Beaver hilarity!!

Okay, so for the people who follow me on twitter you may remember me whining about writing a paper on beavers back on the 22nd of February. Bah, I have to write a six page paper on beavers. No, that is not a euphemism for anything. (tweet) So anyway, around 2am I really hit my writing mojo and wrote a pretty nice paper and I even got to have 3 hours of sleep before having to wake up for work. After work I proofed my paper and headed off to class feeling very positive I'm feeling pretty great about my beaver (essay), so I'm off to class! (tweet). I should not have felt so flipping positive, lol.

In order to understand why the story I'm about to tell you is so funny, you need to read the description for the paper we were supposed to write. If I had the ability to get embarrassed about anything, this would be one of my most embarrassing moments ever.

Problem Based Learning: Problem 1 Beaverville

Hi!
My name is Mark Miles, and I have a problem. I work at a camp up in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, and I run the adventure programming of the camp, both on site with a low ropes course and several different high ropes courses, and any off-site climbing trips. The camp has two different lakes, one that is used for swimming and boating, and another that is used only very occasionally for fishing (and is downstream from the first). This second lake is the issue, as a couple of weeks ago I noticed the water level getting much higher (a foot or more). This is a problem, because our low ropes course is located on an island in that lake, and both the approach (stepping stones and planks) is getting flooded as well as starting to flood the ropes course itself. When I did a walk around the lake, I discovered the reason for the raise in water level… There was a huge beaver dam at the one end of the lake, and several beavers swimming about and adding even more branches to the dam! It is April, and tons of groups are coming in to do low ropes, and will be unable to do so if they have toe swim to use the course. I’m also worried about the trees on the island (eastern pine and hemlock)… if they are flooded, will they die? The wires and logs that make up the low ropes course are attached to those trees, so this is a vital question! Trying to move the ropes course to a new location would cost at least $10,000, which is money the camp doesn’t have.

Ok, so…legally, what can I do (in regard to killing the beavers, or removing the dam)? Will the beavers stop building the dam at some point, or will the situation continue to get worse this year and in the years to come? Why are the dang rodents doing this in the first place – what benefits do they get from building a dam? Will flooding kill the species of trees we have on the island? Where did the beavers come from – they couldn’t have just popped up from nowhere – how did they end up at our lake? How are the beavers able to construct such a dam so well in an aquatic environment? What are my different options for a solution to this problem? Which is the best option (to you), and why (both practically and ethically) would you recommend that option?

So after having read that I needed an angle to write my essay. Obviously fact dumping is easy, but it is also the most boring thing to do. Instead of fact dumping, I read it over and over again, and finally started to really despise Mark Miles and his almost snide tone in the problem. He seemed like an arrogant jerk, so I decided that my approach to the essay would be to correct the guy by saying how stupid he is and ruining his credibility. Here are a few examples of what I did:

Stated the beavers are nocturnal except during certain times of the year, so it was unlikely that the guy ever saw beavers in the time frame described unless he was prowling the campground like a creepy stalker or serial killer.

Proved that he was overexaggerating his problem with the low ropes course by looking up actual prices of the courses.

Said that maybe he was turning greedy after spending too much time with corporate head honchos (low ropes courses are used in those silly corporate retreats that you see in sitcoms)

Made a comment about how the guy would probably just want to kill the beavers illegally

I'm pretty sure there were some other things in addition to the ones above, but I can't remember them now. Anyway, we turned the papers in on the 23rd and someone in the class asked what the solution should be.

"This was actually a real problem. Just replace Mark Miles with my name and this was me a few years ago," he said. *cue to me wanting to headdesk repeatedly* I eyed the papers on his desk and wondered if I could ninja mine off of there. But oh no, it got even better. "Mark Miles is a buddy of mine that let me use his name. I used to work at a bible camp in the Poconos, so every single thing in your problem was what I was dealing with." I wanted to die. I was considering finding a shovel just so I could bury myself and have a tombstone that said, "Here lies Shae, she is dumb."

The next week I was anxiously biting my nails, waiting to see if I would be shunned out of existence because of my terrible paper (which honestly, I still thought it was funny, but I do not want to get a bad grade in the most easy science class I've ever had). The prof tells us that he didn't get a chance to grade the papers, maybe he will the next week.

So last night I went to class, still anxious about my paper, and the teacher told us that he had only graded half of the essays so far and if we wanted to know what we got we could see him after class. Well, I'm curious that way, so I got in line with all of the other people and waited to see how hard I failed. (Tidbit of info: the professor has us write our names on the backs of our papers and quizzes so he doesn't see a name and grade them higher or lower because he has trouble being biased considering one of his real life friends is in the class)

So I got up to see him at his desk and told him my last name. He starts looking through the papers, sees mine, turns it over and goes, "YOU!! You had that smart alecky paper, and just, grrr."

Of course, I burst out with an "I am so sorry!" Then saw my grade (100! woot!) and he said, "I really should have taken off points for it." I replied with the only thing I could think of, "You really should have!"

But yes, awkward times. XD

Its the Little Things

For book recs I always trust the ladies over at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and today is no different. Currently they are running a contest for free books and other awesome prizes. The point of it all is to raise awareness about contemporary romance novels and how they are a dying breed of books.

Last time they ran a contest they did it for a really awesome book: Flat-Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy. Flat-Out Sexy is/was definitely one of my favorite books of the year. A friend and I were talking about this during the weekend and we both agreed that it was the little things that made this book so great. One thing that really made both of us happy was the fact that the author was not afraid of technology. Technology is always changing and most authors really don't know much about it or don't use it themselves. If you are an author of historicals, it is understandable for you not to know anything about computers/phones/internet stuff, but if you are writing contemporaries, your characters are in this world and it makes sense for them to know these things.

My friend and I were a little sad that all it took for us to be pleased as punch was the author to have her characters texting each other like most people do. It might be an age thing, but who knows? The book would have been good without the mention of familiar things (mostly in an unfamiliar -to me- world of race car driving), but real characters in real situations made this book Wonderful.

Now there is another book the Smart Bitches are pimping and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl looks like a really fun read. It was pointed out that the "critics" didn't like this book. This is a growing trend in our world, or at least in my online circle of people and blogs that I follow. The same thing happened with Repo! The Genetic Opera. The critics hated it, but the reviews from normal people came back overwhelmingly positive. What does this tell us? The media and those who are in charge of telling us what to think are vastly out of touch with the people. I am trying to stay away from my soapbox, but it is difficult. Its very frustrating when consumers are not trusted to form their own opinions about what they want to read and see.

Anyway, the moral of the story is - Buy a book, buy a romance, buy something based on a reviewer you trust rather than some stuffy person who is out of touch with the world!

WINNER!

So after a month of toiling away and perfecting my methods of procrastination I have finally finished my novel for NaNoWriMo. Most of it is crap, but I think around the 35k mark I actually started writing a lot better. I don't know how it happened, but one second I was writing terribly and the next day it was like a switch was flipped and I was putting out sentences that didn't sound like garbage. It was nice, I have to say. And one thing I really liked was the fact that my novel finished right at the 50k mark. It was very bizarre that it ended right at the time it should have. I could have bulked up the story if I needed to and filled in a gap that I left open because I was blocked, but I didn't need to. I am so relieved. My wrist kinda hurts now.



Now I'm off to go donate what little money I have to nanowrimo.org to celebrate.

Repo! The Genetic Opera

So Sunday night was amazing. If anyone follows me on twitter you probably saw random squeeing and arguing with Heather over text messages (we realized that we text each other more when we are standing right next to each other than we do normally, this amuses me). Anyway, so we arrived at The Enzian and I got my ticket from the people I won it from and went to stand in line (side note to the people who don't know: I dressed up as Vagina Dentata for Halloween at Rocky and won a costume contest). We were probably standing in line for about an hour before we were allowed inside. I'd like to note that we saw both Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich while waiting in line. The theater is really really spiffy and the chairs we sat in were cool (I found some fantastic pictures of the outside and inside of it: outside 1 - outside 2 - inside 1 - inside 2).

We waited around a bit more, both Heather and I trying not to blatantly stare at Terrance Zdunich (who plays GraveRobber and who wrote both the play and the movie script), but we were not successful. I don't know about her, I felt like a total skeeze just intently watching this guy, but *swoon* he's awesome. So the movie starts and it was amazing. Holy crap did it rock. It was so funny in parts and my only complaint is that there wasn't enough gore and there needed to be more repossessions. After the movie there was a Q&A which Heather recorded part of and then they said they would be outside to sign autographs and just hang out.

So here I am with the two guys, and gah, I freaking <3 Saw II, so it was awesome meeting Darren Lynn Bousman, and of course GraveRobber is the sexiest character ever

thanks to heather for this pic


my stuff that was signed :D


and one thing that was particularly awesome. If you've seen/heard Zydrate Anatomy (definitely in my top 3 5 favorite songs in the movie) this will most likely be funny.

Crowd: (chanting) Zydrate! Zydrate! Zydrate!
Darren: Did you know Zydrate comes in a little glass vial?
Crowd: A little glass vial?
Terrance: *holds up blue glowstick* A little glass vial
Movie: *starts*

It was AMAZING.

Also - to the people who have never heard of Repo! The Genetic Opera, I don't blame you. They haven't had very much publicity, its all been word of mouth. I urge to you check out the website and the wiki page for more info! :D

Here is the trailer:

Its NaNo Time

Yesterday was November 1st and the official start of NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know what NaNo is see this explanation or I can just summarize it for you - during the month of November you write a 50,000 word novel. Last year I participated and won, and I'm hoping to do the same this year.

Of course, its a very difficult thing, more difficult than some people realize. One of the main obstacles in writing a 50,000 word novel is procrastination. NaNo participants have honed their skills to make procrastination an art form. And of course there are the plot problems. They can outline all they want but sometimes a character will do something unexpected an throw them off completely. I'm only about 2,000 words into mine and I am already searching for ways to make myself like my main character. I have a skill for making my main characters unlikable - I did the same thing last year and by the time I was done I didn't even want to deal with those people any more.

But the thing is, I could talk about nano all day and not even write a word because I'm that good at procrastinating. Right at this moment I am typing this post and have a movie loaded on netflix that waiting for me to watch. So now I've decided that I can watch 5 minutes of the movie every 500 words I write. Sure, that'll slow me down in my daily goal (in order to reach 50,000 words in 30 days you need to write at least 1,667 words a day), but it will motivate me to think quicker in order to watch my movie. The next time I do the 'movie reward system' I will say that every 1000 words I can watch 5 minutes, so hopefully by the end of the week I'll have made it quite far in my novel.

*fingers crossed* Good luck fellow NaNo'ers! You can find me here.

Voting!

I'm sure I don't even need to say it, but voting is important. Yesterday I was able to go down to my local polling place and cast my vote on who I think the next president should be as well as vote on other local issues. I feel very strongly towards one of them, and I think it might actually get passed. I won't go into too much detail, but here is a handy site all about Amendment 2. So many people are misinformed about this and it would be terrible if it is passed.

So anyway, I was very excited to vote. My normal voting place is actually in a church near the home, so by participating in early voting I was able to avoid feeling uncomfortable in the church. Instead I was able to go to the Belleview Town Hall (Belleview is a small town about 5 minutes from the house) to vote. Of course, I don't seem to be able to do anything without encountering some annoying person.

me: *waiting in line for a privacy booth to open up*
lady: soo, who are you voting for? *nudges me*
me: I'd rather not say
lady: no really, who are you voting for? *nudges again* Who are you voting for?
me: the good one *walks away as a booth opens up*

And to those who can't figure out who the good one is, here are some shirts I made the other day:



Doesn't answer your question yet? Well, how about a few pictures where my friend Heather and I wore the shirts?






Still no clue? How about a picture of my new favorite hobby?



I love to flip off McCain/Palin signs. It warms my heart.

OBAMA FOR THE WIN

A Year Older

Yesterday was my birthday. Well, it was my Birthday, with a capital B. It was one of the "important" ones. In my mind the important ones have always been - 13, 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, and so on. So yes, I'm 21 now and its time for me to go party and be crazy. But honestly, I can't be bothered.

I've already put my party days behind me, so I have no desire to go get smashed in public places and throw up on the street like most 21 year olds like to do on their birthday. I do like the idea that I have the freedom to order a tasty beverage when I go to a restaurant, but other than that it was just another birthday, with a lowercase B. It was a nice low-key type of day when I wasn't at work or in class.

There is only one thing I've really been excited for though. Bingo. I love bingo. It is exciting and fun - and now I'm finally old enough to go to the bingo halls here in Ocala. Hopefully next week I'll find a night I can go and I'll play bingo to my heart's content.