HI THAT'S MY COFFEE MUG

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The first week of school is winding down (yay!) and I have many thoughts about what this semester is going to be like. They go something like this:

1. Victorian Literature! Critical Methods! Race Theory! I am excite! 
2. Linguistics and translation theory - why have I never heard of you before, baby, where have you been all my live long life?!
3. Oh look, there's a twenty page research paper. And a ten page statement of purpose. And goddammit I'm supposed to graduate why why why...
4. Coffee. Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffeeeeeeeee.

 In that vein: Every since I started college my mother and I have had a tradition. It's not an acknowledged one; in fact, I think if you asked my mother she would deny it as a tradition and more an accident. It's no secret that I'm a lover of all things coffee. So it follows that I would (and do, oh God I do) splurge a lot of money on coffee mugs. Ceramic mugs, shiny mugs, thermoses that keep coffee hot - coffee is my pride and joy and I will drink it out of a nice cup.

My mother doesn't really care what she drinks her coffee out of. Ugly mugs, short mugs, mugs with no handles - sometimes even glass. Until I return in May with my beauties and then all of a sudden she is very concerned that she go to work with one of my little delights in hand. By the end of the summer my cups have been microwaved, dishwashed, melted, burned, lost or cracked. I had a lovely ceramic mug and the handle snapped off while I was washing it.

Snapped. Off.

So I have compiled a list of things to keep in mind when caring for your, or your significant other's coffee paraphernalia.

• Check the bottom of the cup/mug/thermos before putting it in the dishwasher. Most of them have inscriptions that will specify if they are dishwasher safe. If they are not dishwasher safe, do not put them in the dishwasher.
• Most thermoses have a plastic exterior - this does not mean they are microwave safe. 
• This also does not mean they are safe to put next to a hot stove. Plastic melts, guys. Really.
• Some of the really fancy mugs have steel exteriors. Do not put in a microwave, for the love of God. Just. Don't.
• Ceramic does not mean heavy duty. It is the opposite of heavy duty. Opposite.
• Cousin's who are not old enough to drink coffee have no business touching your coffee mugs. In fact, if you do not drink coffee or judge me for my love of coffee and my morning coffee ritual get out. Get your blaspheming hands off my mugs and get out.
• Respect the mug. 

This has been a public service announcement. You're welcome. 

HOW TO TAKE A VACATION

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1) Don't get out of your pajamas and offend your family with your presence for at one day.


2) Drink your morning coffee out of a porcelain mug and teach your sisters what it means to start the day right aka with coffee.


3) Take long walks with your sister around the neighborhood and discuss the future.


4) Watch all the seasons of Friends at your disposal. Then go back and watch them again with your mom and sisters.


5) Watch Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back at 1am and realize that Yoda, after 30 years alone on Dagobah is fracking crazy and not at all the Zen Jedi master you learn to love in episodes 1 - 3.


6) Read, read, read until you can't anymore aka never stop. Realize that you may never measure up and move on.


7) Indulge in all the fanfiction you've been avoiding to finish up your book for hours. This is the best type of guilty pleasure.


8) Flip through your moleskine notebook and realize it's not over, it'll never be over.


9)Sit at the dining room table with your aunt and discuss the difference between coffee connoisseurs and coffee drinkers - determine that your mother is a coffee drinker and mourn the fate of her taste buds.


10) Relax. Seriously. The beta comments will show up eventually. School will start soon. Revel in these last days. 

RETURN OF THE JEDI

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I've been meaning to post since I got on break but - well, things got in the way. Mostly, I pushed myself to finish my latest project (I did, on December 28!) and then I was busy either lazing around and getting out of work mode or revising like a mad woman so that I could send the project out to beta readers. But I have now finished both writing and revisions, just in time for the New Years (I actually spent New Year's Eve putting the last touches on the project) and I will be trying to put myself in a Zen zone until I have to go back to school on the 9th.

To greet the new year I've revamped the site layout with these funky colors (and thanks so much to colour lovers for the amazing background) as my way of greeting 2011 with love and high hopes for a successful year. Last year I did Through 2009 and What I Found There to reflect on the year. Here is Through 2010 and What I Found There:


1) Finished The Scion: The Scion was the second complete manuscript that I wrote and I loved it to bits. Unfortunately, I freaked out at the end and trunked it with hopes of a rewrite. In hindsight, I'm really glad I did. It gave me the time to improve my writing and gather the courage to really query and not just kind of query with a book that definitely wasn't my best. But just as The Pawn taught me how to finish a book, The Scion taught me how to write a book. And that's important.
2) Started two projects (Heart of Angelline and Eidolon): I started Eidolon in the very early days of the summer and trunked it around July and then started Heart of Angelline and trunked it in late October. Trunking both was really, really important because it taught me how to let go, when something is beyond fixing, when fixing something isn't worth it. I was of the opinion that if something wasn't working you could power through it and fix it in the end and I think this is still true for a lot of things. But there are times when it stops being true and it's important to recognize that and pull out.
3) My third creative writing workshop: This. There are no words for the roller coaster that this class was. I'm not going to lie: this class is part of the reason I managed to finish my last project. The professor was brilliant and I learned something I might have never known or managed to forget and it made writing not only easy but fun again. I'd forgotten how wonderful it is to be with your character to know everything about them to enjoy wrecking their lives and then fixing it again. And regardless of how psychotic my professor may have been they did teach me to write again and to stop getting twisted in so much of the business and focus on the  craft of it.
4) Cutting back on my social life: I know this sounds kind of ridiculous to be a good thing but - yeah, it wasn't. My freshman year of college wasn't as stellar as I wanted it to be because I invested more time in hanging out and running around instead of buckling down and studying. Sophomore year was all about trying to find a balance between the two and this year (junior year) I think I've struck the balance. I'm doing much better in school, I enjoy the majority of my classes and I have time to write.
5) Finished the first draft of a project I am in love with: This felt like a break through for me. I love this project and I loved it when I started and I loved it even when I was going through revisions. I have never felt this way about a book that I wrote. I've loved characters and plot lines but I've never loved anything as wholly as I love this project.

That's my year in hindsight. Pretty quiet all things considered but I like quiet, thank God. Happy new year! May it be as fruitful or more so than 2010.

MY REACTION TO FINALS

Good luck to those on their final stretch. We can do it!

SURVIVING THE FINAL WEEKS

1) Junk food. This is your best friend. Cheez-Its, pretzels, chips, cookies, chocolate chips- these will make that final stretch before break bearable. Even a ten page paper seems doable when you have a bowl of cheez-its and a bottle of gatorade.

2) Advil: Finals will give you headaches. Those eight papers, two finals, and one oral exam you've got? They're going to make you want to bash your skull in against your keyboard. Do it. And then take Advil.
3) Quiet: If you're the type that gets roped into studying with friends or your campus doesn't have a quiet zone, invest in a pair of a) ear plugs or b) over the ear headphones that will muffle or (better yet) block out the sound around you. Some people like working to music, and the headphones are a good investment for when you're not cramming to save your life and writing to keep living.
4) Specialized Mug: It will be a light for you when all other lights go out. But seriously, looking at a mug that you (or someone special) picked out for you for sentimental reasons will be a small and tiny bright spot in a very dark couple of weeks.
5) Coffee: Looking into an empty coffee mug is no fun. Never be afraid to splurge on tastey coffee and creamers. Make your caffeine cabinet shine. It will make the remaining weeks of finals and papers fly by. Everything is more fun on a caffeine high.

7 HARRY POTTER MEMORIES

Source. Also: yes, yes I do.

1) Eleven: My fifth grade teacher takes me to the library to check out books. Harry Potter has its own shelf. I pick out the first, start reading, check it out. I finish it in a few days, go back, get the second and third. My dad looks disapprovingly at the Hippogriff on the cover, but doesn't take the book away and I read on in secret.
2) Twelve: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes out in theaters. My sisters tease me to no end for my nerditude, citing the tag line 'Have a very Harry Christmas' as further proof. I beg and beg and beg my father to force them to see the film with me. After sunset on a Saturday he turns into the movie theater parking lot silently, buys tickets and popcorn and watches Harry Potter with my sisters and I. My sisters are converted and I am a very happy eleven year old.
3) Fourteen: We're at a thrift store and I scour the book section for the fourth Harry Potter book. I beg and beg my mom to buy it and she finally relents, staring disapprovingly at the boy with a wand on the cover. She warns be to go to sleep later that night while I'm reading, shuts off the light and I pretend to sleep. Later, I shine my alarm clock over the book and read on until the harrowing end. A few hours later I crawl into bed with my mom, and say I can't sleep because of monsters. She sighs, says 'I told you, Sumayyah' then turns over and goes back to sleep.
4) Fifteen: My sister's fourth grade teacher loves me. For my birthday she buys me Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and a very pretty journal from Borders. I ignore the journal for the mean time and devour Harry's new adventures shamelessly.
5) Sixteen: The sixth book comes out, we pre-order it and my sister gets it for her birthday. She reads it first, cries, hands it to me that night and I read and cry. The youngest gets it last and by then she knows the ending is not happy, it is harrowing and horrible and so wonderful we cannot wait for the conclusion.
6) Seventeen: The seventh book comes out, but Harry Potter isn't finished it lives on and my sisters and I have a Harry Potter shelf in the basement with all the books. We have the films, they are a family activity.
7) Twenty: The first part of the finale of the Harry Potter franchise is released. It is the beginning of the end of an era. The beginning of the end of my childhood. I am not in middle school, the journal I got for my fifteenth birthday is filled, my Harry Potter books - hard cover and paperback - are frayed and beaten and old and I feel just as old as they are. I watch each new trailer, new television spot with goosebumps appearing on my arms and drink coffee while I watch and wait and wait and wait for my sister to come back from school so we can go see it as a family because it's a family tradition.