The Dreamcatcher Workshop

bye!

Tuesday, I helped a teacher at my mom's school rent an apartment, and it's in an incredibly posh apartment complex, with a gym and whatnot, so of course we had to play hooky and look at the gym. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so you don't get pictures of the three chandeliers, marble floors, opulent but tasteless fake flower arrangements, and the gigantic frieze of Napoleon leading a charge. Also, you don't get pictures of all the gold, duck-shaped sconces that when looked at from a certain angle appeared to have an arrow sticking out of each of their butts. It was quite something. I had to duck (ha, ha) into the bathroom once, I was laughing so hard.

On Wednesday, I burnt my left hand and lost my phone. Thankfully, my mom had this (relatively) old phone that someone had given her, so I'm probably going to end up using it until it dies a natural death. It's a fairly nice phone, the only thing that I dislike about it is the fact that it's pink.

On Friday I went out to dinner with some friends of my mom's, and the music that was played in the Hot Pot restaurant we went to could be described as 'bad traditional Chinese New Year's music sung by tone-deaf three-year-olds who've had too much caffeine'.

Yesterday, we went out to the Lebanese restaurant for lunch with another teacher who works with my mom. The food was, as always, excellent, and on the bus back we played our little game of 'guess which province that person over there is from', which I almost always win. The interesting thing was that we were almost completely surrounded by people from Xinjiang, an autonomous region, a part of China that borders Tibet, Mongolia, Russia and five of the 'Stans, speaks an old form of Arabic, and is largely Muslim. I don't know if they seemed to be much more in evidence than usual simply because they were the only people out on Spring Festival Eve or what.

I promise to take lots and lots of photos, and I'll be back on the twelfth of February.

-Layli

The Worlds of Pelakîs

If you promise not to laugh at me for being the language geek that I am, you can go HERE to see my new project. I'm excited about it. I absolutely love the fact that I figured out how to put links on the top of each page, so the site is better organized than it would have been otherwise. The site is, obviously, a work in progress.

I would show you all some of my old stuff (while I'm opening myself wide up to ridicule), but unfortunately, along with my stash of blank notebooks, most of my old journals, artwork and projects also got ruined when the storage room was flooded. I guess people will have to make do with what I'm working on now.

in which I am a geek

Anyway, we all know that I'm a tremendous copycat (last paragraph), but I have finally come to the conclusion that Brynne is way smarter than I ever will be.

As far back as I can remember, I've had a thing for languages. It may have something to do with the fact that my parents teach English, my mother has a master's in linguistics, I speak three languages and have studied five, but then again it may not.

Anyway, I've been (quietly) looking for a way to organize (one of) my current projects, and Brynne's idea is perfect. So I'm going to cautiously think about starting a blog for my latest language/world/culture, which is still mainly a concept. Hopefully having it be publicly accessible will make me actually do something with it, even though I'm currently swamped in schoolwork.

I'll post the link in a future post, if the blog ever makes it way out of pre-production.

in which I link to thingies that can be helpful when writing (part I)

These are in my "Names & Generators & Prompts" bookmark folder. I love them, end probably couldn't live without most of them.

Imagination Prompt Generator: This site generates random prompts that are good for blogging, journaling, or just to spark your imagination.

NameVoyager: Visual representations of baby name trends starting in the 1880's.

Behind the Name: I absolutely love this site, especially the random name generator, which is by far the best one I've found.

What a Lovely Name: Another baby name site, organized in a very refreshing and intuitive way.

Yafnag: Yet Another Fantasy NAme Generator.

Seventh Sanctum: Any kind of generator your heart could desire.

The Swami's Generators: Generators you've never even thought of, but without which you won't be able to live once you know they exist.

Cult of Squid Name Generator: Yes, another one. I use them all.

The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator: Exactly what it sounds like, and perfect for figuring out what your main character's batty great-aunt says.

The Forge: A flash-based fantasy generator for names, places, creatures and spells.

Let's Put Your Character into a Sticky Situation: Generates bad things that can happy to your character. The modern alternative to 'if all else fails, burn something down'.

82 Writing Experiments by Bernadette Mayer: Perfect for breaking writer's block or inspiring poetry.

The Surrealist: Generators and playthings galore.

Language is a Virus: Links to everything and anything concerning writing, and plenty of generators.

911 Writer's Block: Dial 1 for settings, dial 2 for characters etc.

Serendipity: More generators, of every kind.

Note: The author is not held responsible for time wasted on these sites.

housekeeping-ish

A bit of housekeeping:

Dan: Thanks for the suggestions! I'll go see if the library here has them, even though I'm not exactly optimistic...

Brynne: If I ever am interested in the Belizean national anthem, I'll be sure to ask you.

I'm going to Hong Kong and Malaysia for Spring Festival holiday, and will probably not be posting from the 24th of January to the 12th of February. I say 'probably' because I will have my iPod touch with me, but posting from it is a pain, plus I'm going to be on the beach. I do promise to take photos and actually post them when I get back.

I know I'm really bad at responding to comments (really, really bad, actually), but I'm curious as to who's reading my blog and what they have to say, so I'd appreciate it if you'd comment. I may periodically ask you questions, and I would like it if you answered, if only so that I don't feel like an idiot talking to myself. On my part, I'll try to post more regularly, and reply to comments promptly.

I would like to take this opportunity to say:

If you have a suggestion, I'd be glad to hear it.
If you have a particular topic on which you'd like to hear me ramble, I'd be glad to oblige.
If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.

So, how did you start reading this blog?

vanity

I was playing around with a hair-stick, because my hair's finally long enough to do something with, and I managed something that looks like a French twist but is way easier to do. So far it's stayed up really well, and if I can duplicate it, I may even share the secret.