed with another first year grad student Heather as my apartments were mandatorily evacuated. The storm hit early Saturday morning and howled from about midnight until 6 am. I barely got any sleep, but by Saturday afternoon Ike had moved on. We took a walk to see the damage. It wasn't major, but man the canal near Heather's apartment was raging with water and there were trees and branches everywhere. I've also seen pictures of Galveston and it seems that they got hit so much harder than we did. I can't imagine.

Classes were cancelled on Monday (it's really hard and not all that romantic to read by candlelight I've discovered) and yesterday my only class was not held as a tree fell on my professor's house. Yikes. I suspect it'll be about a week before things are back to normal. Until then I'm trying to get as much work as I can done so that when power comes back on and supplies are in abundance at stores again I can run around and do errands.

It is annoying and inconvenient, but all things considered, things could have been a lot worse. I am glad to be safe and have access to everything I need. Thanks so much guys for your prayers and thoughts!

Take care!

Rock You Like a Hurricane

So I have not even been in Houston for a month and I'm currently set to face my first hurricane ever--Hurricane Ike. Although technically, having lived in Okinawa ten years ago, I have been through typhoons and even super typhoons. However, this is a bit different and quite exciting in an absurd way.

I'm bunkering down with my newfound friend Heather, another first year grad student in the English department, since they ordered a mandatory evacuation of the grad apartments. We've got water, filled our bathtub after showering this morning, have ice in the fridge, canned food, and candles galore. Also plenty of homework to keep us busy (Ike had to hit over the weekend, didn't it?). Nothing has happened so far but we seem pretty set and have at least two places to go if things get really bad.

Otherwise life in Houston has been pretty good; I've been learning the ropes of reading lots and lots of literary theory. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to continue having problems with the roommate (she's been rather disrespectful, unfortunately), but until the storm passes, I can't do much about it.

So that's a quick update to let people know that so far I am safe. I'll try to update as soon as everything passes. They're saying it's going to be dire, but since Houston isn't on the coast and we're not in a low-lying part of the city, we should be fine. Wish us luck! I'm off to prepare for craziness.

Ciao!