Beckism.com

That’s right! After what seems like far more work than it should have been, I have finished my senior thesis and turned it in!

What is it? It’s a fantasy novel that I started writing in September, finished mid-March, and have finally finalized (although without anywhere near as much revision as I wanted to give it; it’s pretty first-draft stuff). Because the library is an asshat, the printed copy for them was a whopping 400 sheets of paper (plus the second copy, of course, for an even 800). Probably about 390 of that was solid type (the rest being table of contents, references, titles, etc.). Yowza! How the hell did I write this much?

When I delivered it, the librarian said that she thinks it’s the largest she’s seen yet in her career. I don’t doubt it. I beat out the last thesis-cum-novel by at least 100 pages, if memory serves. Good luck binding it, suckas.

Entitled Tantalus Chine, the novel takes place in the fantasy land of Lakuna where humans are rebelling against their slavemasters, the elves. This is not standard fantasy. The elves are neither nice, nor do they live forever. They do, however, have pointy ears, so thank goodness for that. If anyone is interested in reading the novel, you are welcome to, but I warn you that it isn’t worth it. It’s first draft quality, and not a particularly good first draft at that. Should I try to publish it (as if any publishing house would want it; it wouldn’t sell well given how many molds it intentionally sets out to break), I would first want to do some pretty serious revisions.

In any case, I am really, really happy to finally be done with it. I still have to do the oral defense, but I’m not too worried. I think it might actually end up being fun; I have a great thesis committee, and as long as I get enough sleep before-hand and do a little reviewing of my past three years of Soc, I should be able to show off my ability to pull crap out of my ass quite nicely.

Now on to other projects! I can’t decide what to do first. I’m definitely going to start trying to get some web work with One Crayon, but beyond that I’m not sure. I’ve been wanting to try and get into Cocoa programming for a while (the native Mac OS X stuff), and I’ve got an idea for a program that would be 1) relatively simple and 2) something that I would find useful that nothing else can do, so maybe I’ll try that. Then again, getting a little more into Flash is always good, and I’ve got a couple ideas for browser-based games that could be really sweet. And there’s always the novel that might actually have a chance of getting published that I need to write, now that I know that I can write a novel.

It is still kind of crazy to think that my big project is over. All I have left now is Creative Writing and a paper for my independent study (which will hopefully be low stress). And dance and percussion ensemble, of course, but whatever. I’m still reveling in the sense of freedom before reality asserts itself and I realize that I’m way too good at keeping myself busy.

And in my final exciting news, I have decided to order Adobe CS3, web edition (Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and some other stuff). I have the credit available, and I discovered something amazing: student versions of Adobe software can be used for commercial work during and after school, and can be upgraded as if they were the full price commercial version! That means that I can buy a suite of software that will be central to web work at $1100 less than the standard price, but I have to do it within the next month and a half. Legitimate version of Photoshop, here I come! I’m really excited; I hope that it ships before I head to France.

And now, I should probably go to bed. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get through the story for Creative Writing that I need read by tomorrow, so perhaps I should plan on waking up during the morning sometime.

Perhaps you are wondering why I haven’t updated this page in freaking forever. The reason is simple, and one word long: thesis. Thankfully, the end is in sight: it’s due next Wednesday. This also happens to be a very frightening proposition.

However, the novel is written, so what I am working so feverishly on is mainly small revisions (proofreading the novel, changing a few small things that I’d noticed as I was writing) and hammering out the addendum (which is the real pain in the ass).

In other recent news, I relaunched the Idol Bat (although haven’t been able to update it since spring break thanks to the damn thesis), have formed my own web design company called One Crayon to hopefully make some money after college (website went live at the end of last month; Beckist Productions is officially no more), and gotten addicted to Lego Star Wars II after my sister visited and forced me to buy it in order to play it with her.

And sadly, that’s all I really have time to write. Back to the novel! I will hopefully have time for a more involved update after the thesis is finalized and turned in. I also will hopefully be able to keep up on my LJ friends a little better; I’ve forgotten to check my friend’s page for a few months, but I finally got around to adding you to my RSS reader today, which I check religiously. I’m tired of being disconnected and overworked.

Wow, been a while since I updated this thing again. I just can’t seem to get into the habit of keeping stuff up-to-date on here. Ah well. I suppose it gives me something to do when the boredom sets in while I’m working.

Tonight the day shift guy ahead of me wanted to attend some event this evening, so they asked me to come in a couple hours early. It’s surprising how much difference (in a bad way) two hours can make. I feel like it’s 3:00 or 4:00 and it’s only about 1:30. Yeesh.

Fortunately, the clients have been really easy so far tonight. Here’s hoping that the dude doesn’t get a bee in his bonnet. If he sleeps through until I’m off shift, that would be wonderful.

As far as other life goes, I’ve been pretty busy. The classes I have this semester aren’t really difficult, but they certainly take up a fair amount of time. Then there’s always dance, percussion ensemble, a novel to write, and so on and so forth. Very vexing.

Fortunately, life is looking up when it comes to time. I registered a week or two ago, and things worked out far more perfectly than I would have guessed possible. Originally I thought I was in trouble because the only two real classes that I wanted to take (Advanced Creative Writing and Thesis for Soc) happened at the exact same time. Then I discovered that the Thesis class only meets about 10-12 times in the semester and that both sides were willing to compromise. Add to that the fact that the registrar only requires a tiny little form with signatures from both professors, and I was able to register for a semester in which I will only ever attend three hours of class a week. Hot damn.

Of course, I’ll be pretty busy nonetheless. The reason that I was hoping for such a tiny schedule was because I want to devote the lion’s share of my time to doing my thesis. It’s going to be a very thesis-oriented semester, since all of my classes (except for dance) are focused on the thesis (Thesis, Creative Writing, and an independent study for soc). This makes me really happy. Being able to learn how to make my own schedule is going to be great, particularly since it’s a skill I’ll definitely need after college. That I get to experiment in the safe environment of Whitman is about the best thing ever.

In less happy news, I wasn’t able to find transportation home for Thanksgiving thanks to the fact that I wasn’t willing to give up either weekend of work. The good side of this is that I’ll be able to do a bit of subbing for VRS during this week, so I’ll have a little extra income. On the other hand, I don’t get a Thanksgiving dinner, which sucks hardcore. Maybe I’ll be able to find other people who are Thanksgiving-less and we can figure something out. That would be nice.

Sadly, thanks to my being busy, I have had to take the Idol Bat off the air for this semester. This is a damn shame, since I really love the Idol Bat and there has been some really juicy stuff going on at Whitman that I would have loved to satirize. Ah well; perhaps I shall get it back up and running next semester (I’m certainly hoping so).

I went to see the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, with my remaining housemates yesterday, and was really surprised when it was a really good movie. Who’d have thought a Bond movie would have some actual character in it? I was very surprised. I haven’t seen a Bond movie since Goldeneye because they’re usually so terrible on so many levels. I was really glad I agreed to go see this one.

Thanks to the fact that I’m a shareware junkie, I’ve been finding some really cool software recently. The best one that I’ve found recently is Mac-only (so no use to any of you silly PC-heads), but it’s about the perfect software for writing and planning academic papers, theses, or whatever. Ironically, I don’t really have much use for the program (thanks to the fact that Avenir and VoodooPad serve all my thesis needs), but I’ve been recommending it to all sorts of people. The program is called Scrivener, and the latest beta (it’s very close to release) is available here. Definitely give it a try if you write stuff and use a Mac.

SpamSieve and MailTags were my other two hot finds. There’s so much sweet software out there. It amazes even me, sometimes. SpamSieve in particular has been a God-send; I haven’t had a single piece of spam make it to my inbox since installing it, and it’s only had two falsely labeled messages. So nice.

And I think with that it’s about time that I called this monster a post and figured out how else to kill time. Maybe I’ll watch a movie. My brain is certainly too fried to do much else.

Since the time that I was intending to spend working in the library on my thesis and an assignment that’s due tomorrow for a class has turned into me messing around with Automator, I’ve decided that I may as well drop an incremental update into here instead of using the fifteen minutes I have to do work. There’s always later tonight for working diligently.

I didn’t do much over four-day, except for try to implement a game idea that Matt and I have been thinking about for quite some time. We working just about the entire weekend on it, but unfortunately the game engine we’re using is being recalcitrant and doesn’t want to render as many enemies on screen as we want. Grrr!

On the other hand, we did manage to get a number of silly-looking rubber chickens swarming around the map chasing the player, and the shotgun that Matt made was pretty cool (if without a model). Maybe someday the game will finally be done; it’s not looking like we’ll get any more time now that Four Day is over, though.

In happy news, this is the only day of class that I have this week since I will be going to Seattle to provide moral support to my fellow dancers at the Men in Dance performance going on. My dance teacher choreographed a thing for a friend, and taught me his part just in case he couldn’t perform (he’s been having medical issues). He’s fit as a fiddle, though, but despite the fact that I will be entirely extraneous she wants to take me along for the ride anyway. I had no problem with this thanks to the fact that any day I get to somewhat legitimately miss class and also get a chance to see my parents is a pretty good day. Also, Seattle is a cool place and the college is paying for meals.

So I’m not arguing.

Bad things: the Idol Bat is now approaching two weeks late, and I’m not sure if I’ll have internet access over the next few days. I may have to buy a hot chocolate or something at a coffee place just so I can steal their WiFi. Ah well.

Worse things: I have a fractured rib, thanks to an entirely innocuous seeming lift in dance. This sucks; I don’t feel it most of the time, but falling asleep has not been fun because the only position that is really comfortable is lying on my back and I’m a side sleeper. Grrr. I’m hoping against hope that it will be healed in time for the dance performance in early November, or things will be Super Lame.

And now I must run. To the Ian-mobile!

Although it’s kind of ridiculous, I actually have too much to write here right now. Normally of course, that wouldn’t stop me, but for one thing I absolutely have to get to bed (been getting less than six hours of sleep a night thanks to having to get up early for my work orientation but still having my college sleep cycles) and I’ve actually done a surprising amount in the past week or so.

However, since there are time restraints, I’ll give the brief run-down:

I have a new job (not sure if I posted about it before) working with developmentally disabled adults in their homes to help them in day-to-day tasks, ideally helping them live more independently. Orientation: long and boring. Job: looking to be both incredibly challenging/frightening, and likely very rewarding, or at least good for me in the long run.

Valerie is back across the state. We had a fun five days (although I only saw her in the evenings and mornings, thanks to the dang orientation going on), but sadly she had to go try to join the rat race.

I have a new bike, which is enabling me to get around Walla Walla much more easily than before. I like it a lot, although I still need to take it to the bike shop and have the handlebars adjusted (they just feel a little weird as close to my body as they are).

Windows is finally installed on my computer, although still with minor problems (sound doesn’t work quite right thanks to faulty drivers). I have been playing Half-Life (the original, to be followed by Half-Life 2, and then all the non-Valve designed Half-Life things) and Heroes of Might and Magic V quite a bit. Half-Life is of course an amazing game, and Heroes V is beautiful, although the campaign has been somewhat slow (read: not at all challenging) so far. It is phenomenally satisfying to know that I can run virtually any software that I want to, although every experience that I have with Windows merely reinforces my knowledge that Mac OS X is the way for me.

I finally had an idea for a plot that I’d like to turn into a novel for my Sociology thesis. The problem is that it’s a fantasy novel, and I’m not sure if I can get that to fly. I get the feeling that there aren’t many lovers of fantasy in the Soc department, and to date fantasy is a pretty un-analytical genre in the extreme (escapism, anyone?).

On the topic of fantasy, my visit to home resulted in my buying a whole lot more books. I hadn’t been planning to do so, but it reminded me that I’m addicted to books, even if Whitman served as rehab of a sorts (if only by not allowing me time to read for pleasure). My job, though, has shifts that are usually 10-16 hours long, though, and look to have a fair amount of time that might be best used reading (since I’m not a big fan of TV). End result is that having tasted book buying once again (ah, for the days of Scholastic) and looking forward to a future with a need for reading and money to fund it, I’m in a book buying mood. I was up too late last night making an Amazon order. Not healthy.

I recently finished the Bartimeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, and it was phenomenal. The ending was a total surprise, and both satisfying and disappointing because it flew in the face of standard fantasy practice. I think I’ll need to emulate Stroud in my own writing. He did just about everything right.

Wow. For what I intended to be something akin to a bullet list, this has turned huge. I better just cut myself off and go to bed. At least I can get seven hours of sleep, even if I’d been hoping for eight.