I've been wanting to put a new post up here for about a week,* but I've been to busy.
And what have you been too busy with, Seana?
Well, I'm glad you asked, italic writing. I'm in my fourth year of university, and now it's getting down to the busy part of the semester: I had a big term paper due last week, which you guys know about. Plus, final exams start next week. And, I mean, of course I haven't started studying yet** but it takes a lot of time to pretend that you're studying! And, on top of all this school stuff, I have been trying desperately to finish NaNoWriMo. I am quite happy to announce that, about half an hour ago, I officially won NaNo 2011!!
I'm not going to lie, for a lot of the month, I was seriously concerned that I wasn't going to win. I mean, for the first week and a half, I was doing really good: every day I was at least a couple thousand words ahead and I thought I'd have no problem winning. I'll admit it: I got cocky. And then, the second week of November, my laptop totally crashed. I thought I was going to completely lose my novel (I didn't!) but it took almost four days to finally get it working again. That meant four days of no novelling. Even though I was ahead of schedule, not writing for that long put me quite behind. I tried as hard as I could, but I was never able to catch up; school stuff, like term papers and lab exams kept getting in the way. On Saturday I was only at 39,000 words, and I actually thought it would be impossible for me to get to 50,000 by today. And yet, somehow, I did it!
NaNoWriMo is definitely not an easy thing. No matter how good of a writer you think you are, or how ahead of schedule you are at the beginning, it is hard. It tests you and pushes you in ways that you didn't even know were possible. But, the amazing thing is, no matter how much you start to hate your characters or your plot, or writing altogether, eventually it ends, and you've accomplished something amazing! Whether you write 50,000 words, 80,000 words, or only 20,000 words, you've still written something amazing, and you've still pushed yourself. Now you have a novel that you wrote, whether it's long or short, you still wrote it; you still accomplished something!
That being said, I would like to congratulate everyone who did NaNo this year, regardless of how many words you're finishing with. I would also like to encourage everyone who didn't do NaNo this year to seriously consider doing it next year. You don't have to write 50,000 words to accomplish something and be proud of yourself.
In other news, I would like to share a story of something that happened to me last week. As I mentioned earlier, I am in my fourth year of university, and things are getting pretty stressful. I do have to admit, though, that this semester hasn't exactly been my most stressful: I only had four midterms for the whole semester, not a lot of assignments, only one paper, and not even a lot of labs. I don't know how I was lucky enough to get such a stress-free semester, but I certainly appreciate it.
However, last week was probably my most stressful week of the semester. I had this huge term paper that I didn't start until two days before it was due, plus I had a huge lab exam the same day the paper was due, and I seriously didn't think I was going to have time to study for it; I was preparing myself to wing it.
The day before the paper was due and the lab exam, last Wednesday, was probably my most stressful day. I didn't go to class, I stayed home all day and worked on the paper. I called my mom, crying, several times, asking desperately for help. Finally, around supper time, I was so stressed out and I realized that I needed to get out of my house and away from my paper, at least for an hour or two. So I went to a bible study that I'd been going to all semester. As soon as I walked in, my friends can tell that I'm stressed out. I tried to not a big deal out of it, but... well, I was really stressed.
Anyway, they all prayed for me, prayed that everything would go well the next day, that I would finish the paper and the lab exam would go well and all that jazz. I should also mention that the radio and Internet were telling us that a huge snow storm was coming our way, and was probably going to hit overnight. We were joking about getting a snow day and how great that would be. I distinctly remember saying "If we get a snow day, I will literally cry tears of joy!"
So after the bible study, I went home and worked a little more on my paper. Finally, I went to bed, still really stressed out. I woke up the next morning and heard on the radio that there was all kinds of snow and all the public schools were closed. I checked my email and saw that I didn't have to go into work, which was excellent, because it gave me about three extra hours to work on my paper, that I didn't think I'd have. I then checked the university website, and it said that the school was closed for the morning, and an update later on the afternoon. My lab exam was in the afternoon, so I didn't get my hopes that high; the university hardly ever closes for the whole day.
So I worked on my paper in the morning. Around 11, I checked the university website and saw that was closed for the afternoon too! It was amazing: I had all day to work on my paper*** (it was an online course, so I still had to hand it in) and got an extra week to actually study for my lab exam!
To me, this was a huge answer to prayer. I needed something to help me, and a snow day came along. This, to me, was incontroversial proof that prayer really works.
Well, this is now a frakking long post! I am now going to go celebrate winning NaNoWriMo by working a six-hour shift at the pool, followed a fondue Christmas par-tay with some faves.
Also, I have some pretty exciting coming up soon, you should probably check out my youtube channel sometime tomorrow afternoon... I mean, maybe, I don't know.
Flights taken: 20
love <3
*Pretty much since my last post, I've now realized.
**Procrastination is my middle name. True story.
***I also ended up getting an A on it! Procrastination works!****
****No it doesn't.
