Nothing Spaces

I Picked the Winners. // December 30, 2009

I know I said I was going to pick you guys out of a hat, but then as humans (or just me, specifically, I guess) are wont to do, I became very biased and started picking people I liked. Which isn’t very nice of me. So, with the help of http://www.random.org, I “drew” 6 numbers and counted which comments they corresponded with. And the six lucky people are:

1. Darliza
2. Patricia
3. Ley
4. Diana
5. Kasey
6. Tim

Congratulations! I’m going to send y’all an e-mail, so you can reply with your mailing address. If we already know each other in real life (cough, Kasey, cough), I can just leave them somewhere in school. I can’t do meet-ups because my dad told me to stop oversharing online and I don’t want to be the dumb girl who blows off her dad’s advice and ends up dead in a ditch somewhere.

Ahem.

So, some of you seem to be really big Strokes fans and I’m kind of sad that I can’t give everyone a t-shirt. But I have a few favorite answers, and I want to give you guys something Strokes-related. So, I’m trying to work something out. I’ll get in touch with you over the next few days if ever I can work something out.

Anyway, thanks for joining! I’ll try to see what else I can give away next time. :)

 

Post-Holiday Give-Away. // December 27, 2009

Dear Nothing Spaces reader —

First of all:

As is probably obvious by this late Christmas greeting (that I recycled from the one I made for my Tumblr followers, for shame), I am awful with timing. I am so awful that what I intended to be something done by Christmas still hasn’t pushed through.

What I am trying to say is that I’m giving away 6 The Strokes shirts. They are handmade (as in, not official band merch) and are ill-fitting the way band shirts usually are, but they are free and they are helpful in proclaiming that you like the Strokes, and they were in the first Transformers movie.

My brother made them a long time ago and decided to give a bunch away, but I managed to wrestle away 6.

Leave a comment, and you get one. I’ll close this in a few days. If more than 6 comment, I’ll put all your names in a hat and the first 6 I draw will get them. :) If no one comments, I’ll go skulk away in a corner and cry.

So, there. That’s it! Leave a comment (any comment, but I’m curious as to what Strokes song is your favorite, so that’d be a nice comment) and we’ll see what happens.

Merry Christmas. :)

And because I feel this is obligatory, my Christmas loot:

 

Kind of a Useless Update, But the World Needs More Photos of Children. // December 26, 2009

Today, I attempted to clean my room and work on my thesis. I managed to clean a portion of my room and continue ignoring my thesis. However! I have unearthed some gems. I will now show you photos from 1993, when my family went on our first trip to North America. These are from Vancouver, Canada. :)

Prospect Point! My family looking cute. And me… eating string.

Us, on a boat with mama.

My brother, channeling “Mansard Roof!”

With papa, looking at some fishies.

Me, with a starfish. I don’t understand what I was feeling.
My facial expression does not help very much.

In 1993, my life was books and animals.

My sister being a cutie pie.
She turned three years old about a month after this photograph.

HAHAHAHA. Booger jokes.

Favorite! Me & a beluga whale. I think we can all say there was a connection.

OK, that’s all! I wish I could say something more profound about these photographs, or why I posted them. But I just did because I thought we were cute children (what the heck happened, right?!) and I liked beluga whales.

It’s funny how these photographs bring our family closer, in a we’re-all-laughing-at-the-same-thing or that-was-a-nice-time-wasn’t-it? kind of way, whenever we look at them together. My dad says he looks at these pictures when he’s feeling sad or whatever, and he gets cheered up instantly.

I can say the same for myself, since that’s what I did the whole afternoon — and I’m not even sad. Again, apologies to my thesis. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to wing it, making you.

 

Christmas Break, I Needed You: A List of Activities and Musings on Reading And Writing And Books. // December 24, 2009

Instead of thesis, which I was meant to work on over the break, I’ve been up to other shenanigans that include, and are pretty much limited to:

• Watching +/- (which will get its own post, for sure, but in the meantime, here is my Flickr set of the said event)
• Reading! Currently: “Hey Nostradamus!” by Douglas Coupland. I finished “Looking for Alaska” by John Green the other day. That’s going to get its own post, too.
• Christmas shopping. Nearly done. I’m a doofus for having waited this long. To anyone I promised Christmas cards to, you’re getting them way, way after the holidays. So you’re pretty much getting random mail, and not exactly of the Christmas sort. I hope that’s okay.
• I GOT MY FIRST FACIAL~*~* Nobody told me it would hurt like a bizatch. I have now been schooled.
• Tumblin’. That’s actually what has sucked away my time for this site. I’m sorry, domain. Nevar again! (Maybe.)

Why exactly did I update? Mostly, I wanted to write about the going-ons in my life, however trivial they are. Also, blogging here actually makes me feel like I am being at least a teensy bit productive. I actually have a lot of ideas, it’s just that other things get in the way, so I never am able to put them down here. Also, I don’t really get a lot of response, comments-wise, which is a bummer, but I’m not fishing. Just saying that I get more response over at Tumblr, but that place makes me feel like my time is being sucked away. Which is pretty accurate, if you think about it.

My friend, Sasha, actually keeps a pretty updated book blog over here, and I guess I got kind of jealous, because as you can see, she spends her time reading and writing about what she’s read and it’s kind of nice to see something great come out of something that she loves doing. One of the things that prompted me to write this is actually an entry of hers (this one!), in which she joined a challenge (this one!) to read books about books.

And I wanted to do that, too.

Having actually finished a book (I don’t get to do so very often these days) and seeing great writing over at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (where a teenager is actually a columnist — I’m jealous) and This Recording made me rethink my reading habits (currently oscillating between until the first chapter and none) and the dream I’ve always had about being a good writer. And then I thought about how I am doing absolutely nothing about this dream. And then I thought about how sucky that is.

So, here we are. The list of books I am going to commit to reading for The 2010 Bibliophilic Books Challenge:

1. “Days of Reading” by Marcel Proust
2. “Housekeeping vs. the Dirt” by Nick Hornby
3. “Believer: Book of Writers Talking to Writers”

Committing to doing 3 first (Bookworm level), but we’ll see how it goes, since I’m hopefully graduating this year and will have some time freed up for more reading, maybe. I’m very open to suggestions, especially of the fiction variety. I saw Sasha’s list and she had Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” on it, and I was thinking of re-reading that book, since it is very dear to me, but I want more space for new books and new words that I haven’t read yet.

So, that’s that.

 

Whoa, I suck. // December 18, 2009

The video is actually about nothing. I just decided to try out my brother’s Nikon D90’s video feature. If you are planning to watch it, please watch it in HD, so that it looks at least a little bit prettier. Also, for some sort of (attempted) continuity, the music in the video is by Don’t Forget, Clementine, whose launch I posted about in the last entry. Sadly, I wasn’t able to go to the launch, because I contracted some weird disease, but I heard it was awesome.

And also, the music was obviously ace.

(Watch the video, if you don’t believe me. And then try not to die after you hear how good they actually are.)

Here is a photograph of me holding it (Marb was nice enough to save me a copy) and another album by another friend, Steve. His band is called Klieg Lights. I can’t say that I’m as familiar with their work, but the few times I’ve seen them live, they were really good. Haven’t listened to the album yet because school is (always!) in the way.

It’s kind of depressing how these people are the same age as me, and they’ve released albums, and I have done zilch. This sounded way more articulate in my head. But I think you get the point that I am trying to make. Which, actually, follows “organic unity” (sort of) when it comes to the title, at least.

Speaking of music (kind of — earlier), I will probably do a Best of 2009 post soon, although I am hardly the authority, obviously. Speaking still of music, I am so excited for the anticipated releases of 2010. So. Much. Winning! (Did I say that right? Anyway.)

That’s really all I have to say. Today is actually the last day of classes before I go on my Christmas break, which excites me more than you can imagine.

 

DEPARTURES: Don’t Forget, Clementine’s Album Launch. // December 4, 2009

Don’t Forget, Clementine is the band of a few of my (and Paulina’s) friends. We were asked to do their album art, since they are releasing one this month. It’s called Grace, And Dragging Her Wings and the launch is actually next Saturday, December 12, 2009.

If you live near or want a copy of the album (because they are extremely good), drop by! To maybe somehow “convince” you into going, here are a few shots of the inlay. (This leads to their MySpace account, with short samples.)

I promise, we are going to have a time.