Travel Writing

I haven't used this blog since I was about 16 (I've been blogging over at Help Ever, Hurt Never), but I plan to use it for my travel writing experiment this summer.

I'm a professional writing major. UCA has offered a travel writing seminar in the past, but hasn't listed it for the upcoming year. I've taken matters into my own hands and applied for a Travel Abroad Grant from the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College. Kristina and I will be traveling for about three weeks, stopping in five different places. We'll be camping some times and staying in hostels others. 

Two young women traveling the East coast alone for a month out of the summer? I imagine we'll have some stories. Even better, I'm a bit prissy about my sleeping arrangements and haven't been camping since I was about 10 and in Girl Scouts. And did I mention I'm really in to clean eating?

While researching our destinations for the trip, I realized it's kind of hard to find relatively easy, clean eating recipes that can be done over a campfire. Even harder? Planning yoga that I can do in a hostel.

My goal for this blog is that I'll show other students that great trips can be pulled off for relatively low cost if you put a little work into it! The hostels? They're about $30 a night, per person, if you hunt out the low cost establishment. How clean/comfortable are they? I'll let you know!

Shape Sorter

So, through 80's music, I have discovered that my soul is a shape sorter.

Picture this. On the way to Conway, from Little Rock, my mom and I are in the gold Oldsmobile Silhouette, with Before X playing. Before X is an amazing compilation of 80's alternative music. :D As we are having a casual conversation, "Rough Night In Jericho" comes on.

We've kept the music turned down so we could talk, but I randomly stop talking in order to sing the intro to one of the verses, "There were four little girls with foreign names!". Mom looked at me and laughed. Naturally, I apologized for my spazzy interruption of our conversation. My apology was somewhat like "I'm sorry, sometimes part of a song reaches out and steals my soul, and I have to sing part of it. I can't help it!"

After that, "Missionary Man" by the Eurythmics comes on. As the opening beats play, I make a spazz noise, and go "This just fills a happy hole in my heart!!" Mom was surprised to know I have a happy hole. :P

My explanation is a comparison of my soul to a shape sorter. You remember the red and blue balls that had yellow shapes that you put in the similarly shaped spots? Well with emotions, happy things fill the happy hole, sad things fill the sad hole. Everything to its proper place. Randomly, at some time later, I was wondering which part of the shape sorter each of my emotions would be. Squares have corners, but circles never end. So does happiness never end? Or is sadness neverending? Which shape do I like more?? How can I ascribe geometric meaning to emotions? What does each shape symbolize? My silly metaphors can be astonishingly complicated!

Dawn of the Dreadfuls

The new Quirk Classics publication Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith is marketed as a "prequel" to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which, I will admit, concerned me at first (I am a die-hard Austen fan).

-As a side note, I purchased Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith this past summer and really enjoyed reading it. I thought it transitioned particularly well between the original text and the zombie plot.-

Dawn of the Dreadfuls was a pleasant surprise. It was a witty take on Meryton and Longburn as well as the entire Bennet family. It places the original story as well as the recent adaptation in clever context and I felt like it added to the experience and gave the characters even more depth.



Aside from it's Austenian plot origins, its just a good book. In my opinion, its suitable for either gender due to it's clever balance of "zombie mayhem" and romantic intrigue. Its well written and engaging and definitely unpredictable! (I'm not even a "zombie fan". My books are just as good without brains, except in this cases!) I would say that much of the humor runs more to the... unladylike. ;) but I hang with guys, so its not as bad as what I hear at the lunch table. All in all, good stuff and a fun read.

To learn more about Dawn of the Dreadfuls, go to http://quirkclassics.com/index.php?q=dawnofthedreadfuls

I should also mention that there is a contest for readers going on. All you have to do is go to http://quirkclassics.com/index.php?q=QuirkClassicsContest_DOD_Reviews and leave a comment about this review and you'll be entered to win one of 50 prize packs including a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Journal, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Postcards, Audio Books of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, An advance copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, a password redeemable online for sample audio chapters of Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and a Dawn of the Dreadfuls Poster.

An upcoming Quirk Classic to be watching for is Android Karenina. I'll hopefully be posting a review for that soon as well! At this time, I do, however, have the cover art!

PPZ

I haven't posted in a while. I've been too busy reading and listening to indie music to post. Well, that and stressing about life. But really, I've been spending a lot of time with my Paste subscription. :D oh happy day. the Paste samplers improve my life, and their pop culture reviews are amazing. (my bro says the same thing about Maxim, but really???)

It was actually because of Paste that I made the leap and bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I'm a bit of a purist as far as Jane Austen is concerned, and wasn't sure that I could enjoy a mock up complete with ninjas and zombies!! However, I definitely did. It was masterfully written, with all of the parts blended so well and it was just hysterically funny!

So I decided to follow it on Facebook, which was cool. Especially today, where they said that they were looking for new reviewers for the prequel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dead. Yeah, that sounds awesome. So I sent the email application and we'll see what happens!!! Either way, check my blog, and others on March 3 to find reviews!

Me

Well it looks like that afore mentioned insomnia has stricken, so you get a blog post. about me.

The bathroom renovation went... tolerably well. We didn't finish, but we made huge gains. The new flooring is mostly installed, the new vanity is installed, the new light fixture is installed, the new faucets work... There is however, the ceiling left to paint as well as another coat for the walls and the woodwork. We changed out the knobs on the vanity in the main bathroom as well as the toilet paper holder and the towel bar and ring. They were a terrible polished brass and are now a tasteful combination of glass knobs and brushed nickel hardware. :)

Thursday night, I got a babysitting gig. Two kids, a 4 year old girl, and a 7 year old boy, so I charged $6 an hour. They are marvelous kids, definitely hyper, but once we got past the "test the babysitter" stage, we had a great time. The kids have a really early bedtime, and the parents told me to feel free to peruse their ENORMOUS dvd collection and watch anything that caught my eye. It was fabulous. It took me an hour just to decide what I wanted to watch. Hopefully, they'll ask me to babysit again!

On Saturday, Mom and I had an outing. It was grand fun! :) First we made a trip to St. Joseph's Flea Market, where I got an awesome dress, two fantastic old pieces of sheet music, and six romance novels by Barbara Cartland. Then Mom and I headed for Little Rock. We went to a big Hobby Lobby, perused Merle Norman, and went to JoAnn's. This was all on our way to Savers because we couldn't find it, and then we found that delightful shopping center with a restroom. :) Finally we found Savers, which was very awesome. It's HUGE. And there are all kinds of awesome things everywhere! I got a cute hoodie, two shirts, and a belt. There were tons of jeans that were quite cute, but most of them were about $10 and I really didn't need any. But they have shoes, books, handbags, ties, belts, clothes, housewares, furniture! It was very cool. :)

Mom and I never did make it to see either Coraline or Watchmen this week, but we hit Blockbuster pretty hard. :) We've watched The Fantasticks, Let's Make Love, and Neverwas--all of which were phenomenally fantastic! We've also rented Hellboy and we have Ghost In The Shell and Pump Up The Volume that I desperately want to see as well... :)

I have finished both of my Spring Break school assignments, actually doing good work instead of slopping down crap. This is especially good since the assignments were in classes that I'm not doing so well in, Pre AP English and AP US History. My difficulty in English is ridiculous. Its always been one of my best subjects. There is, however, a lot of homework assigned and the tests center around quotes. I am often too overwhelmed to complete all of my homework and kind of rotate around which class I blow off when and speakers and subjects of particular quotations from a quickly read novel frequently slip my mind.

Sophomore year is possibly worse than freshman year. Which is an astonishing occurrence I thought an impossibility last year. *sigh*.

Well... it has just struck 2 a.m. so I'm going to try sleep again... (It happens to me every night
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...)

(Why, yes! I do frequently make random Alice Cooper references!)

Easy energy efficiency...

I would like to bring everyone's attention to a new, energy saving search engine. www.blackle.com is powered by google and offers the same basic search capability with a black background, saving a surprisingly large amount of energy. This was part of the reason I changed my blog to a darker background and text. The other part was that I just liked the colors, lol.

Sometime soon I might happen to care enough and have enough time to write a real blog post about me and my life, but usually I either care enough to blog OR I have enough time to write, rarely both unless a particularly vicious bout of insomnia strikes. ;)

Life as it is now.

Wow, I am such a failure at blogging. Over a month since my last post?! :(

History Day project from last post was part disaster part brilliance. The documentary was beautiful, the paper work (process paper and bibliography) were significantly less so. Turns out, there is a God, and he was on duty. Mr. Rich (my history teacher) gave me a second chance, placing me 4th in the school competition. I procrastinated, of course, but miraculously the night before I got everything a little bit more together and I placed 3rd at district, which means I'm going to state!! Anyway, its Spring Break, so I'm working on History Day.

At some point, I need to devote an entire blog post to Sargent Shriver, my History Day topic.

Last week sucked... one of my very best friends in the whole wide world tried to OD. Definitely intended to off herself. Luckily, she told me, which meant that I had plenty of time to go crying to the counselor... My friend promises to stick around for at least a little while. I cried to her too. I broke my no-crying-at-school rule, but really, I think we're past the elementary school "cry baby" thing. And seriously, my friend nearly died. So yeah, I thought it was excused. Hopefully my friend will haul her butt back to the doctor, for so many reasons. She needs her bipolar meds upped, she needs to make sure that the hospital didn't mess anything up when they pumped her stomach, and she was already sick before all of this and has lab work and an ultrasound to discuss with her doctor. >:( But she's stubborn and is sick of doctors. I'm also stubborn, prone to nagging, and I care. So because I care, I will nag and refuse to listen to "reason" because I'm stubborn. ;)

On Thursday, I was 1 of 8 students from Conway High East to page for the House of Representatives at the capitol! It was super fun. There was a lot of sitting and picture taking, but really, it was amazing. Below is a group pic, from left: Kerry Cole, Heather Haile, Devika Mehta, Me (Meleah Bowles), Seth Gilleran, Amy Anderson, Stephenie McCoy, and Ashley Daniels. The Representative is Robbie Wills, who was elected Speaker of the House for that session.


Now, Spring Break:

• Friday night I went to a very fun Spring Break Party, not at all what I expected from a Mormon party. Lots of insanity. :)
• Saturday night I went to one of the most amazing shows ever! It was Bombay Black and Black Stone Cherry at The Village, a local music venue. It rocked. So hard. :)
• Today, Mom and I replaced two track light fixtures in the living room, and it looks so much better! :) We have a few more projects to tackle over Spring Break, and it will be a changed house.
• Tomorrow morning (8:30 am) I have a fasting lab, because evidently my other lab work wasn't enough. And I'm having major nerve issues in my hands, which I have to fess to my doctor, which means a neurologist, which probably means more missed school, and a whole lot of tests. Hopefully this is fixed, non-surgically, before Flagline tryouts!
  
• After the doctor's appointment, Dad is going to take me out to shoot my shotgun. It was my great-grandfather's and when he died, my grandparents split up the guns, giving me one. It is antique and gorgeous. Then Dad and I are going to clean up the yard, so it can look decent. :)
  
• Sometime this week, Mom and I are planning on painting Twerpette's room, putting a light fixture in her office nook, replacing the light fixture in her bathroom, replacing the vanity/sink in her bathroom, putting a mirror back in my bathroom, putting a light above the dining room table, refinish my bathroom light fixture, plant more flowers in the yard, the list goes on...
  
• I need to work in time to practice my new piano piece, "Golligwog's Cake Walk" by Debussy from his Children's Corner collection, read Ethan Frome and do a reading response worksheet, take a practice AP US History exam, sign up for the ACT, think about practicing my flute, clean my room, this list goes on too... I'm hoping Mom and I figure out a way to work in a Silver Dollar City trip and a visit to Granny and Pa's. :)

I just want to take a random little moment to say that I think Barack Obama rocks. :D So far, he is a fantastic president! I love that he supports early childhood education and civil unions for LGBT and choice and so on...! :D At this moment, I definitely do not regret any endorsement of Barack Obama, and I'm very happy with his decisions so far.

We got our fourth nine weeks grades. I had 4 B's. I'm not happy. But they were all high B's, except History, which was an 85, but its an AP class, so I can make a B. The other three I definitely have to pull up though... UGGGGH. Stress. *sigh* oh well. I'll either do it or I'll permanently wreck my GPA. *flinch*

We evidently signed up for rooms for the Disney band trip on the day that I was paging. And my roommate isn't really sure that she can go. Gaaah. I adore Katie and her family, but her parentals are really flaky. But I'm super excited about Disney, it should be one of the most amazing trips ever! I just really want the room situation straightened out, because a bad roommate could wreck the whole trip for me. :/ As it is, Katie and I could get stuck with who knows else in the room with us... But we can get all of that worked out. I'm sure.

Anyway, not much is going on right now, since its 12:17 am... and this post is already hideously long and I'm tired and I have a doctor's appointment in the morning, so I'm going to go to bed.