Harry Potter and other awesome things

By: Meradeth Houston on 9:44 AM

I honestly feel like I should be five years old at the moment, waiting for Christmas morning or my birthday. I can't wait for the movie tonight! (A small part of this is probably because I can't wait to sit in an air-conditioned room and be COLD!) In any case, this has a whole lot to do with me lacking most forms of entertainment in my life, but oh well.

In other news, I've been reading a LOT lately. And not just for class--imagine that! But I must, must blog about the book I finished the other night that I just adored: A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT by Laura Whitcomb. Honestly, I can't think about it without getting chills. It was just plain Awesome! (How's that for descriptive??) Anyhow, if you haven't read it, go check it out! (Okay, I should add the little point in here that this book is YA, but the characters are adults--old ghosts really--so there's some adult content, which I kinda, um, loved, but some people might not...)

One of my favorite things in this book is how Whitcomb makes the characters sound "old," as in from another era. I've played with this a lot with my characters in particular, however mine have been living in the world trying to blend in, so they try to loose the older-era feeling. Not all the characters though, so I've been really trying to nail down what she does to make this part of the story perfect. Ahhh, I just bask in its glory! (That sounds strange. But I do. :)

Her next book THE FETCH is waiting for me at the library and I know what I'll be doing this weekend :-)

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Slack

By: Meradeth Houston on 3:46 PM

Considering I'm feeling rather miserable today and have spent a lot of the day on the couch, feeling all miserably and contemplating my navel, I've had some time to think. I generally don't ever get to slow down enough to do this regularly so it was a rather odd experience. Anyhow, here's what my topic for the day was: cutting myself some slack. Now, this is not something I (ever) do. I'm kind of one of those people who expects perfection of myself the first time, and anything less frustrates the hell out of me. I can't help it. I am a perfectionist. Even on things that are totally out of my control. And it's killing me.

There are a lot of things I could point to and say "hey, this is the reason behind my affliction." But, I've never been one of those people. Honestly, I'm this way, and I just have to deal with it. So, this is my current plan: I am not going to beat myself up over things that are out of my control, or even those things that are moderately under my control but still don't work out perfectly. Life is a learning process and if I don't get it right the first time, I've learned something and will do better the next.

So, the fact that my students this summer session are a lazy bunch of remarkably unintelligent people who never seem to attend my lectures? This is NOT because of me. I'm going to cut myself some slack and remember this is the first class I've ever taught on my own and I am still learning. This fall, I will be better, and even if my students don't grace all of my lectures, it's not my fault.

My family may go to hell in a handbasket, and it won't be my fault. They are all adults. They can take care of themselves (well, yeah, I won't get into this one). I'm going to cut myself some slack if I don't get time to call every night and visit my grandparents enough.

My research is difficult. No one goes into ancient DNA knowing everything, and considering I went into this field with NO genetics background, I'm always leaning new stuff, and if I sometimes miss contamination in my sequences, well, I'll just fix it. And do better with my new samples. My adviser is going to think I'm an idiot always, so the hell with it. Cutting. Some. Slack.

Despite the fact that I have a MILLION things to catch up on in the lab tomorrow, I'm going to write. Damn it. I am. There's an awesome anthology I want to contribute to, as it's right up my alley, and if that means that I am going to ditch the lab, writing lectures, critiquing the two other books I need to have read and comments on before August, so be it!

Um, okay, enough ranting. But yeah, honestly, I think cutting ourselves a little slack every once and a while is a good thing (well, for some people; there are a few people *cough my students cough* who need to take a little less). So yeah, that's my plan. We'll see how long this lasts :-)

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Grrr

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:29 AM

Okay, maybe it's just Monday, but I'm not in the world's best mood at the moment, and I can easily pin-point the reason: I'm afraid I'm about to re-join the ranks of the un-agented. I'm not making any rash decisions at the moment, but the writing's on the wall, and I'm not so sure what to do. So, here's what's going on:

Round #1 of revisions went well--I sent them back to my agent right on time and I thought they really rocked. Her comments were very helpful, and spot-on in my opinion. Of course, the question was: what will she think? There's only so much nail-biting and otherwise frustration-expressing that one can do.

After almost a month, I emailed to check in on what was going on. A few emails later, basically she said she'd get to it soon and would get back to me. That was two months ago. I didn't check in during that time, but finally decided that I was going to have to, which I politely did last week. Sent email off, and hoped she'd get back to me soon. She's always been super-prompt in the past.

And I'm still waiting. I know, holiday, weekend, etc., and I should just cool my jets, but I know she's been working (thank you, twitter), so I'm not sure what's going on. It's killing me slowly here, I tell ya! I'll wait a little longer, and if nada, email again. Again, if nothing, it's time for a phone call, I think. *sigh* I honestly don't know.

Got any good ideas? I'd love to hear em!

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