Somehow, I think your first murder should be committed with fewer cameras around
01. Are any of you guys familiar with San Marcos, Texas? It's a small town south of Austin, and I'm thinking about applying to school there (Texas State). I'd really really appreciate hearing any thoughts people have on the town, the school, and especially how close or easy it is to get back and forth to Austin (and, hey, San Antonio too). Is it cool and funky artsy like Austin, basically a far-off suburb of Austin, or is it more like rural small-town Texas full of Republicans? I really want to relocate to Austin, and school seems like a good way to do it, but I definitely want to know whether San Marcos would be considered similar to Austin or not. The way people talk in the Austin boards on NaNoWriMo, San Marcos sounds like a (far-off) suburb of South Austin... Also if you can point me to any resources or other people I can question belligerently talk to, that would be great. I know I have a number of Texas peeps on my flist, so I hope some of you have some info to share! This is my #1 school at the moment.
02. Other schools it looks like I'm applying to are: St. Paul's University (Ottawa, Ontario) - I would love to move back to Ottawa (I've lived there for 10 years), and this is apparently a good program, though the heavy emphasis on Christianity in the courses puts me off a bit; OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) - a very prestigious school which has areas of study that I'm interested in (GLBT, feminist issues) but rent in TO will be RIDICULOUS; and the University of New Brunswick, which is local and I'll apply to it as a back-up choice (but I REALLY want to use school as a way to get out of Fredericton). If any of you have any tips or thoughts on these programs/cities, I'd love to hear them! The program I'm applying to is the equivalent of a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology. ETA: I'm not looking to apply to other U.S. schools, but if you can suggest other Canadian schools to check out, be my guest!
03. I saw my naturopath today about my new(ly diagnosed) allergies, and just as I expected, she said there's a lot of things I can do! My time is a bit sucked up in Nano right now, but I'll try to start implementing her suggestions over the next couple of weeks. The main one: put tea tree oil everywhere!
04. NANO! I am almost at 5,000 words now, out of 50,000, and I haven't even started writing today yet. The official word count widgets haven't been released yet, so I'm going to track down an unofficial one soon and that can go with all my posts in November. I think I'm doing well though! It was really hard to write the first couple of days - I didn't feel inspired at least. But yesterday I took some time to pretty up my Word file with chapter headings and such (reflecting the outline I've come up with) and I feel much more focused and able to write now. Funny, that. How are you guys doing?
05. Halloween was good. We had our Nano kick-off party, so I went to that. I killed my heels in the process of getting there though - I had a really busy day running around everywhere (including picking up my AlphaSmart that the Nano offices lent me!!) and my family drove me most of the way - then my dad forgot to pick me up for the last leg. So after waiting there for 20 minutes, me and my rarely-worn shoes walked the 10 minutes to the party. I expected to get blisters by the end of it, but I didn't expect to get them and to have them pop within a couple of minutes!! Oh my GOD the pain. The left foot is really bad - two inches diameter of a broken blister, skin falling off.. three big blisters on the other foot. Even the pharmacist was revolted when I showed her on Nov. 1. It hurts to even put on shoes (to have any pressure on my heel) so she recommended wearing flip flops and pantyhose. I don't have a car, so I had to walk the 15 minutes to work and back in them Friday, and it was really, really cold in the morning. Very uncomfortable. I should be able to wear shoes by Monday, though, thank god.
I know I'm very lucky not to have serious health issues, but lately I seem to have minor ones all the time. Crazy. I'm still putting calendula gel on the burn on my arm and on my eyebrow ring (which is still healing well, though bright red still).
I think that's it for now. Back to writing! I hope you're all well. :) *hugs*
02. Other schools it looks like I'm applying to are: St. Paul's University (Ottawa, Ontario) - I would love to move back to Ottawa (I've lived there for 10 years), and this is apparently a good program, though the heavy emphasis on Christianity in the courses puts me off a bit; OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto) - a very prestigious school which has areas of study that I'm interested in (GLBT, feminist issues) but rent in TO will be RIDICULOUS; and the University of New Brunswick, which is local and I'll apply to it as a back-up choice (but I REALLY want to use school as a way to get out of Fredericton). If any of you have any tips or thoughts on these programs/cities, I'd love to hear them! The program I'm applying to is the equivalent of a Masters of Education in Counselling Psychology. ETA: I'm not looking to apply to other U.S. schools, but if you can suggest other Canadian schools to check out, be my guest!
03. I saw my naturopath today about my new(ly diagnosed) allergies, and just as I expected, she said there's a lot of things I can do! My time is a bit sucked up in Nano right now, but I'll try to start implementing her suggestions over the next couple of weeks. The main one: put tea tree oil everywhere!
04. NANO! I am almost at 5,000 words now, out of 50,000, and I haven't even started writing today yet. The official word count widgets haven't been released yet, so I'm going to track down an unofficial one soon and that can go with all my posts in November. I think I'm doing well though! It was really hard to write the first couple of days - I didn't feel inspired at least. But yesterday I took some time to pretty up my Word file with chapter headings and such (reflecting the outline I've come up with) and I feel much more focused and able to write now. Funny, that. How are you guys doing?
05. Halloween was good. We had our Nano kick-off party, so I went to that. I killed my heels in the process of getting there though - I had a really busy day running around everywhere (including picking up my AlphaSmart that the Nano offices lent me!!) and my family drove me most of the way - then my dad forgot to pick me up for the last leg. So after waiting there for 20 minutes, me and my rarely-worn shoes walked the 10 minutes to the party. I expected to get blisters by the end of it, but I didn't expect to get them and to have them pop within a couple of minutes!! Oh my GOD the pain. The left foot is really bad - two inches diameter of a broken blister, skin falling off.. three big blisters on the other foot. Even the pharmacist was revolted when I showed her on Nov. 1. It hurts to even put on shoes (to have any pressure on my heel) so she recommended wearing flip flops and pantyhose. I don't have a car, so I had to walk the 15 minutes to work and back in them Friday, and it was really, really cold in the morning. Very uncomfortable. I should be able to wear shoes by Monday, though, thank god.
I know I'm very lucky not to have serious health issues, but lately I seem to have minor ones all the time. Crazy. I'm still putting calendula gel on the burn on my arm and on my eyebrow ring (which is still healing well, though bright red still).
I think that's it for now. Back to writing! I hope you're all well. :) *hugs*