4 more years!

Good news! My department accepted my application to be in the PhD program, so tentative has changed to a sure thing : )

The dear sweet lovable one joked that he should break out into the chant "4 more years!" be he couldn't muster the enthusiasm. So while it is happy that I don't need to leave the school to get my PhD, I still need to get my PhD, which isn't going to be a walk through a field of daisies.

I have been in the office a lot a lot a lot lately in a push to finish my thesis. I have been writing blog as a way to balance the right half brain, and the left half brain. So boring dry thesis in academese speak in return for something maybe more conversational. Part of the problem is finding pictures, because I am a true believer in pictures making for better blogs, but not much has been picture worthy.

Fractals are a good stand by since I tend to make quite a few. They are bright and happy, and the challenge for this week was one that had really strong geometric shapes. the pie transform works in a very similar way to blur, so I was able to create a blur smear which actually had the pie shape to it. I had a lot of fun naming the fractals this week, fools rush in, send in the clowns, tomfoolery, banana cream pie. For some reason I have clowns on the brain.

Last night I did some writing, probably for later than I should have since I needed the sleep. I've never participated in National Novel Writing Month. I just write when I feel like it. I've written one novel, that I have never tried to publish, and I am working on another idea that I came up with after reading Terry Pratchett, and being bored at lunch back in 2006. It is a man vs. self plot, and it may or may not be in the universe I set my first novel in.

I have been having trouble working on it for two big reasons. 1.) I'm really really busy, and when I have free time I spend it reading or knitting, or sleeping. 2.) I think engineering school has made me worse at writing. When I read a lot I need to write a lot because that is how I digest what I have read, but I have been really frustrated because I have a clear picture in my head what is going on, but I can't seem to get it down on paper. I toyed with the idea of turning it into a comic, but it appears that my drawing skills are in fact much worse than my writing skills. When I try to draw the same thing three times, it comes out as 3 different things. I have always had an easier time writing dialog than writing descriptions, because I don't know where to stop. I know too much scene painting drags the plot, but when I have other people read it, there is a lot of missing information. The idea was to get better at drawing, then I could show what I saw, and only need to write what they say or think.

I have found that writing blog posts is a good way to practice writing, without the pressure of it being good for a story, but I don't know if it will ever address the problem of being able to describe what fictional thing I see in my head, but it does give me practice.

I don't feel comfortable posting pictures that I have drawn, yet. Every so often I make something that impresses me, but I haven't scanned them. I probably should just so I can see that I am getting better, and I am learning.

That's all for now, take care

Molly : )