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Today the plan is to visit West Seattle and go back to Easy Street Records, which I talked about in this blog post back in June. I have a few CDs in mind that I hope to find in the used section, namely the self-titled album Miike Snow and Daft Punk’s Discovery or perhaps Human After All, whatever I manage to find. Afterwards for dinner, or before for lunch, we’ll hopefully make it to Musashi’s, a favorite Japanese restaurant that I talked about in this blog post from August. I’ve really been missing Japanese food, and lately I’ve been trying to satisfy my craving. I’ve probably gone out for sushi of some kind at least three times in the past week. I think I like fish and salt too much.

Christmas in four days. Unbelievable. All my shopping for other people is done, but I have wrapping to do. The only shopping I still want to do is for myself, but I’m nervous about trying to brave the mall. Even so, it must be done.

It’s funny how I miss Seattle when I’m in Glasgow, and Glasgow when I’m in Seattle. I guess that’s how things go. Best thing I can do is enjoy the moment. Which I’m doing with an English muffin, Skippy peanut butter, and Starbucks Christmas Blend coffee.

Enjoy the Christmas weekend, be it with friends, family, or alone, whether you celebrate it or not.

Staying up till my flight at 6am was probably not the best idea. I was exhausted for both of my flights, so much so that the intense security didn’t even bother me, I just wanted it over with. That aside, I’m happy to be home for a while.

We got a Christmas tree yesterday, which smells wonderful. I’m crashing on the couch usually, and it’s fun to have the tree lights on at night.

It was so rainy this weekend there were flood warnings, and the local news was all over it like there was nothing else to talk about. I’m hoping we’ll get snow before Christmas, though. It’s been so long since I’ve had a white Christmas. There’s rain/snow mix in the forecast, so we’ll see.

It’s interesting to be back in the US. At first I honestly thought it was strange to hear other people speak with the same accent as me, I’ve almost gotten used to being the one speaking differently. I also immediately noticed how commercialized this area is compared to Glasgow. Wendy’s and Red Robin on every corner, where in Scotland the closest thing to a restaurant chain is the “local chippy” (which of course isn’t a chain at all).

I’m almost used to the time difference already, but I still manage to chat with friends back in Scotland. Looking forward to a few weeks from now when I see my friends from Canada. Till then, I have touristy stuff planned.

Photo: Taken in West Seattle this summer. My Scottish friends are making me appreciate the mountains in this area even more lately.

I’m eating a sandwich for dinner, because someone ate my leftover spaghetti and I’m almost out of food. I’m fairly cold even though they are keeping the radiators on for three more hours each day.

I can’t wait to get home.

All my lectures are over, but I’ll have to go to campus a couple more times in the next week. Tomorrow, my team has our instant messenger project presentation (just about our progress, since it’s a year-long project). But after that, and after another team meeting to sort out what we’ll do over the break, I’m all done.

My flight is very early Saturday morning, so it’s less than a week now. I’m wondering if, when I get home, I’ll go back to my old routines and these past few months will seem like a dream, like it never really happened. I’m so far from what I’m used to that it might seem that way… except that I’ll feel different. I’ve definitely changed somehow.

I also won’t have my own room anymore. Mom’s renting out our house, and is staying with a friend. Dad’s place isn’t big enough for me to truly have my own space. I guess that’s what happens when you get older, eh? Gotta make my own “home” somewhere. But I’m learning more and more these days that home is not a room, not even a city. It’s people. And it can change.

I’m sure soon enough I’ll be missing Scotland and university and friends back here, but right now I’m missing Rainier, and Japanese food, and a Christmas tree. And family.

Photo: Nearby park in the snow. It’s starting to melt now. Hopefully this isn’t the only snow I’ll see until I come back…

Thanksgiving is over, my birthday is over, I’ve had my first peppermint mocha, and it snowed last night.

It finally feels like it’s time to break out the Christmas music.

I’ve only got one more week of classes. The workload isn’t quite as bad as I expected, mostly because two of the projects were much easier than I thought they’d be. Still got a couple of reports, some code to finish up, and a presentation, but it’s almost the end.

I’ve been waiting for it to snow for at least a week or two now. Back home, they had the first “White Thanksgiving” since 1985. It just doesn’t snow this early there. And I had to miss it.

Last night I went to bed early, noting that there was supposed to be snow by the time I woke up in the morning. But I’d barely slept an hour before I woke up to screaming outside. I pulled back the curtain and saw at least an inch of snow, with the big wet flakes coming down fast, and half the residence outside in it, throwing snowballs and squealing with happiness. I nearly went out and joined a few of my flatmates, but I was warm and comfortable and instead planned to go out in the morning. Needless to say it was hard to fall asleep after that. I really hope the snow will stay for a while.

Photo: Taken at the nearby park after the snowfall this morning.

Since I last posted, I feel like everything’s happening at once.

I just finished watching the Harry Potter 7 live premiere online, where they showed interviews with a lot of the actors, the main director, producer, and of course J.K. Rowling.

The whole thing always astounds me. All this started as just an idea in a woman’s mind. She sat on a train, looked out the window, saw some cows, and it came to her. She chose to run with it, writing on napkins and eventually typing the final draft twice on a typewriter. Years later, her stories are a sensation.

What makes a story like that touch so many people? Is it the writing itself? I’ve heard people say no, that J.K. Rowling isn’t necessarily a literary genius. Is it the story, the connections and similarities we feel with the characters? The excitement we had as kids, reading about a hidden magic world, and the possibility of it being real? I have to admit, when I was 11, I wished with all my heart I would get a letter from Hogwarts.

The truth of it all is, though, we can’t go looking for this kind of impact or fame. Either a story has it or it doesn’t, and it’s not a strict formula. Despite my desire to be a part of something bigger, I have to write for myself or I won’t find any sort of satisfaction. It’s a ton of work, but I can’t pin my hopes on touching so many lives. It’s got to be for me. And it is, mostly. I just can’t help wishing sometimes.

I think about this kind of thing whenever I watch movies or read books that are widely seen and read. It’s hard for me not to compare. There is so much left to do with my book(s) that it’s easy to get overwhelmed (perhaps I should start considering this a “series”…). But it’s not something I plan to leave behind.

I’m strangely looking forward to getting home and being able to print out the entire first book again, so I can start Edit Number Three, where I start to fine-tune language and such. Not that it’s going to be the last revision. But I’ve got three tough weeks ahead of me, schoolwork-wise, so who knows how much writing I’ll get done.

Right. Back to computer programming mode and the homework I should be doing.

Photo: Especially after watching the premiere, I’m super excited for the new movie. I might just have to find a way to see it before I get home for Christmas. It’ll be like a birthday present for myself…

As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I’m not sure I’m gonna make it. Wednesday and Thursday I did the daily amount, and it wasn’t too bad. Friday I skipped it for an impromptu fireworks outing. And this weekend I realized I’m now three days behind, and it’s not going to get any easier. I’m not going to have any time for fun things if I work this hard. So I’m considering the goal I had last summer, of 500 words a day, which is doable, but I’ll get at most 15,000 words this month instead of 50,000. I hope to even stick to that, but who knows. At least from all this I’ve begun writing again. That’s probably what I needed most. Also, I chose to start the sequel to my first book instead of a new story. So if the first book goes anywhere, at least I have some fodder for the second. I’ve also come up with a number of things I need to change in the first book, which I might not have noticed if I hadn’t done this. Silver linings, you see.

The fireworks were good, but not amazing… the fireworks at Lake Union for July 4th were definitely better. The celebration was for Guy Fawkes day, but as no one in my flat is British, no one really knew more than that. Fireworks show? No matter why, let’s go.

Excuse me while I go have a lazy weekend.

Photo: You can guess, right? I did take it myself, if you were wondering.

It’s already November. The second day, to be exact. I know I’ve said this before, but I feel like I haven’t truly written anything for months. It really has been that long if you call “real writing” as content for my novel. Which isn’t really fair, I suppose. This past summer was just editing (though in a way that means it was more difficult). But I’m not ready to write the sequel yet, and not ready to do a third draft either. I want to write something fresh, and not just a short story, because I feel like I’m bad at structuring shorter stories. I did the first part of a story on my other blog, but I haven’t felt like writing the next part yet, though I have an idea for it.

I’m considering NaNoWriMo. For those of you who aren’t in the loop, that’s National Novel Writing Month. It’s always November, as far as I know. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Yup. You’re not supposed to edit it, so it’s definitely not publishable after that, but it’s good fodder for later, and you can say to your friends and family, “I’m writing a novel!”

I’ve never done this before. If I did this, I have no idea what I’d write about. I suppose that’s good though, because most people just go with the flow and have no plan whatsoever. The story tells itself. The other thing is, like I said, it’s already the 2nd of November, and most people who do NaNoWriMo have already started and have a few thousand words by now. By no means do you have to get to the 50,000 word goal, but it’s a goal. What’s it worth if you don’t keep it in mind?

The past few days I’ve gotten the hankering to play video games, and so far I’ve kept myself from it. I’m afraid that once I start, I’ll slack off on schoolwork. Now, NaNoWriMo probably promises the same thing, but I know I’ll get sick of writing, and schoolwork might actually be a relief. Besides, writing is a more productive way to spend my time than gaming, and I have time to slack off for that in December when I go home for Christmas. I’ve lately found that I have a few free hours in the evening, so maybe I do have the time for this. I know work is going to pile up in the next month, but seriously… if people with spouses and families and full-time jobs make time for this, I can’t really complain being a university student, can I?

I’ll think about it tonight, and consider what I might write about, and maybe I won’t be too far behind if I start a couple days late. I think I’m going to do this. I know, I’m crazy. Wish me luck.

If you’re interested, here’s the NaNoWriMo website, and here is my profile page if you want me as a writing buddy, or want to see how far I’ve gotten.

The weeks are flying by, blurring together. Work is steadily piling on. I’ve worked a lot on one project the past few days, but I have many more waiting to be truly started.

A list of all my projects:

• An Instant Messenger program (as a group), for which I am mostly designing and implementing the interface (this one lasts all year, the others are done by December)
• An email notification system (as a group), which is mostly to practice the process of planning projects and writing reports rather than learning to code
• A program that takes a mailing list, reads through it, and tells you of any possible duplicates
• A web-based calendar like Google Calendar (as a group), but we’re all focusing on the interface design because it’s for my human-computer interaction class
• A program that takes a long list of words and creates “word ladders” from them (i.e., given “flour” and “bread”, it comes up with “flour → floor → flood → blood → brood → broad → bread”)
• Extending a compiler (which I don’t know much about yet)
• One more that I will get tomorrow in class, and I know nothing about.

There’s a bit more I could do for that program tonight, but I’m stuck again, and this part isn’t a big portion of my grade. So I decided to leave it for tomorrow’s lab, where I can get help from the teacher again or a TA. Instead I hope to go out to the student union with some flatmates to get a break from nonstop lectures-labs-study-sleep.

Oh, and this weekend: more shopping downtown, and then Halloween. Which will be epic.

Photo: A group of street performers just after playing something on a busy street in the city centre. Note: it is a typical occurrence to see groups like this on a downtown street. I love it.

Classes have been going for a month now. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. Maybe more like two weeks. I’m definitely getting more work to do, but I’m not feeling extreme pressure (yet). Perhaps in the next couple weeks, when I get a few more projects from my teachers…

I’ve learned a few things (that don’t have to do with computer science). The term “candy” is very rarely used here. Instead, “chocolate” or “sweets” is typical. Something I’ve already mentioned: “chips” means “fries” and “crisps” means “chips.” Yeah, confusing. When talking about paper money, a “fiver” (or “tenner”) is their equivalent of “five dollar bill,” instead of saying something like “five pound note.” Also, “can’t be arsed” means “can’t be bothered.” And Irn Bru (popular bright orange soda) is intensely sweet.

The list of things I miss about home is growing, at least food-wise: easily accessible Asian food (including sushi and noodles), Skippy peanut butter, Kraft Parmesan cheese (for pasta), pop tarts, and chocolate chips. I’ll probably add to that list over time. I mean, how do they not have chocolate chips? Chocolate “chunks” just aren’t the same…

All that aside, Scotland’s been good to me so far. Even if it doesn’t always feel this way, I’m sure there’s more good to come.