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22nd May 2004

LNB–Chapter 9

Here’s my bit of story that will most likely be the end of LNB. Gah, I wish I had time to finish it!

It’s pretty stand alone actually, so if you haven’t read the rest of the story, I think you can follow it pretty well. And it’s rough, very rough. There are definitely part I would have slashed/changed if I had had the time. Let me know what you think. (Oh, and it takes place in DC–Jess went down to meet Rory there).

Like Never Before, end of chapter 9

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4th May 2004

Life stories

Catch up with me:

Getting to the end of school. One more month to go, and I’m starting to feel the pressure. I have year-long cumulative finals in three weeks. I haven’t even started studying. I have no idea how to review a year’s worth of material… not to mention two complete years worth for the boards. June 25th. Day of Reckoning.

I’m feeling better about some things though. The past two weeks, I learned (again) how to do a complete physical exam and interview patients, etc. We visited patients in the hospital and talked to them, and learned how to present to the residents and attendings… And for the first time, third year doesn’t seem quite so daunting. I just might be about to do it.

My roommate of five years told me a couple of weeks ago that she wants to move out. She came home yesterday with ad postings. I almost started crying. Our schedules are going to be night/day opposites and we share a room, so things will probably get difficult sleep-wise. I understand, and yet, I feel like I haven’t been able to breath deeply since I found out. She’s been one of my best friends for 7 years, and I can’t imagine not coming home and sitting on the couch and telling her about my day… We’ve been drifting apart recently, and I’m not sure how to fix it. Her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in January and she only told me a few weeks ago…when we used to stay up until 3 in the morning telling each other everything. Now she sits on the couch playing computer games, and I come home late and write on my computer in our room…

It’s cause a great deal of reflection. Remembering our crazy dorm years. Half of the stories I can’t even relate, because they are so weird that nobody would understand why I laugh hysterically. We’ve grown up since then. All of my dorm friends (we call ourselves the Plethora), besides my roommate Liz, are married. Half have kids. We try to pretend that adulthood hasn’t crept up on us, but we didn’t used to stop the parties at 9 because the kids have to sleep.

I was reading over my journals and realized that it was a year ago, when I was writing about finally making friends in medical school, beyond just the superficial. It was a year ago that I formed a study group with Chris and Candice, then Steve joined us a few weeks later… For one summer, they were all my friends. Candice and Steve read Harry Potter aloud to me while I recovered from surgery. Chris emailed me from Europe, cheering me up when everything got me down. A beautiful summer… and then fall came. I was trying to be the support between everyone, and all I could do was watch everything crumble around me. And now, all who remains is Chris. Granted, I’ve gotten one of the best friends that I could ask for out of him, but I keep waiting for him to wake up and realize that I’m not worth it.

Sheesh, all I ever do is post the depressing messages here. I’m honestly not a depressed person… I’m happy with my life, I really am…. I just need use this to vent, I guess.

On a much happier note: Like Never Before, chapter 8. Finishing off those last few sentences was the best feeling in the world. Not sure if I’m entirely satisfied, and as always, I appreciate the input.

I know I’m horribly behind on commenting to people (mrschimpf, I think I left our conversation hanging in the air!) and worse, I owe about four billion reviews to bjorks_defender, _starsinhereyes and _flutter for their incredible GG stories that have taken my breath away. And shirerain I know I owe you a review, but I need time to reread over your last chapter, I was in such a hurry the first time that I didn’t get a proper chance to muse over it. But I will get to it all!

And the best news of all: Jess is back. Enough said. 🙂

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11th April 2004

Word of the day

Scrofula
(1) a form of tuberculosis infection, characterized by swollen cervical (neck) lymph nodes and glands.
(2) A term of endearment, used by uncle doctor and family, when kids, dog, etc. are misbehaving.
(3) Julia’s first experience with getting pimped. Her definition, since she and her uncle were talking about the dog who was wrecking havoc in the garden, “a play on words with Dracula (you know, like the book, Bunnicula).” Uncle Doctor laughed and quickly pointed out her errors in thinking, continuing “what are they teaching you in that medical school.” It was a joke. I think.

This is what my life starting in July is going to be like. Looking like an idiot because I don’t know the answers to anything. I don’t know anything. Nothing. I can’t tell you about any drugs, any diseases. It’s not what they’re teaching, it’s how little I’m remembering. Two years and I’m still clueless. And it’s going to become painfully obviously when I get to the wards that they should have let in that white Mormon boy from BYU instead of trying for diversity. Oh, the legislature and their little auditors will just love this.

Honestly, remind me again why I’m doing this?

Let continue the whining rants, shall we: I’m tired, I’m getting sick with what I’ve been told is a really nasty cold going around, I stared at the computer screen of the next chapter of LNB for four hours today and didn’t write a single word… instead, I deleted some and realized that I still haven’t figured out what Jess would say as a greeting on the phone. I haven’t talked to my best friend in over 2 months, I’m tired of being single and having no prospects, and the thought that I’m 25 and still end up carpooling and bumming rides from friend-who-is-sick-of-being-my-chaffeur, because my sister is unable to walk the four blocks to where she works. Let’s add in the guilt from when I talk to parents–whom at the age of 25 I’m still dependent on because I’m going to medical school and making absolutely no money–about said car situation and they try to figure out ways to buy other car, when they have absolutely no money because they are supporting me through medical school. I’m selfish, and whiny, and not acting like the mature adult that I ought to be.

I so just want to run away right now.

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24th January 2004

Well, it’s done.

Extra, Extra!!

LNB has been brutally mutilated and slashed. My poor baby, it was for your own good…

Chapters 1 and 3 have been combined, as well as Chapter 2 and 4. Jess’s conversation was slashed and revised all over. It sounds so better to my ears at least. But I hated doing it too… That means, it looks like I’ve spent over a year just writing 7 chapters. Oh, yeah.

It’ll probably cause problems when people try to review the next couple of chapters, since ff.net still records it as nine chapters, but, I guess that’s the price I have to pay. 🙂

But now, I can devote all of my attention to the next two chapters. Whee!

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23rd January 2004

Well, that was stupid of me!

Rereading your own stories is sometimes a risky endeavor.

After being nominated at the Literati Fanfiction Awards, (waves gratefully to very sweet person), I decided to reread my “What A Wonderful World.” I am truly vainly proud of that story, mostly because I swear someone else wrote it–I must have been channeling a spirit or something. I just remember that I was especially giddy because a particular crush seemed to be going right at that time (of course, it fizzled not long afterwards), but seriously, I don’t recognize that brand of Romantic!Me.

Anyway, I decided to go through the rest of my stories, especially LNB, just to make sure that I didn’t have any glaring errors or major inconsistencies. Yeah, bad idea. My early Jess is laughable in his conversation… sometimes I get him, and then other times, who was I writing, an English professor? kimlockt told me that he needed some work–and I agreed at the time and changed a few things, but I just hadn’t seen until now how much!

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized… the first four chapters are really just an introduction to the story. Compared to my later chapters, they’re short, only about 4 pages each and not that much important stuff happens.

So I’ve been editing all afternoon. I combined chapter 1 and 3, and will be doing the same for 2 and 4. And Jess is getting a trim. All of the “really” and “so” that I use are going bye-bye, as well as most of the first words of every sentence.

But now, I’m concerned that I’m going to have to repost the whole thing at ff.net. Combining like that will make my story two chapters shorter and it’ll mess up my reviews (I hit 50! Woohoo!!) and I remember reading something that if you try to delete the last chapter, it wipes away your whole story.

But it needs the changes so badly. I can’t even think about continuing it until I get this fixed. Grrr.

Any advice?

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7th January 2004

Whee!

Look what I did today:

Like Never Before has been updated with chapter 9. You can read it here: Like Never Before And you can always review it here… (okay, shameless plug over).

I really enjoyed writing this chapter. It was immensely satisfying and I really hope that it worked as well as it felt to me.

AND…. Big project number two:

Sneak peak for those who had endure my shrieks of frustration–I got it figured out!!!

LOTR Inklings

Of course, none of the links work and I still have problems with some of my style sheets (at the bottom of the page does it look like random numbers and symbols or Elvish script gibberish… it ought to look like the later, but there’s a buggy someplace). Can you see the menu on the left side–if you can’t please comment and let me know… that’s what I’ve spent the last week figuring out.

But I have a home page!

Whoa, it’s really late. I gotta get to bed–car ride is coming in about 6 hours now… Gah!

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9th December 2003

“You take my breath away”

Wow.

I am so blown away by the positive response that my latest chapter got. You know that scene in Moulin Rouge, where Christian is first singing to Satine, and she gets this stunned look on her face and then they’re off dancing in the stars and clouds above Paris–yeah, that’s me. I was positively giddy today–I skipped down the hall, much to the chagrin and bafflement of my more mature classmates (maybe I should go into peds, I’d fit right in there with the kids). I was checking my email every few minutes just to see if there were more nice things in my inbox. It felt like Christmas and my birthday and every other magical day there is.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I honestly wasn’t expecting anything like that. I really expected a rather lukewarm reaction, “damned with faint praise” at best. It’s probably not wise to trust my own judgments, especially since I had been staring at the same scene every day for about three months.

But it’s nice to be proven wrong too.

And I tell you, flattery is the best medicine for a ill muse–she perked right up and I had about a dozen brain whirl-winds this afternoon about the next couple of chapters. I’m sketching the ideas, working them in and I’m really excited.

Response to AvidTVFan’s fabulous review

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7th December 2003

For better or worse

Like Never Before chapter 8 has now been posted on ff.net. I finished it Friday night, had my sister read it (she’s my unofficial beta), who told me that it wasn’t as good as my other chapters but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Eh. According to her, my Paris was out of character, which really worries me because I spent so much time making her believable. All I had was one episode to go off in showing this side of Paris. One episode–“The Big One” from last season, where Paris has her breakdown. Yeah, not a lot of inspiration.

Ugh.

So, I went back and edited. Big time. I think it’s better now, but… I’m really nervous about posting it. Meeting the groom on the day of the arranged marriage kind of nervous. I don’t want to be tarred and feathered here! I tend to lean on the freak-out side, so hopefully things aren’t as bad as I fear.

Chapter 7 was rewritten too, to attempt to get more of Jess’s voice. My biggest fault, I think is that my characters tend to become as verbose as I do and I struggle to rein them in. But it’s so difficult to convey conversations in monosyllables as Jess demands.

Chapter 9 was done and I was going to post it in a couple of days–I had that one written a year ago, when the idea first came to me–it honestly was the reason that I wrote this story. But it was only 4 pages long and after this last chapters’ record of 8958 words on 17 pages, it was way too short. So, I’m rearranging, combining some chapters and other housework before it’s read to be displayed. I am aiming for Christmas/New Year’s. We’ll see how well I succeed. At least I like the chapter more!

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4th December 2003

Rants

I was in a pretty good mood today. Cardiology was understandable for once (if only they could manage to put physiology in terms of balloons and gas tanks!) and it got done early, another bonus. My afternoon study session was fairly productive and I didn’t get too freaked out when I heard the third and fourth years talking about the horrors of rotations–I so don’t even want to think about it, but I’m not being given that chance.

Came home, had a fairly relaxing evening and sat down to watch some television and within ten minutes my blood started to boil.

(I’m still exploring this Livejournal thing and just figured out how to do the cut thing. Of course, I can’t resist playing with it! And since it is spoilerish information if you haven’t seen it….)

Rant Number One

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3rd December 2003

The dead will arise and speak again…

Wow, do you realize that the last time I posted here was back in August?? I realized that today was December, December 2nd my calendar tells me. I’m not really sure what happened to September and October and November–are you sure we really even had a November?

First of all, updates: Yes, to those few people who know what I’m talking about, I’m still working on my Gilmore Girls story, Like Never Before. Honestly, I swear. I’m working on chapter 8 and have been (bit by painful bit) for the past three months. It’s sixteen pages long now, sixteen pages and I think I hate it. Which is funny, because when I first started thinking about this story a year and a half ago, this was one of the major chapters of why I wanted to put my ideas to paper. But right now, it’s hitting too close to home. I’ve had a hard time writing this fight scene and having such an easy resolution, when I know from hard, personal experience that it never goes this smoothly. Even when you’re trying so hard to communicate, things still get mired and knotted. And yet, to change it, would just lengthen the story out even longer. If it wasn’t necessary to move the “plot” along, I’d just trash it. I have one scene left. One scene that’s probably less than two pages long, but do you think I can write it? NOOOOO! Stupid story.

Update number two: And I’ve been once again hit by the drabble bug, so look for an update to my drabbles, as well as some LOTR ones–I’ve got an inkling to write a Eomer drabble, and I don’t know where that one came from!! As of yet, no one has taken my drabble challenge, although Agent M at ff.net wrote a perfectly delightful one entitled Tana and Kirk. Read it, it’s fabulous.

And speaking of drabbles, I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and really really enjoyed it. The author did an incredible amount of research to justify every one of his theories and well as add layers and layers of details and symbolism. I feel like I need to read it again, just to understand all of the symbolism. Right after I read it, I stumbled across another of fileg‘s beautiful drabbles that struck me as ironically appropriate: Earth, Water, Fire, Air. Read the Arwen drabble….And then do yourself a favor and go and read the rest of fileg’s stories and see why I love her writing so much.

Update number three: We’re starting to discuss The Hobbit on my Tolkien discussion group. I just posted the first five chapters of musings and thoughts, the next five chapters will be done by this weekend. I hope to get all the way through it before RETURN OF THE KING opens….Can anybody guess how excited I am??? Today, I saw one of the tv trailers for the first time and it induced the “moment-of-silence” followed by “utter-squeal-of-excitement.”

Um, yeah. That’s all the business I guess. School’s been kicking my butt, mostly because I’ve become so apathetic towards it. I cannot wait for Christmas. One of my best friends is flying in and spending almost two weeks with me!! I have two lovely weeks with no classes, no endless hours of studying the disease processes of anemia or the electrical circuits of the heart, no trying to avoid certain people because things have gone so horribly wrong. Nothing but sweet, delightful boredom.

And I had to laugh. Last week, driving home for Thanksgiving dinner, I heard the new Evanescence single, My Immortal, and completely, totally, head over heels fell in love with it. Seriously, it was one of those songs that caused an emotional reaction where I felt the words and music just beating in my veins. I haven’t been able to get enough of the song since then. And what was the quote from GG tonight “And those who bring Evanescence will be severely mocked.” Yeah, I’m ridiculous.

Only 14 more days until ROTK!!!!!!!!! Just wait until the day before, then I’ll be shouting it!

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13th August 2003

Muse and musings

Airports, airplanes are wonderful things. Seriously, think about it–you get to your destination in a small fraction of the time it would take you to drive, you don’t have to worry about packing our car, or where you put the map, or the crazy drivers on their cell phones, and you share a seat with someone who inevitably is defined by the word “interesting”–and for some reason (the cheesy side of me is saying it’s because in a plane you’re high enough to brush the angels’ wings…ugh, I’m making myself ill), inspiration flows, your muse becomes yours again.

A few weeks ago, I flew to Washington, DC, probably my favorite city in the world. Some day I’ll live there, just off of Rock Creek Park on Connecticut Avenue. But I digress. I had layovers on the way there in St. Louis and on the way back in Houston, nice long layovers. I brought my notebook, my “Pilot P-700” blue ink pen, and a three mixed CDs that I had made the night before–so with Eva Cassidy, Matchbox 20, Loreena McKinnett and, yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Musical playing in my ears, I wrote. Mostly on my story, Like Never Before. I wrote most of chapter 7, the first scene of 8, the last scene of 12 and polished up 9. Not bad for a few hours on a plane, eh? I’m so excited about it! The chapters are coming together just as I had hoped and I’ve received a little more encouragement (thanks guys!), which just makes the juices flow better and sweeter. Boy, i really am waxing crony tonight, aren’t I? 🙂 🙂

I posted Chapter 7 last night. My sister read it, declared it perfect, then proceeded to lecture me of how random the scene with Jamie was. I was afraid of that. I rewrote it a little and I hope it flows a little better, but it’s extremely important that it happen this way. I hope most people can forgive me for Jamie. Jamie is such a foreign character to me–we’ve seen him, twice, and yet Paris and he have this “relationship”???

Jamie doesn’t have a last name, does he?

In any case, I should have chapter 8 done shortly (fingers crossed), as long as I don’t get distracted by my other project: I’m designing a webpage! Now, I know basic, basic, basic HTML–I know what < i > and < b > mean, for example, but I’ve never designed a site from scratch. It’s for my Lord of the Rings literary discussion group–we just finished reading LOTR together, and I’m trying to compile all of our ponderous thoughts and discussions and put them on an easily navigational site. I made our logo today, which I’m really impressed with–it’s exactly what I was hoping for. I’d proudly display it, but I have no idea how to attach an image if it’s not on the web. Now to figure out how add drop-down graphics and lay out a table. Ah, right now, I am really loving life.

10 days until I start school again. I think I’ve completely forgotten all of my “doctoring skills.” Oh dear.

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15th July 2003

To be old or not to be?

I’ve decided that I’m too old for ff.net and that’s why nobody’s reading my stories. I’m not fourteen anymore and I can’t write non-description little fluffy stories than are only 500 words long.

Sheesh. They can read Harry Potter with its 800+ pages, but my story gets passed over for being too long. Not that I really blame them for Harry. I’v been completely absorbed in that world again…

Is it really a comfort to know that I’m getting older and can’t even pretend to be in a teenager mindset anymore? I don’t know. All I know is that getting only 4 reviews for my last chapter sucked. Even some of my Old Faithful reviewers didn’t live up to their nickname. I know my story’s different–heck that’s why I wrote it! But surely people are getting tired of reading about how Tristan comes back from military school all changed or how Rory becomes a bad girl or how Jess leaves Rory pregnant! Surely? Right?

It makes continuing more difficult. I told myself that I wasn’t writing for praise–well, I guess I’d better prove that now.

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17th June 2003

Perhaps

Update news: Finished chapter 6 of Like Never Before at 4:30 am this morning. WHEEE!! I never thought I’d get that one out–what a difficult birth! When I started thinking about this story last summer, I knew what was going to happen the first few chapters, a couple in the middle, and then the last chapters. But these middle ones were a complete mystery. This chapter in particular took a turn that I was not expecting. I would say that it wrote itself, but I practically had to force the words on the paper! It will be posted on FF.net this evening!!

I had hoped to finish off chapter 7 too, but alas, I have run out of time. I’m having surgery tomorrow morning and only have time to tie up all of my real-life obligations.

This is the first time that I’ve really actually felt scared for a surgery. Maybe it’s because I now know what goes on behind the mask and maybe it’s this fear that something will go wrong this time and change my carefully laid plans. I have complete trust in my doctor, he’s one of the best surgeons around (and besides that, he’s really cute!), but there’s still that worry.

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15th June 2003

The first impression

Gee, I feel as nervous as if I was on a date (oh, how would I know–my memory of my last date doesn’t go back that far, but go with me here). I’ve spent all this time preparing my LJ page, so that it looked nice and pretty, and now I’m sitting around, wondering if my “date” will show up. Well, in any case, I’ve enjoyed this.

Although LJ could make it a lot easier on their customers if they put a HTML color wheel on their page so I didn’t have to go track one down. Thank the stars for dogpile (my favorite search engine).

Events of the day: made spring rolls for lunch with mom. Tried sauteing the shrimp with ginger–a little strong (less next time), but very good. Wrapped in rice paper with red leaf lettuce, cucumber, shredded carrots, mint leaves and cilantro, dipped in soy sauce. Very flavorful. Much better with the peanut sauce though.

Worked on Chapter 6 and 7 of my Gilmore Girl story, Like Never Before. Still not sure about the name change, heck I keep calling it Life is for Learning, one of the many that I went through. I prefer Songbird, but I’ve gotten so few reviews that I’m hoping the name change will induce some more comment. I shouldn’t feel too bad about it–those who have read it have honestly loved it, so I can’t feel too self-conscious, but seriously, when I see all of those unbearable stories out with with poor grammar and missing plots and fake characters and they have 200 reviews, I get a little jealous. So if you want to make me happy, go read my stories at http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=219204 and review.

Chapter 6 is coming along well. I just have scene left (out of a three scene chapter, I guess that’s not saying much). I’ve been hung up on some of the descriptions. Only I would care enough about trying to get the description of a restaurant that I’ve never been to absolutely perfect. Oh, I hope to finish it tomorrow.

FF.net finally up and working again. Finally I can catch up on some of my favorites. Holly Gilmore updated both of her stories, “Previously on Gilmore Girls” and “This Feeling That Remains,” (GG)

Pick out my engagement ring this morning. After setting up my account at theknot.com, with Daffy Duck as the groom, I decided that I hated all of their choices of rings and went and explored for my own. I’m seriously considering a three diamond ring with a purple diamond in the center, crowned by two clear, and amethyst along both sides. Had no idea until today that there were such things as purple diamond. I really like the light ones–good thing, they’re the cheapest, eh? So, I have the ring, I have the dress. Now, I just need the guy. One who’s very understanding of my purple devotion. 🙂

LOTR link for the moment: http://www.lordoftherings.net. They finally have new pictures for ROTK up!! Woohoo! Okay, so they’ve been up for a month, I’ve just been busy. I really wish they’d coming out with the trailer already. (grumble, grumble). My LOTR group has been silent recently. Will need to look around for more things to discuss.

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