*wanders sleepily into the Square*
I have.. literally, no homework tonight. This feels too weird.. very unnatural. No, I'm not complaining.

So.. here goes.

If you practiced you could (lol I don't know )
It might take a little to get you back into the 'groove', but you probably could do it pretty easily.

..Ah. But that would require me to purchase a new unicycle, first.

*waves to Aravanna* Hi, I don't think we've ever met? *feels like such a newbie*

*sighs* I want Pippin in Hobbit!

I just read this as "I wish I was Pippin in the Hobbit!" I think something's wrong with my brain today.

Yeah, me too. I don't know if I'd let anyone read my journal. I've read parts of my old journals to people to laugh at them (but I skip certain pages sometimes)
So yeah. My journal nowadays-- bad news if anyone read it. Haha. At least, IMO.
Yeah, I can imagine. We moved when I was 10 or 11 and I didn't mind so much. Now I'm super glad we moved. But if we moved now it'd be the end of the world almost.
[*feels like an over-dramatic teen... Ugh*]
Doing well! And you? Yeah, I never really pictured you as a Japanese person, but I never really thought too hard about it. :/

Yeah, I've read parts to my brother, just for fun, but I was saying things like 'nope, not that, that's about you..' and skimming through.. I don't think I'd stand it if it was him writing about me.
I'm so private in my journal these days, I just say anything I need to get out, without even the slightest worry that someone will see it. I.. sincerely hope.
I think moving is sort of the end of the world.. the end of one world, at least. At least I sort of know the world I'm going to, although sometimes I'm not sure if that's good or not, because I know people have moved on, and.. ugh. Yeah, now I'm sounding over-dramatic.
I'm.. okay. Finding school pretty boring, but my life is sort of relaxed, for the moment, which is nice. Haha, I suppose you wouldn't, really.

*waves to Melian_Maia* Have we met?

I hope your upcoming move goes really well, Aslans Country. I've lived in the same city all my life, and we're contemplating moving to the country or the coast, which I would love, but it's still about as scary and intimidating to me as moving to the other side of the world.

Thank you! I hope it goes well, too. Is where you would be moving far enough away that you wouldn't be able to get back to the city easily? That pretty much is the same as moving to the other side of the world, in my opinion.

Hmm, by the way, what do you think about the nickname Lana, or Lani? Aslans Country. . . geddit? Don't mind me, I love trying to find nicknames in people's usernames.

Yeah, I like Lana - the a seems to fit better than the i. lol, I'm hopeless at finding anything but the most obvious nicknames. I envy your creativity.

Hmm.. I think I just realized that I haven't actually watched VDT yet, and that I'll be able to in less than a month. xD I've seen so much about the movie, and even formulated my opinions of it (terrible, I know ), so I'd kinda forgotten it was sort of still.. to be watched. What is it with Japan? In a way, VDT being less-than-excellent has made the wait easier. Still excited for SC, though.

Ahhh, delayed-reaction post again!

Accept this humble offering, Square Onions?

*returns Rose's wave*

*Raises her hand eagerly, rather like Hermione Granger when she has the answer to a teacher's question*

That is pretty much the best simile ever. I take it you like HP?

Yes!! Do it, oh please oh please! I'd be very happy to join!

Okay, well I see that there's interest so I started my Pixar Alliance! Just shoot me a PM if you'd like to join. I'm going to try to make up spiffy titles for everyone if they so choose.

*returns the wave to Cor and Vern*

Silver.... square cupcakes? Clever and cute. This causes too much stress on my eyes, however, along with the weetabix and brownies and cookies and hot chocolate.

I know, right? They look positively scrumptious! It makes me want to make square cupcakes sometime, just for the fun of it. I wonder how that's even possible...oh, and sorry for hurting your eyes even more with this lovely Onion Cake.

Sure! Of course, you'd have to school me on all those that I haven't watched, first.

Haha, no problem! You don't have to have watched all the Pixar movies to join. But I'm happy to school you if you want to listen to me ramble on for hours.

*waves to everyone I didn't mention*

Well, I'm afraid I don't have time to do much more than skim today. We're packing to go on vacation, Friday. I can't wait to escape the cold and the snow, if only for a week! Anyway, I'll be gone Friday the 4th to Saturday the 12th. I think I'll be able to keep up with my RPs (hopefully!) but for those of you who frequent Member Chat, I probably won't be on at all. *will miss you guys* Please pray for safe travels, if you're so inclined.

Good mortereve, all!

AC: Haha! I write more if there's something sad going on. *shrug* I guess there just seems to be more to say. More to complain about I guess. I feel like I should write more when I'm happy though--- if anyone ever reads through my journal they'll think my life was only depressing! That would stink. So, yeah. When I'm really happy, I should write. If I'm really happy I'm more likely to write a letter TO someone though...

Yeah, school's going slow here too... I got a couple new books to read though! Yayayayayay.

Hello all!
It has been awhile this time! Isn't life wonderful? On Saturday I went to lunch with my three best friends/ heart sisters who I haven't seen for quite awhile. It was amazing, we just sat and talked for almost four hours! =) That was great.
Working through my boring and somewhat difficult school . . not being on NW as much as I could wish . . but here I am!!
*echoes all praise of Diana Wynn Jones*
*waves to EJ, Lu, Libby and Queen Susan*

Yay! I'm glad we're siblings too.

How are you doing, sister?

He does have a rather nice voice, doesn't he. I was surprised at how much I liked the film, too, because it's so different from the book, and I love the book. Movie!Howl doesn't measure up to Book!Howl for me—I didn't think he was whiny and immature enough. Too suave. And I missed some of the subplots from the book, like Michael and Martha, and was frustrated that they cut some of the characters, but all in all it's a very nice film.

He does! It's amazing! But I agree - he was to perfect in the movie, it didn't show his faults enough. So he wasn't as lovely, but I still loved him! Yes, I think the book is probably better than the movie, though I about love them equally. They are a lot different. And Calcifer! I shrieked when I saw what he looked like!

I've never been downhill skiing before, Elanor. I suppose that could make a crash more, uh, serious. It's probably a good thing I've only done cross country. I'm bad at stopping and steering, so it can be problematic going down hills.

It's really quite fun, though scary and risky, and I like it much better than what cross country I've done. Well, I couldn't ski at all when I started, and there's only one way to learn! Despite the accident, I'd encourage you to go.

Okay, well I see that there's interest so I started my Pixar Alliance! Just shoot me a PM if you'd like to join. I'm going to try to make up spiffy titles for everyone if they so choose.

Yay! That sounds exciting!

Mortereve all!

I'm sure I would love them - everyone tells me so. Just people need to start telling my parents that!
I've heard a lot of criticism of the two NT movies, especially about Nicholas Cage's acting, which I don't wholly disagree on. But I do like them a lot.
Both of those movies were my favorite when I watched them, so Toy Story 3 is my favorite animated movie now. Ooh, those are both really good too!
Yeah, most of the movies I mentioned are kind of obscure.

Eh, so your parents aren't too keen on you seeing them, huh? I know how that is!
Oh, really? That's interesting. I've always liked his style, especially like the parts where he's figuring out what the clues mean.
Up never seemed like an interesting story to me, kinda like WALL•E. I guess it's just me.
Well, I've heard of most of them, just never seen any.

Ha, in the seven or so years I've been active on the internet, very few people have ever agreed to calling me by my full name (something about nine letters being too much to type), so that's almost exciting.

Hey, it's shorter than The Rose-Tree Dryad. It's not too much to type at all!

*looks around for some familar faces* Ahh, there you are NN. Do you remember me?

Sure, I remember you! It's been forever, though. Good to see you!
That's awesome you were able to work as crew on an independent film. What did that involve?

Hurray for snow, Nick! We're getting a blizzard here at the moment, and it's a big one. I don't think we've had a storm like this in awhile. I assume you guys are probably getting a bit of it as well. Several of my friends went up north for a weekend, and it ended up being -29º on Saturday night. Perfect for a fire and hot chocolate!

I read earlier in your post that you didn't particularly enjoy Up. Really? How come? I'm just curious, because I never liked it much either. I never understood why it was so popular, but oh well.

I have to say, it's been very tiring shoveling our whole sidewalk and driveway every single day, but I enjoy the snow. Whoa, -29°? I hope they were prepared for it. I don't know if it's ever gotten that cold here. Where did they go?

Well, first, it's kinda sad, and I don't like sad movies too much. Also, it just doesn't seem like a very interesting story. It's rather slow and doesn't capture my attention. Like I said at the top of my post, those are also the reason I didn't like WALL•E too much.

Mortereve, all!

Good Mortereve!

Hope you adjust to the move well!!

Thanks, it is already starting to feel like home. Except I'll have to check out the mall before I can really call it home.

The work you've done in writing sounds exciting!

I am very excited about what lies in store for me and my characters. And I hope one day to finally do a NaNo...

@NN, mostly I worked in the art department (though there was a few times, since it was a small set, that I did other jobs). My title was Set Dresser which basically meant I made the background look good. The Set Designer and the Production Designer worked together to actually find the items and decorations to fill the set, but once they finished their job in preproduction, I took over during filming. I would look at the screen set up for the director and a few choice other (including me) and make sure that everything in the background looked right for the frame. I was involved a lot in cheating the frame (moving around stuff slightly for certain shots but making sure they still look alright for the original shot). So for example if there's a plant in the corner that is in view one shot, but when they come in for the closeup on an actor, you can only see one little branch, I would either pull it more in view, or take it out of the frame all together.
Another one of my jobs, the biggest one, is art continuity. Actor continuity (like when she lifted her hand) is taken care of by the Script Supervisor, but I had all the Art stuff that gets moved. Whether it's a pillow that gets sat upon, or a picture that got brushed up against and turned, or the covers on the bed of a little boy that's thrashing about (there were way too many of those scenes ) So yeah, that's basically what I did. Hope I answered your question and didn't bore you too much.

Well, I finally went to check out our library. After seeing how small it was I was afraid they didn't have my favorite books, but after visiting it, I deemed it satisfactory. Which means now I don't have an excuse for that book report...

I hear a snack calling my name. *waves as she exits*

*waves to everyone*

How is the weather situation with everybody? We're "snowed in" here. (I use the term lightly because you Northerners would doubtless scoff at the amount of precipitation we've had, and people still are getting out -- a little.) Today is the third day in a row that things have been closed; first classes were cancelled on Tuesday, then I didn't have to work yesterday, and my campus was still closed today. We were also without Internet for two days. At first I was excited about all the snow days, but now I'm getting a little stir-crazy.

At first I didn't think I'd bother with ketchup, considering how long I've been gone (over two weeks, I think it is), but since you folks don't seem to have been particularly busy during my absence (just three pages: really? ), I think I will make the attempt.

Oh, won't you watch it now? It's so amazing, and you'll like it more if you watch it before reading the book! Of course, then you won't be able to like the book as much (I've sworn never to read it . . ), but - the movie is worth it!! PLEASE!!!!

But I'd rather ruin a movie than a book, wouldn't you? Not being able to enjoy a move because you are picky and love the source material is sometimes unfortunate, granted, but ruining a book because you have been indoctrinated by some mere filmmaker's interpretation of it is ... tragic.

And of course, there's always a chance one will enjoy both. It's happened to me before. But again, if I were to choose, I would rather love the book and not the movie/miniseries. A good friend, who knows me very well, gave me a T-shirt that reads "Movies: Ruining the Book Since 1920" because he had heard me grouse about so many adaptations. I love that shirt.

My, my, that is quite sad, oh Epic One. I trust that at some point in the near future you will find yourself with enough spare cash to fix this horrible problem and add more discs to your soundtrack library.

I know this was meant to be teasing, but it really is sad isn't it? Such is the life of a person with many interests, including several different movie genres. And I did add at least four soundtracks this year, which is the most I've bought in a long time.

By the by, I can’t tell what you’re new avatar is, although it looks like it might be Eric from “The Little Mermaid.”

Yep, it's Eric, and the figure in the upper left-hand corner is Ariel rushing to save him. I thought it tied in nicely with the Muse lyric. I wonder if other people had trouble making it out? Some of the avatars I like most end up confusing people, like the one from Vertigo with Madeleine holding a bouquet of flowers: apparently everyone thought it was a sea anemone or something of the sort. It's a trifle frustrating, really.

Silver the Wanderer, did you make that Onion Cake? It's terrific!

Wow ... that's all. I did it! *pats self on back*

Greetings, SquareOnions!

I've heard a little about the weather problems in your part of the country, lysander. I think your ice is probably more troublesome than all the feet of snow we have here. At least snow can give a little traction while driving. And ice tends to be so hard on buildings and powerlines - though some buildings out East collapsed under the snow, and the Metrodome stadium roof repairs have been hampered by all the snow we've received this month.

I was outside a few minutes ago trying to spot the dim planet Uranus just west of Jupiter, but the -20F windchill makes it hard to hold the binoculars steady. This is the last month they'll be so close together for several decades.

NaNo is great fun, princess_of_narnia. I finally 'won' last time, though it needs a lot of editing. I'm writing a short story sequel to that story at the moment.

Time for some ice cream! Adios, SquareOnions.

This place is empty these days, isn't it? I tend to not make a post until there's a reasonable number of posts after my own..

*eyes Silver's cake with.. interest* Somehow the colour isn't quite selling it to me.

Haha, no problem! You don't have to have watched all the Pixar movies to join. But I'm happy to school you if you want to listen to me ramble on for hours.

lol, I'm glad. But I do want to watch more.. I just don't get around to it, and then I complain that there aren't any good movies to watch. Sure, so.. what should I watch? I've seen.. Finding Nemo, Up, Walle, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, (a long time ago..) and that's it, I think. I've also seen Toy Story 1, I think, but remember practically nothing from it.

Hope your vacation is going well!

AC: Haha! I write more if there's something sad going on. *shrug* I guess there just seems to be more to say. More to complain about I guess. I feel like I should write more when I'm happy though--- if anyone ever reads through my journal they'll think my life was only depressing! That would stink. So, yeah. When I'm really happy, I should write. If I'm really happy I'm more likely to write a letter TO someone though...

Me too.. I think our journal-writing tendencies are somewhat similar. There's nothing really to say about being happy, though. I journal about not having anything to journal about, sometimes. Speaking of that.. I've barely written all week, because I've been so tired by the time I've gotten to bed, I just sleep. And it never seems to occur to me to write at another time of day.

Yeah, school's going slow here too... I got a couple new books to read though! Yayayayayay.

lol, you sound like me. xD *wishes for new books.. but remembers that she still has a huge pile that she picked up a bookshops, but hasn't looked at since *
Anyway..
Hey, I remember a while back your friend was having problems? Is that all fixed now? Hope so.

*waves to everyone on page 64*

Eeep.. I just skimmed over stargazer's post and was reminded of my NaNo story for the first time in a few weeks.. oops. But there's no way I can work on it right now. Next month.. March, will be time for editing. Or so I tell myself. (Can someone hold me accountable to this? )

(too many tongues in this post - it's kind of creepy )

Mortereve, all! Well, it's been a while since I've peeked in here.

Anyways, it's about three days late, but Happy Chinese New Year! (actual date February 3rd) This year is the Year of the Rabbit, which coincides with anyone born in the year 1999, 1987, 1975, 1963, or 1951 (don't think there's anyone older than 71 'round here...).

Just remember, Reisen is a Moon Rabbit. Her eyes can induce lunacy.

Fun fact, though: in many Asian countries (including China and Japan), rabbits are associated with the moon. Whereas Americans see "the man in the moon", these folks instead see a rabbit--specifically, a rabbit standing on its hind legs like a human, making either the Elixir of Immortality (Chinese legend) or rice cakes (Japanese legend). The rabbit is tied to many legends in these cultures.

It's also tied to some not-so-legendary tales. There is a Chinese saying which basically means "waiting for rabbits by the stump". According to an old story, a farmer who was tired of working the land one day saw a rabbit run headlong into a tree stump and die. The farmer took advantage of this and had some rabbit meat. He then had an idea: if one rabbit would crash into a stump today, certainly more rabbits will afterwards! So, instead of doing tiring farm work, he just waited by the stump for more rabbits to crash into it.

Needless to say, this did not work out at all.

Few rabbits even passed by the stump, and the ones that did easily avoided it anyways. Not only that, but the farmer, leaving his farmland unattended for several days, returned to find his crops either withered or eaten... by rabbits.

Hence, this story, and the saying "waiting for rabbits by the stump" are used to criticize people who are lazy and, instead of doing hard, proper work, try to take ridiculous shortcuts or plans that rarely work.

Anyways.

My NaNo also needs editing... actually, it needs some people to whom I can pitch a couple of chapters to to see if the story concept is even worthwhile. And then it needs a lot of editing. Interestingly enough, there's also a side story I wrote for the NaNo project (it's a "show within a show" for the main story) that I'm definitely considering writing more of...

But right now... well, I'd say I'm busy, but actually, I'm on a vacation of sorts. So I'm purposely not bothering to edit stories. (I suppose I can still pitch the unedited versions, so long as people understand that they're... well, unedited...)

*Hits a random thread, suddenly realizes where she is, and figures she should probably post since she hasn't in 4 pages*

Hi all! *waves*

I would comment, but I'm short on time.
I'm back at college, got out a few more CS Lewis books from the Library...and I have to go cause I have a class soon.

Bye all! *waves again*

Good mortereve, all! I haven't been up to much lately, other then school, but I thought I should come catch up before I lose all motivation to do so.

What a cute cake, Silver! Did you make it? (If so, I am heartily impressed. I can't cook or decorate food to save my life.)

I definitely will try out downhill skiing, then, Elanor. Are there other winter sports you enjoy? I don't care much for school sports, with the exception of badminton and soccer, but I do enjoy other stuff. Swimming, ice skating, biking, and hiking to name a few.

I have to say, it's been very tiring shoveling our whole sidewalk and driveway every single day, but I enjoy the snow. Whoa, -29°? I hope they were prepared for it. I don't know if it's ever gotten that cold here. Where did they go?

Ugh, every day? That would become tedious. Yup, -29º. It was one crazy weekend, apparently. The weather at home hasn't been anywhere near that cold, though it has been below zero a lot. I like winter, but it's so... cold. I dislike wearing coats, so that presents problems for me.

No sad movies, eh? I didn't find Up extremely sad, actually - I just didn't find the plot interesting. *shrug* I always thought WALL-E was better.

It's interesting that you mentioned Chinese New Year, stardf. There was a big celebration on February third at the school, hosted by the Chinese folk. I went with a friend. It was quite fun! There were tables and tables of delicious food plus traditional Chinese entertainment.
I found out that I am a pig, apparently, not a rabbit. Not the most flattering discovery I've made. Ah well. I didn't know all of the history behind the holiday, though. Very interesting!

*waves to wolfloversk* Aw, don't be shy about having disappeared for several pages. That happens often. We always love it when people drop in, even if it's just with a "hi"!

And now I'm off to my math book and (hopefully soon) bed. One day closer to the weekend! Sozy clippers and dweet sreams to all.

Hey guys!

It's been a while since I've posted in here. I've been keeping up with reading the posts, but I haven't been able to find anything to say myself.

I thought I'd post in here today, though, because I wanted to say that I just adopted a kitten!

~Riella

Hmm...a snowstorm last week and another one tonight? Goodness! I feel like I'm living in Alaska. We were joking around the other day that in Alaska, instead of having snow days, they have "sunshine days". I personally think that "sunshine days" would be extremely beneficial. Instead of doing school on a sunny day, kids go outside and play all day.

Hello everyone! It's so nice to be on the Square again and to see so many familiar faces (usernames?).

*waves to Elanor*, it's good to hear that you're doing well! Time with friends is always the best, especially when you get to have a good long discussion. What have you been up to lately?

*GLOMPS Aiden* Long time no see, eh? How have you been doing? Hmm, you don't like WALL-E? Understandably so. I thought the movie was pretty cute, but I know several people (including you now) who didn't like it and I can see why.

*waves to princess_of_narnia* Good to see you on here! I don't know if you remember ever meeting me (I can't quite remember how/when we met--I'm quite sure I have met you), but I hope you and the Royal Family are all doing well.

Well, well, if it isn't the epic one. You've probably already heard, but we've been getting snow here too over the last week and we're supposed to get more tonight. Whoot! Yes, them Northerners would probably laugh at us too...but ah well. And you've been getting ice? Nastiness! We haven't had any bad ice yet, but we have in the past. Stay safe and drive carefully, if you can drive at all.

*waves to stargazer and stardf* I tried to do NaNo last year, but it didn't work out. Because the same month that NaNo started, I started piano lessons and I'm trying to work really hard on my piano. But I did write a decent 10,000 words before deciding that I didn't have enough time. And the first time I did NaNo in '09 I won. But it's true that the novel needs a lot of editing when you're done. Or it just needs to be burned. I know that's technically against the rules, but that's what I did to my '09 NaNo. And my '10 Nano...well...it never really got off the ground enough to really pick it up again.

AC!! *hugs* I know, it has been eerily quiet around here on the Square! I'm in fault here, because I haven't posted in ages. I peeked in here once just to read up on some of the posts though. But I'm too far behind to even consider catching up, so...

How have you been doing?

*HUGTACKLES MISS R* Heeey!! It's great to see you on here!!

I went skiing in December and it actually wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. It was a lot of fun. I didn't do cross country skiing, I just skiied on the regular old slopes, but I liked it!

Oh, and I think you asked me several pages back what my blog was. Well, here's the link. http://vaporinwind.blogspot.com

*waves to Ithilwen and wolfloversk* Thanks for dropping in! It's good to see new faces on the Square. And don't feel like you have to make long posts...it's better to make short posts than to ignore the Square completely, like I do.

Well, I'll be running off now! God bless!

*peeks in and cringes when she sees all the pages that have gone by*

Good Montereve!

How are you doing, sister?

I'm doing good! Life's been kinda weird lately (what with Rose and the owls and all *looks innocent*) but hopefully this month will straighten itself out though.

Lately I've been preparing for several church fundraisers for our annual Mexico missions trip. I think the one that I'm NOT looking forward to would be the 30 hour famine. I'm not going to be able to eat for 30 hours. Apparently my youth pastor has never seen me when I'm hungry.

*waves to Melian_Maia* Have we met?

No, I don't believe we have. *waves* I'm Lia.

*waves to Mountie* How are you? I'll get that PM out today if it kills me.

Annnnnd. I believe that's all. *waves and exits*