Blogging by phone

Definitely a new experience sitting in a parking lot outside Sun Devil Stadium on Thanksgiving with a slight head cold. Praying that cold doesn't get worse as choir concert is on Sunday. Trip so far has very bad travel karma. 7.5 hrs to phoenix, got lost on the way to hotel, and waited another hour as Hotels.com had forgotten to tell Hilton that we were coming. gah. but now well on the road of alcoholic consumption and ignoring annoying guys in FUCS shirts. ps. ASU needs more bloody parking signs. like psha

Klepto

"You're not thinking up new names! You're just stealing them!"

This coming from Mel is quite hilarious... but once she said it, I just kinda decided, hey, yeah! Let's run with it!

So, just a note... the names I've been using are just names... and have no relation to the actual people. Here's a few:

Hensley, the town Betsy lives in, Mel's last name (and the one she commented on)

Ryda, former student name

Michael, brother-in-law

Adeo, half of a character name

Betsy, Lizzie's first nickname

Elizabeth, Lizzie's grandma's name

Reuben, Clare's fiance

Clare and Al, taken directly from Canterbury Tales (Mel and Mine, not Chaucer)

Amanda is named after Canterbury Tales Amanda

And, well, Junior, I stole from Indiana Jones

The unnamed university is obviously USC

and Kathryn Miller is supposed to be Katharine Hepburn-ish

Merry is the only name I think I didn't intentionally steal.

Any way, off to do more writing. Any other good ideas about things or names I could steal? Send them my way!

La!

So I had a big presentation at work today... and of course I've been pretty stressed out about it for reasons I won't go into here.

But I rocked! I think I shocked their socks off. Hey, I've always been an A student, but I'm somehow surprised when people are surprised by my presentation skills.

The principal's substitute (who also just so happens to be our WASC consultant) said it was "a conference quality presentation." She said, "You should be an administrator!" Uhhh... why do all admin seem to think that good teachers should leave the classroom? Huh.

The VP I worked with on the presentation (though I did the pretty PowerPoint Presentation) was also happy. We high fived each other exiting the meeting. I must say we made the Math department's presentation last month look dull.

On a completely different note, I had a Write Out tonight and hit my halfway point for my novel. Yeah! 25k! Chapters 1-16 are now available on my NaNoBlog... see link to right.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

So how's life? Well, besides getting two tires slashed, I'm pretty good, especially when I found out the tire slashing was done by random to several cars up and down the street.

I'm in full NaNo Mode. Chapters 1-5 are posted on my NaNoBlog if you care to read... (link to right)

I survived Homecoming and Halloween - We went to Hollywood on Halloween to a sing-a-long Nightmare Before Christmas at the El Capitan. Pretty cool. There was even a guy playing the massive organ before the show. That was great too. It's not very often that you get to hear Phantom of the Opera played in surround sound that makes your insides tingle.

Next week is ROAD TRIP 1. Nikki and I are taking a day off work so that our trip doesn't turn into a "Hi, okay, bye!" Trip.

Must get my Ipod reloaded with stuff to listen to... like Mel's new NaNo CD.

I was going to burn Mel and new CD too, but I ran out of time... so it may turn into a Xmas CD... especially since she abandoned me on the Nano front this year. I mean, come on, what's Grad School compared to literary abandon???