Why I Shouldn't Procrastinate

I'm busily working on my little brother's birthday card. Since it's in the wee hours of the morning now, it is already his birthday. This is why I should not put off making cards and things until the last minute; I always end up losing sleep. To make things extra difficult, he asked that his card be butterfly themed. I don't know why. He assigned each sibling a theme: Dragons, Dinosaurs, and so on. I got the butterfly card. Problem is, butterflies are just about my least favorite things to draw. That might sound silly, but I mean it. I've just got a block when it comes to drawing butterflies. Even back in first grade, I remember being frustrated with them. I simply cannot draw a good butterfly.

So now I'm painstakingly trying to copy butterfly shapes and colors from various reference pictures online and having a ridiculously difficult time of it. He had better like this card when he gets it tomorrow ^_^

I'm listening to the "Inception" score while drawing. This helps a little bit.

The blisters on my feet, especially on my right foot, are really, really nasty and painful, but I'm trying to do everything I can to speed-heal them so I can compete this weekend without making an utter fool of myself onstage, eg., limping around instead of dancing. This is, scarily enough, a very real possibility, since I was not even able to put my soft shoe on my right foot at class today, let alone a hard shoe! I tried looking up tips online about how to heal blisters quickly, but I just ended up finding a bunch of articles warning me to take blisters easily because if they get infected they can lead to death or amputation. I'm paranoid enough without reading stuff like that, thank you kindly.

I think I'll finish this card tomorrow morning. I mean, today morning. Later. When the sun is up. Right.

'Night! Or . . . Morning! Whatever you like.

I found this quite funny; source link at bottom right. Oh, Zelda. I should play that game again sometime, I was so close to finishing it when I had to leave it in Hawaii ;_;

For the record, I was the world's worst chicken flier. Couldn't aim the stupid things.

Hot . . .

You know how I mentioned it was chilly a little while back?

Scratch that. Yesterday broke records with a high of 113 or somesuch insane number. It is hot, hot, hot, HOT. When the wind blowing feels like an open oven scorching your face, you know you have problems.

And this is the beginning of autumn? Sigh.

Oireachtas Coming . . .

Oireachtas practicing officially started today, and I have the aches and pains to prove it. Plus, after losing my beautiful old hard shoes at my last competition due to a mix-up and REALLY poor management by the feis committee, I have a brand new pair to break in which, as any Irish dancer can tell you, means I'm going through a torturous time. I mean, I have blisters on my heels. Blisters, Gandalf! And I never get blisters any more, or at least not for a good many years. It's sad :(

Dance itself, however, remains wonderful. Frustrating at times of course, but always well worth the effort put into it, and more. Blisters become calluses, with a little time. I'll be fine.

Books! I've already finished my Nathan Hale biography, the first of the O'Brian novels I borrowed, and am now happily devouring both "The Mauritius Command" and my book on the American Revolution. So there will be a real proper Book of the Month this month, as well as a good number of reviews, huzzah!

As to writing, I've been determinedly plodding along, and it's going splendidly, actually! I'm really excited to actually be making this much progress in my novel. In addition, I am just getting more and more excited about NaNoWriMo! I've written up a little blurb about the story I'm planning to write--the type you'd see on the back of a book--but nothing more than that, so I can have enough creative freedom to actually write the 50,000 words without hitting a block. I'm trying not to plot ahead at all, which is difficult for me, but hopefully will prove a helpful exercise. I'll post the blurb here once October hits.

I'm currently typing this with only half of my attention; I'm mostly absorbed with an animated short I'm watching on Youtube, "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello". Steampunk and silhouettes and adventure and creepiness, oh my! A friend recommended it to me, and I'm loving it so far.

Tomorrow I make a birthday card for my littlest brother, who will be turning five this week! And then I'll read some more, write some more, and attempt to make tapioca pudding with the contents of a really old box of tapioca I found in a kitchen cupboard the other day. Hopefully it'll be yummy, instead of poisoning me or something. We'll see, I guess . . .

PS: Just finished the film. Strongly recommend you check it out :)

Phoenix Requiem

I advertised the fantastic webcomic "The Dreamer" on this blog in my last post. Now I'm going to recommend yet another, "Phoenix Requiem", which can also be reached using a banner on the sidebar of this blog. The art took a little bit of warming up to, but definitely improved over time, as before long the panels became absolutely gorgeous. Also, it's like a pseudo-Victorian fantasy, so that gives it major like points as well. The beginning's a bit slow, but the intrigue that comes later is well worth it.

Also, the artist/author gave one of her main characters very Tennant-esque hair, and was awesome enough to pay tribute to her inspiration in the following piece:


Gotta love that.

(Picture taken from artsangel's dA gallery, here. It's worth a perusal.)