Author Archives: Shanella

And then I spilled the soup …

Posted in Stories, Thoughts by

I stood there and watched as the bowl tumbled out of my hands, almost in slow motion. If I had a super power, stopping time would have been rather useful at that moment.

Total cooking time? Thirty minutes. This included five minutes of cutting carrots and opening a can or two. And twenty minutes of watching and stirring when necessary. Thirty minutes of work was lying on the floor before me, dripping down the sides of the fridge.

“Oh no.” The words escaped my lips unbidden. I stood for a second more, wondering what the appropriate reaction was for spilling one’s lunch all over one’s refrigerator and knowing that the someone who had to clean it up at 10pm was oneself.

One second more, perhaps if I close my eyes and open them again I would find that this was all an elaborate dream. Nope; still there. So I resigned myself to spending the next thirty minutes undoing what was unexpectedly done.

I studied the splatter pattern of barley soup dropped from a height of 4 feet to the ground and wondered what this taught me. Close the lid properly next time.

I became a contortionist as I tried to get under the trays*, I picked up grains of barley, carrots, corn, beans and peas. My tired mind brought me back a story from younger days of a spirit that would come into houses to suck the blood of babies**. The story goes that you could distract it by scattering rice in the house and you’d find it counting the rice in the morning, because it wouldn’t be able to hold it in its hand. Was the barley multiplying? Where was all this grain coming from? I’m pretty sure I only made enough for two days.

Then I wondered if the appropriate reaction was crying in frustration. But I reminded myself that crying over spilt soup never changed the state of the soup and kept on cleaning.

So there I was, at 10:20 wondering if I should blog about this experience. And here I am at 10:55  wondering if the words in this post can count towards my word count.

Don’t be surprised if my heroine spills her soup.

* Before you remind me that I could take the trays out, I should point out that the way the door opens stops the trays from pulling out the entire way.

** Not to be mistaken with Edward Cullen.

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Other Random Things When I Should Be Writing

Posted in Poetic, Thoughts by

For the past month I’ve been in a strange mood. I have been feeling pensive. Perhaps it’s because winter has come and I’m missing the sun, perhaps it’s other things that I can’t quite articulate. Whatever it is it’s been taking me to the dark places. But darkness shows the stars* and stargazing is one of my favourite things.

Anyway, here is a poem to make you sad and a picture of trees to make you happy.

Caged

I am caged in by expectations,
Shackled by hopes and dreams.
My present and my future are planned;
My ending written.

I am artificial intelligence.
I speak the words encoded in my DNA.
I am the you you saw yourself to be –
A poor imitation of your aspirations.

We are entwined.
I am you.
I am nobody.

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* The book For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund is a really great Persuasion (Jane Austen) retelling.

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Random Things When I Should Be Writing

Posted in Bookish by

I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, this is my second attempt. The first time I tried to do it was last year. I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I didn’t make it past 5,844 words and I stopped writing on day 13, mostly because I wasn’t motivated, nor did I have any sort of accountability.

This year I’ve told a lot of my friends what I’ve been doing – though I haven’t divulged the plot, just a basic overview – and I think that was pretty helpful motivation for me. I feel like someone might ask and I’d feel disappointed in myself if I can’t tell them that I tried my best. Right now I’m 10 days in and have written 13,635 words. I’m pretty proud of myself, and to be honest, if I quit right now I’ll still be proud of myself – but that’s not my goal, my goal is to write until I can’t anymore.

bitme

One thing that has been fun for me has been a daily Bitstrip that talks about my feelings towards my novel and shares my word count. I think Bitstrip is cool – wish they had more writerly strips, but I make do! Doing this daily helps me to be creative in a different way.

I find that taking my mind off novel writing and doing something fun and creative is helpful. I also find that I do my best bit of writing before bed and as soon as I wake up in the morning. Usually that’s all I need to bump up my word count for the day. Sometimes I do write on my commute, but mostly I play The Sims, where I make up a completely different story. (heh).

This weekend someone asked me about my progress and I was explaining how I’m a bit anxious with the way the story was going, but that writing it brings me a lot of joy, and I was surprised at how absolutely correct that phrase was. As soon as it came out of my mouth I realized that there was more truth in it than I originally meant. It’s not just NaNoWriMo that has brought me joy, but journaling and blogging as well. Writing things down, reading them, pondering them, I really love and enjoy it. This realization really energizes me and make me want to write more! Watch out November, I might just finish a novel before you end!

~*~

Five Things (12)

Posted in Ballet, Bookish, Cultured, My New York, Plateful by

This post is brought to you by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – particularly the part where Hermione accidentally put cat hair in her polyjuice …

Next month is NaNoWriMo and I’m probably not going to do one of these Five Things posts … unless I’m in procrastination mode, then I’ll probably do quite a lot of them! 

Harlequin Teen Rocks!

This was my second Harlequin Teen event and I feel so privileged to be a part of their community! I got the opportunity to attend a wonderfully bookish event at Trump SoHo where we had a spectacular view of lower Manhattan as we heard about some new releases and received news of Julie Kagawa’s new series! I absolutely love Julie Kagawa, so being one of the first to hear the new of her new series was exciting.

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Wedding, the Last

The final wedding of the season! The music was fun, the friends were awesome and the couple was radiant! I’m so glad I got to witness the joining of these two! Woot! 🙂

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Oysters taste … slimy?

I tried raw oysters for the first time! I won’t call it slimy, though that’s the popular opinion, I think silky might be a better word. It was a fun experience and I loved it so much I went again the following week!

My friends and I went to the Mermaid Oyster Bar in SoHo, they have a happy hour menu and their oysters were fresh (and delicious!) I tried both the East and West Coast types… I don’t think I have a specific preference, the west coast was meatier, so perhaps more filling.

Mermaid Oyster Bar also gave us a cute little chocolate pudding dessert and a Fortune Teller Fish when we received our bill. The chocolate pudding was made with dark chocolate and was delicious! A perfect end to the meal.

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Hiking! 

I went hiking twice in October! I love walking so hiking is pretty much one of my favourite things to do. The first hike was pretty easy, we went to Mohonk and took a wrong turn and ended up at Mohonk House – which is beautiful. The second hike was Breakneck Ridge and is more rock scrambling than hiking, that was awesome!

They were two very different hikes, the first one was more relaxed pace and you could chat the entire way. The second, while you could make stops along the way took more concentration as you had to figure out how to get up and then back to the road. Both completely different, but both lovely. 🙂

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Cinderella!

The San Francisco Ballet was touring NYC and performed Cinderella – I got to see it! 🙂 It was fun and sassy! I especially loved the carriage scene – great concept!

Chistopher Wheeldon's Cinderella

image via Daniel Brodie

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Summer & Jon

Posted in Media, The Telly by

Do not read if you have not seen 500 Days of Summer or Don Jon and if you want to see either of those movies.

*Spoilers ahead*

*You’ve been warned!*

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There’s a story on the interwebs1 about 500 Days of Summer. The script writer based it on a real story from his life; the girl he based Summer on read his script and related more to Tom than to Summer.  I’ve always liked 500 Days of Summer and even more so after I read that story. It’s the same reason I liked Don Jon.

Initially, when I saw 500 Days of Summer I thought that it was a role reversal kind of romantic movie. But after thinking about it some more I realised that the movie was just a reflection of real life. It’s hard to miss the fact that Summer did tell Tom (a number of times) that she wasn’t looking for a relationship2, or the fact that he thought that he could change her mind. They both had different expectations going in; and isn’t that the underlying issue when it comes to any sort of relationships? Expectations?

This is where Don Jon comes in3.  Both characters had unrealistic expectations.

Barbara’s expectations were shaped by her addiction to the Hollywood depiction of romance while Jon’s expectations were shaped by his addiction to pornography. Interestingly enough, neither of them realized either their addictions or the role it played in shaping their view on relationships. Another interesting thing was the way they both reacted to the news of their flawed relationship views.

I think, after seeing the movie, it might be easy to dismiss Barbara as crazy because she doesn’t see that she was flawed, but is she really that strange? There are a lot of things that I do that might hurt someone else, that I might not see as wrong and might not see the need to change – I’m not talking about political correctness here – but that doesn’t mean that I have not wronged that person.

Everyone’s worldview is different. We’re shaped by our experiences and the things we are exposed to that’s what makes us individually unique. Interestingly enough, even if we are exposed to the exact same things it’s possible that our reaction to those thing are different. I think really loving a person is appreciating the differences instead of having them confirm to your ideal (or in Barbara’s case, she wanted to “fix” Jon so he would be her perfect man).

There have been a lot of times where I have placed my expectations on people, this ultimately that leads to disappointment. Disappointment is the pit for broken expectations. On the other hand, it’s hard to see that I’m doing it. I’ve been trying though, and journaling and talking to people helps with that. It helps me to see whether I was listening to the person or imposing my views on them. What might be good for me might not be good for someone else and that’s something that I always have to keep in mind.

Life would be easy if we can truly imagine each other complexly.

Anyways … watch Don Jon, it was good. 🙂

1 That story was from the writer himself.
2 This doesn’t make it right – what she did – but he had ample warning.
3 BTW, great movie; could have done with less nudity.

~*~