Has anyone else noticed that not very many people eke things out any more? Has eking gone the way of “gee whiz” and “shucks”? It’s a point worth pondering.

Also, does anyone know when moot shifted from being the term for an assembly gathered for debate and became something irrelevant? Was it early cynics responding to burgeoning bureaucracy? If you know, I’d like to hear from you.

Here’s hoping I can eke out a good night’s sleep despite the knot in my shoulder that sends shooting pains down my arm every few minutes. Then again, it’s a moot point, since I have to be awake for work in the morning whether or not I sleep well.

I’m safe, I’m home, I am in possession of one round-trip air ticket to anywhere in the lower 48 states in the next year, but (alas) I don’t have residency pictures to show you yet.

In truth, I found that I carried the camera around a lot and kept forgetting to actually get pictures. Furthermore, I haven’t seen the camera cable lately, so we’ll have to wait for me to unpack it before anything gets exported, uploaded, and posted here.

Did I mention that I had a fantastic week? The best residency so far, I think. Good things all around.

Now it’s time for me to go drop Matt off at the church for a youth retreat, and on the way back I think I’ll stop at Blockbuster to rent me some girly movies for the weekend. I think I’m gonna go with classics this time around. Something like Casablanca.

I realized today that I’ve been so busy having fun at residency that I haven’t been posting updates of any kind.  

It’s fantastic here, as usual, getting together with this fantastic group of people. I can’t adequately describe it, so I won’t even really try in my current state of mild sleep deprivation. However, I will try to carry my camera around with me tomorrow to perhaps add a visual element to my gushing.

Mentor meetings were tonight, and I think mine went very well. I’m looking forward to working with Gary, and I think we both came away feeling like things will go well in the coming months. He approved my reading list books, but of course I don’t have it next to me now so I can’t give you a final list at the moment.

Also, it’s come to my attention that the video clip of Shiloh chasing her tail was quite well received, so I’ll do my best to provide a few more such amusements in the future. If we had a better camera, I could video tape her nightly spaz-run around the apartment, but I don’t think I could capture more than a dark blur as things stand. Don’t worry, though. I’ll work it out.

More love and pictures tomorrow. What am I doing up this late?

Ok, it’s actually 14.5 hours to actual airplane liftoff, but we’re leaving the apartment in about 12 to get there so I can satisfy my airport paranoia by being there on time.  It’s not supposed to do anything funny weather-wise overnight, but this time of year you can never count on it.    

Despite my excitement, it’s hard to believe it’s residency time again. Am I really halfway through a masters program? It boggles the mind.

The other thing that boggles the mind is that although I’ve talked about packing, and talked about thinking about packing, I have in fact done very little of either. I did get out my suitcase, but that’s not exactly a huge accomplishment as its normal storage place is directly behind my hamper in the closet. I also started a list the other day of odd things I don’t want to forget to pack, but that’s as close to a packing list as I’ve come.

I used up my discretionary Christmas money this afternoon buying a wicked cool new ski jacket. I’ve needed one for a while, and I found this on sale in my size (with long enough sleeves!) from Spyder, whose jackets I have drooled over for the last four years or so. And it’s a 3-in-1 zip-together, which means I can use it at least 3 seasons out of the year. Who could ask for more?

Ok, I’m really going to go pack now. For real.

You know I’m fibbing, don’t you.

You know me too well.

I’m putting together my list of books to read for this upcoming school term, and I’ve come up against a bit of trouble. I know that some people out there have got to have ideas I haven’t considered, so I’m throwing this out to get a bit of help.

Here are my prime targets for things to find in required novels this term:

1. Books that have deities or other forces of destiny which actively shape the lives of humans – as examples, the Shin’a'in/Tayledras star-eyed goddess from Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books OR the Cheysuli idea of tahlmorra in Jennifer Roberson’s books.
2. Books that involve a protagonist who runs away from home to pursue military or weapons training of some sort, whether entirely intentional or not. Examples: Elizabeth Moon’s Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy; Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword.
3. Books that feature groups in nomadic or semi-nomadic life, either in fantasy or in real life. I’d prefer nomads of the desert or desert edge, but others would be okay as well. Turkish or Mongolian steppes would work, too. The only fantasy novel I can think of that features this in any real way is Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword again. Others have one person or a small group crossing the desert, but I want people groups for whom that life is the norm.
4. Books that use a first person narrator, especially for epic fantasy; double especially for epic fantasy with multiple first-person narrators alternating POVs for the story. Prime example of this would be the last three books of Carol Berg’s Bridge of D’Arnath series.

Any help with any of these would be great. I’ve read a lot of fantasy, but not all of it, so feel free to give me a suggestion even if it seems like a book you think I would have already read. At the very least, I hope to stir the pot a bit.

Thanks in advance!

Well I got rather a lot of things done yesterday, but I didn’t sit down and write.  Fortunately, the things I got done are allowing me to take another shot at the writing day idea today and hopefully get things done.   

In the meanwhile, I’ll give you a bit more Shiloh. It’s a well-documented fact that she prefers napping on our shoes or jackets whenever they’re available. With the recent run of extreme cold, we’ve had a lot of snow pants and winter jackets hanging about, and since we don’t have a handy place to hang it all up to dry (we’re working on that) we’ve taken a section of our dog fence and put it against the entryway wall as a “jacket corral”. It’s not very sophisticated, but it beats having winter gear strewn about the living room. Anyway, Shiloh sneaks into the jacket pen and makes herself a bed out of whatever happens to be there.

I’m biased, but I think it’s pretty darn funny:

Happy New Year!