I'm off to the movies, and then hopefully in bed by midnight to get up early and head to New York. Keep your fingers crossed for me for a short TKTS line and a good Cyrano de Bergerac.

What a day. Roommate J has pneumonia. (Walking, I believe, because she still appears to have some energy.) I got a ticket to a Dan Rather broadcast to take place in the common room of our college--the topic is “Church and State: Separation Anxiety." How awesome is that?
Tomorrow I'm auditioning for Freshman-Directed and Freshman-Acted One-Acts. Should be sufficiently nerve-wracking. Then on Saturday I'm headed to NYC to try and catch a show of some kind. Ideally it'd be Cyrano de Bergerac but really anything is fine. It's my early birthday present to myself. (Although, of course, everything I decide to give myself comes from the parents on high. It's the hierarchy of the thing.)

Two moments of glory today.
1) I got into a creative writing class taught by Edmund White.
2) I had a quote published on Overheard in New York. com, the Overheard Everywhere branch.
As of now (9:28 am EST) it's the third one down with the somewhat surprising title referencing male anatomy that I DID NOT GIVE IT. Titles are assigned by the webmasters, I think.
Anyway, it's the one that mentions Ruben the One-eyed Gimp.

I got into Creative Writing again for Spring Semester! Rejoice!

Just before Thanksgiving Jeffrey Eugenides came for his turn in our English class. He brought with him an enormous poodle, previously sighted at the arts building while I was saying a quick hello to Mom and Uncle Hoagie-Free-Zone. The poodle behaved very well, but sat bolt upright and seemed to smile when we gave a round of applause at the end of class. He offered some great insight into the writing process (as have all the authors, although they each one has said things about their process that was totally at odds with the person preceding them) and made jokes about the movie version of The Virgin Suicides, which, according to him, is best at two in the morning dubbed into German and viewed in a cramped Berlin hotel.
Today in English there were no guests (C.K. Williams is next, on Wednesday) but we did cover a lot of material, as always. One thing that I learned that I can share with you (since it is not bound up in context and terminology) is that Pandora's Box is a mistranslation. It was originally Pandora's Jug. Somehow I can't see that catching on.
Thanksgiving break was quite excellent. Dinner at the Home of the J Names was fantastic (we had about three pounds of turkey and two pounds of potatoes available per person) and the next day's revelries at the home of erstwhile Cousin R, known henceforth as The Street, were fun. Dad badly shocked Cousin L with one of his charades clues, Grandpa stymied us all with "I Left My Hat in Haiti" and Uncle Awesome-Comments saved Dad in the nick of time by guessing Lysistrata. I drove us back to Poe's Resting Place in the dark along winding Pennsylvania roads and got us lost, but this proved to be a blessing in disguise since it was an unanticipated shortcut.
Today I came dangerously close to having to read my Creative Writing work at the Student Reading on December 12th. It was a runoff between me and a senior girl. I'm glad that we picked her, since it's her last chance and she writes amazingly well, but also because I have a love-hate relationship with this semester's project and the sooner I'm done with the characters the better. I did figure out why I wasn't liking it that much, though. In class today another girl (the one who is slightly insane and whose style mine most closely resembles) pointed out that the suggestions we were giving her was making her story too much of a coming of age tale.
Now, my parents know that I hate coming of age tales with a passion, since they most often take the form of horny teenage boys with no feelings (or emotions that they haven't locked tight in a box) growing to hate each other and pushing each other out of trees. Sometimes it takes place in Baltimore and is a movie. Sometimes it doesn't.
"We are coming of age," another girl said.
Bingo! We were assigned to write about our lives, and the most interesting tales are the recent ones and we are coming of age. It all added up and I understood why I never really got to like my story.
Ah well. I still LOVE my NaNoWriMo novel, and I have 41,675 words written, so everything's fine.
"We Published F. Scott" has a meeting at 11:00 pm tonight. What the what? This truly is the life of a college student: nocturnal.

P.S. It was incredibly foggy this late afternoon/evening in Princeton. To those who know: is that normal?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!

This year I am thankful for godparents, the Cambridge spies, Paris, tea, dialog, California, Europe, stationary, writing utensils (especially those from the career fair), freshly mowed lawns, Dorothy Dunnett, witty banter, picking up littler, human rights, the history of the public toilet, crunchy apples, fall colors, free t-shirts, Cyrano de Bergerac, E.M. Forster, Hawaiian college masters, my English class, biology teachers who leap about, HBO, Subcontinent, the Ex-Neighbors, HarvardGirl, Unofficial Friday Night Film Club (and movies in general), Roommate J, Princeton, Mom, Dad, good health, novels, and more crazy stories than I have time to write down and put in my blog.

Love,
Nom de Plume

House was great for so many reasons tonight.
Here's one of them: apparently impending sense of doom is a symptom.
Uh oh, Mom.
:D

No classes today! French was canceled because Professor Madame is having an eye operation and bio lab was canceled because we stayed overtime last week and got two labs done in time allotted only for one.
Instead of getting my learn on, I plan to go to the gym, take a shower, write NaNoWriMo, update my resumé, change the ink in my printer, do my laundry, and print out a mapquest for Asian Carpool Guy. And then watch House. It will be incredibly productive, fingers crossed.
In the meantime, please enjoy this:
McSweeney's--Ripple Effects of the Writers' Strike

32,494 words down! 17,506 to go! As NaNoWriMo hits a downward slope, I find myself wondering: Might this explain This Side of Paradise, the novel that every Princetonian has not-quite-read? Was it churned out at such a rate that crushed its good intentions and left it "the worst good book" ever. I think I'm quoting someone. I'm sure I read that somewhere.
Oh well. I like my novel better than This Side of Paradise. It certainly has better descriptions of the Parisian Metro system! yeah, yeah, i know...
Did you know that swans are unfaithful? Or that the face is an organ? Or that I learned both of these things not in biology but in creative writing? It's true.

This was supposed to go up on Veterans' Day, but Ye Olde Computere Problems prevented that. Dad and I did share a misty-eyed e-mail or two over it, but that was just about it.

Over There--And Gone Forever

This habit of forgetting history is annoying, if only because history repeats itself, and we should know when it happens.

Beatrice died, forcing the love triangle's hand somewhat. She watches, approvingly, from on high.

I blame NaNoWriMo for my spotty blog entries this month. Nonetheless, I have 30,511 words written and am completely on track. I had a lot of words to make up this morning, since yesterday was spent studying for Biology from the moment I came back from my pain au chocolat run to the moment I decided to chuck it in and watch X-men 2 and Roommate J went to sleep to wake up early for her EMT class. There was a break in there for dinner. Somewhere. I don't recall.
Anyway, bio studying will start up again this afternoon, but first I have to go running. I have discovered the gym here, and the glory that is treadmill when it's as cold and rainy outside as it is right now. On Friday Roommate J and RussianRoommate and I all went together and I was reminded of life at Damn-Big-Midwestern-University High, when I chatted gleefully with friends in a smelly locker room and then ran two miles and then came back to the smelly locker room and chatted a little less gleefully with, now, slightly smellier friends, and then went back to school. This happened every other day.
Well, since Wednesday I've been able to keep up the every other day thing, but the smelly thing I decided has no place in my new routine. I shower in the comfort of my dorm shower, which (gloriously) has a curtain.
I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving with the Ps and the J-Name Family. (Remember them? Practically everyone's name begins with J? Yes.) It'll be a nice break from school and Roommate J was nice enough to let me get in on the Asian Carpool (she joked that I should be ready to field questions on my chosen profession) which is heading to a town down the road from where I'm going and will drop me off at a Bob Evans. Or something. "Under a bridge," was what Roommate J snickered, more out of a love of humor than, I hope, any intent to actual leave me with truckers. :)
Tonight the "We Published F. Scott" literary mag prose staff (of which I am a part) is meeting to discuss a packet of stories including one of my own. I think I will pretend to be too busy studying for bio to go (not too much of a stretch) because I think I would have difficulty maintaining a straight face while they rip it to shreds. I've gone to all the other meetings, though, and gave very vocal opinions, like everyone else.
In addition, I'm editing for another literary mag, this one along the lines of "Diversity--Whatever That Means." I have more duties and I like the vibe of the magazine better, but everything is done online, so there isn't the sense of community that "We Published F. Scott" gives me.
I must off and run. Auf wieder...schreiben!

The Lives of Others. Ah. What an excellent movie. Even on a second viewing it. The last line in particular is perfect in every way. You may have noticed that I'm not writing this is a hasty, stilted manner. Yes. That's because MY COMPUTER HAS RETURNED! Rejoice!

Computer still out sick. Typing this on a public machine I'm not supposed to use for anything but e-mail.
25,046 words of NaNoWriMo done.
Miss you! (You, second person plural, and you, mycomputer.)

I have dicovered a new way to waste time:

A Nom de Plume on both your houses!

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

That is how I am feeling about technology right now.

Presume not that I am the Nom de Plume I was.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Alright...

Is this a Nom de Plume which I see before me,
Its handle toward my hand?

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Oh Good Lord.

What a week. First the confiscation of my teapot. Blargh. Then the Mrs. Fields cookies. Yay! Then I had to scramble to do the reading assigned. Yuck. Then I got the news about my play. Huzzah! Then Toni Morrison came and spoke in English class. Woo hoo! Then so did Mom (albeit not in English class) and I even understood half of it. Woo hoo again! We went out afterwards for dinner with several other art historians. I continue to be of the opinion that all art historians are either spies, or my mother. I wore my Cambridge scarf in celebration.
Then my computer died. This morning. MAJOR bad news. I ran it over to the tech people and they stared at it for four hours while running around and helping other people and then they said that they could fix it temporarily (by removing half of the memory) but that I need to back up EVERYTHING, IMMEDIATELY, and bring it back in on Monday to have it fixed. Or, you know, shipped off to Apple. I was, needless to say, rather bummed by this news. (Hint: gross understatement). Luckily, Mommy was still in town to take me shopping for an external hard drive and peppermint patties and other very important things, after which we went out to dinner and chatted.
After saying goodbye to her I hefted my Target purchases up to my dorm, began the backup process, and went to watch This is England for $2 with Mr.CA- and DownstairsChatterer. What an amazing and intense movie. Maybe not quite what I needed, but I was glad to have seen it.
Work on the blog may be sporadic starting Monday (with the computer being absent from my life. *sob*) As will work on NaNoWriMo. Gulp. I'm still on track with 15,006 words, though. Yippee for that, at least.

So here's the story.
I rolled out of bed around nine yesterday and walked the three feet over to my computer where I was going to check the weather, as I do every morning. Then I asked myself, "Nom de Plume, when was the last time you checked your hotmail account?" Not recently was the answer, and I have a few friends who correspond with me that way, so I decided to check it.
In the inbox was an e-mail from someone with a very funny last name. It's a shame I can't reprint it here. Suffice it to say that it was like "Snodgrass."
Ms. Snodgrass (hereafter to be referred to as Director Snodgrass) was wondering if I had any information about rights/royalties due to me should someone decide to stage my play. She went on to say that she was a student at Knox and had been pointed in the direction of my play by a friend who had been in the Nebraska staged reading. I remembered him (he had been the really sweet boy playing my least favorite character--not the most odious, or even the second most odious, just one I didn't care for--and when the week was over he asked me to e-mail a copy that "I haven't written all over.").
So I e-mailed the people at the magazine who published it (because, remember, I have this royalties question to clear up) and they gave me quite a nice crash course (I love them) in a system of notes that is sent between a writer and a director. This system, I should mention, culminates in a check, and the potential to fly me out to watch the play. (!)
So. We'll see how that goes. But even to have the idea in my head is excitement enough.
I jumped around a lot, which alarmed my roommates until I told them what happened.
YAY!
Oh, and the flu shot went well. And watching House (good episode!). And those other things I had to do, all of which were somewhat eclipsed.
And I have 10,037 words of NaNoWriMo done.
Indeed.

This just in: Knox College wants to put on THE PLAY.
EEEEEE!!!!!!!!
:)

My return to classes yesterday yielded mixed results. English was excellent, but half the class (myself included) realized that we had been reading the old version of the syllabus and the new version had us discussing a different book this week. So all that airport Virgin Suicides joy was for naught. I should have been reading Toni Morrison's Paradise. I know what I'll be doing tonight!
Speaking of The Virgin Suicides, I did get my Jeffrey Eugenides sighting this week anyway (he entered the building behind an enormous poodle, which could, now that I think about it, be even more excellent than exiting pursued by a bear), as I stood in the hallway of the arts building talking to Mom and Uncle Hoagie-Free-Zone, who were in town to watch experimental Turkish films. I gave that a pass and instead did massive amounts of writing in the best library ever, finishing my creative writing for the week.
I returned to the dorm room to find that we had had a fire inspection during the day while everyone was gone and in place of my plug-in teapot (and all-around love of my life) I found a red receipt informing me of its confiscation. (This was the first time I had left it out in the open instead of hiding it under my bed. I was extremely disgruntled). They'll send an e-mail to the room in five days letting me know what I can do to retrieve it. In the meantime: grrrr. This was not the best time for them to deprive me.
Nonetheless, I have a lovely pumpkin-topped container of Mrs. Fields cookies to get me by in the meantime, sent by the Awesome Ex-Neighbors (Do-Gooders by day, Superheros by night).
I showered (apparently using the last of the hot water, as Roommate J informed me when she tried to shower fifteen minutes later) and settled down to write my NaNoWriMo installment for the day (I now had 8,463 words), pausing to call Dad with a research question.
Today, it is raining. Luckily, I have rain boots now. Huzzah!
To Do This Afternoon:
Flu Shot (and the accompanying "Cirque de Santé" {gag me} where one can apparently get a free massage. Cool!)
Internship info Session, which Roommate J and I are going to together
Student Art Show, featuring work of CC
HOUSE!!!!!

Take THAT, Hollywood.

Back in Princeton after a flight that actually took off on time (a first for me travelling by myself) and a train full of college students eager to be back(so eager, in fact, that at one point it was standing room only and I found myself sharing a one-person seat with one other person, both of us resting our feet on our suitcases with our knees around our ears).
Leaving home was much easier than I expected, and when I got back on campus I actually felt a little excited to be seeing my roommates again.
Luckily in my absence someone threw out the pumpkins that I was afraid I would find rotting upon my return. And Apparently Roommate J's mom donated a mop and bucket, so we can expect to be a lot cleaner from now on. The only mysterious thing is the number of fruitflies. What do we think? Are they left over from the advent of the pumpkin goo? Or are they hoping for the return of the apple stockpile? Or have they developed a taste for Berger's Cookies (in which case, God bless 'em, they can stay, but only one a day)?
After eating dinner. I took advantage of having no homework and worked on my NaNoWriMo project. I am on target with 6,669 words.
I'm actually looking forward to classes starting up again tomorrow, but first I need to remember how to sleep with earplugs. That I will never get nostalgic about.