Hello world!

I know that it's been a while since I've created a new journal update since things have been tough, but there have also been fun things in my life. I recently flew across North America to visited my mate in Toronto and we had a lot of fun seeing the sights. We visited Casa Loma and did an escape room called "King of the Bootleggers" and we went up the CN Tower and had a spectacular view of Toronto.

I'm currently back in Seattle and I have good news. My story entitled, "Serenity in Blue" will be in Fang 8 with the theme of paradise. I'm so excited since this will be my first published story, and I'm very honored to be a part of such an amazing line of anthologies. Fang 8 is out at Antrhocon but you can also get it here

I hope you are all doing well and I hope you all enjoy the stories in the anthology!

-Al

Woo! It's my birthday today and I'm now 25. It seems like time is going by so quickly and I'm pretty sure it's not going to slow down anytime soon.

I hope you all are doing well too!

Hello, world!

I know that it's been a while since I've created a journal entry, and for the most part I haven't had much of a presence on social media, but then again I never had much of a presence on any social media site, even when I was more active on the sites.

So, a few weeks ago my boyfriend moved abroad to study and it's been rough for everyone involved, but my amazing friends have been taking care of me and they've all been really kind, and for all that they've done I thank them dearly. I'm really glad that I have the internet and that phones exist so I can talk to him. These past few weeks have been tough and it's going to remain difficult for a very extended amount of time.

To distract myself from all of this I might get back into writing and I started drawing a few months ago so maybe I'll be posting more. Great friends and creativity definitely do wonders when it comes to easing the distress in me. The opposite may happen too where I might not get very much writing or art done due to the stress and pain of a full-time job, which I've been working one for more than a year now and I still don't understand how people can live comfortable lives and work full-time. I've pretty much taken these past few weeks off from life to try to chill out and deal with this shift in my life. I hope that these next couple years I'll be able to hone my craft(s) and "get good" as the wise people say.

I hope you all have a wonderful morning/afternoon/evening!

Thank you for listening to me.

This past Saturday I graduated from the University of Washington and I'm not a bachelor of arts in Germanics and comparative literature. I'm so thankful for all the people who have helped me with this achievement and I want to thank all my friends who have been there for me. It's been a long and tough road but now I get to relax until I start working. It's been fun being a librarian and it's been fun having class with wonderful people and having amazing professors who have instructed me well. I have an even broader sense of the world and I've gain so much knowledge from the UW.

Graduation day was hectic and tiresome, but I felt proud walking up and getting my diploma (it was actually just the cover slip with a nice note in it) and being in front of so many people who were cheering. It felt so good and a little sad to have my undergrad career come to an end.

I also want to thank all my readers for all the support and I want to thank FA and SF for letting me have a place to put my writing and I want to thank everyone for the critiques and all the kind comments since they help me so much.

Now that I'm in so much school debt and I feel exhausted from everything I'm going on vacation and hopefully the sun will shine and I can rest a little. Hopefully everything turns out okay for me and my future and I think I need to figure out graduate school and how to get there. I might get my MLS or I might get my MA in Germanics.

Oh, yeah! Joke time!

Q: What does a computer and a graduate have in common?

A: One has a mortarboard and the other has a motherboard.

It's been a pretty relaxing yet eventful winter break. It's nice having free time so I can spend it with friends and family. The school year has felt even busier last quarter for some reason. I've also moved into Seattle last summer so I'm closer to school and work. I hope everyone has had a happy new year and a happy holiday season or December if you don't celebrate a holiday at this time of year. I don't want to exclude anyone.

I also turned 23 last Sunday and my birthday was fun. My boyfriend cooked a lovely three course meal for me. I've had such a lovely time with the people in my life and I want to thank them all. I want to thank anyone who has taken the time to read all of this.

Joke time. Let's see...

Why did the person return their shirt to the barista?
They wanted a coffee shirt instead of a tea-shirt.

ECCC was so much fun this year. I met up with a friend that I haven’t seen in a while and we did a good amount of shopping at the various vendor tables. I also saw an author on a writing panel who I met at Steam Con last October and she signed a couple books for me. I also talked to Kyell Gold and he signed some of his books for me too and I got a Poloroid picture with him. I also played the room party game with a few others from the Sofa Wolf table.

It is also a new quarter and I’m taking a film class on contemporary cinema, a literature class on colonization and post colonization of various countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, and a German class. It’s going to be a fun quarter and hopefully it won’t be too stressful.

I’m also getting edits from friends on a long story that I wrote so hopefully I can post that soon. I wish everyone the best!

Joke time:

Q: What did the digital watch say to the slow analog watch?

A: Maybe some “spring” cleaning might help.

I've been on spring break from college this past week and it's been pretty relaxing but classes start back up next Monday. I've also been working on some writing and getting various other things done. I'm also going to Emerald City Comic Con tomorrow! I'm so excited for that and I'm going to be seeing the brilliant and amazing Kyell Gold. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I hope I see some furs at ECCC.

Joke time!

Q: What did the kangaroo ask the other kangaroo at the sporting event?

A(in the form of a question): Who are you 'roo'ting for?

So, this quarter has been quite tough and I haven’t had a lot of free time. Between reading novels in German for my German culture class and nonfiction books from the renaissance period I’ve been pretty busy. I also need to add regular homework from those classes and then there’s also my German language class on top of everything. I’ve also got my part-time job and my commute. My classes and my job are extremely awesome but they take up a lot of time.

When I do have spare time I try to write and I’m still working on my latest piece. It’s turning out to be longer than I expected. It’ll be done eventually, hopefully before the end of the quarter.
Okay, joke time!

Q: Why did the tennis manufacturer’s factory get complaints from the residents living near it?

A: They were making a racket!

So, I had another amazing long weekend. I hope everyone else had a great one. Spending time with friends and family was great and I feel so happy that I'm surrounded by awesome people.

So it's kind of my finals week this week since my last papers are due this week and my only test is this Friday. My papers include, a long essay for my German literature class and I have to make one of my stories that I wrote for my creative writing class longer. The real finals week is next week for most students at the UW. I'm getting all stressed again but I can handle it since I've had tougher finals weeks before.

Joke:

Why was the store owner unsure of what to price the rubber bands at?

A: Because of elasticity.

It’s been a very, very, very stressful week but it’s finally over! I had tests, papers, presentations, homework, and my horrid commute to deal with but now it’s time for me to relax a little. (I also had my job (the one at the university, not the other one, which I’m not working at right now) and activity clubs to do stuff with but I love these things so those aren’t a big deal. The problem is that time isn’t being a good friend to me.) Yay! I wrote a parenthesis in a parenthesis!

I’m still working on my new story, which I’ve spent a good amount of today writing but I think it’s still a little far from being finished. I’m taking a creative writing class right now so writing for that class and doing homework and studying takes precedent over the writing I do for fun. Wasting tuition money is a terrible idea but I don’t think I need to tell anyone that.

Let’s lighten the mood with a joke!

Q: Why did the physicist like to skydive? (Disregard wind resistance.)

A: Because he liked falling at 9.8”fun” meters per second squared.

Hey, Everyone! Steamcon was a blast (of steam, haha)! The theme was "Around the World." I mostly went to panels about writing and I met some pretty awesome authors. I also attended panels about absinthe, fencing, and steampunk musicians. People complimented me on my outfit, which was a steampunked version of my lederhosen. A couple people wanted to take pictures of me in that outfit and it definitely made my ego feel like it was being hugged very tightly.

Joke: What do you call a zeppelin with antlers?

Answer: A deer-igible

Just a quick journal entry that I'll be at Steamcon this weekend. I hope I make new friends there and I hope I see someone I know there. Another convention where I'm alone... but I'll have fun anyway.

Punny Joke: I heard Steamcon will be "riveting" this year.

I've finally finished Con Colore and I know it's been a while since I've posted a story. I'm sorry.

I'm working on another story right now and it's probably going to take me a while. I've still got homework, work and life to deal with.

I'm also going to be at Steamcon during the weekend after this upcoming one. I hope I see someone I know there. If that doesn't happen then hopefully I can make some friends.

I hope you like the story and I hope everyone is doing well.

Joke:

I was playing my flute with my marching band uniform on and someone asked me what type of harp that was on a poster nearby.

Someone said it was a Celtic harp.

I said, "I'm looking at three lyres."

This past week has been hectic and a bit stressful. I’ve had a good amount of homework to deal with and I still have a lot of it to finish. I’ve spent a lot of time at work and my terrible commute to school isn’t helping me at all. I’m sorry for ranting but it’s been pretty tiring.

The weekend is finally here but I’m still thinking about this upcoming week and all that I have to do for school. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately so hopefully this weekend will allow me some time to rest.

I also had a great time at RF and I had so much fun with old friends and some new ones I made at the con. The convention has made me feel more confident as a writer as I spoke with prolific and famous furry writers. I also dominated at “Questions Only” during “Whose Lion Is It Anyway?” There was so much excitement and joy packed into just a few days.

Ich soll etwas auf Deutsch schreiben denn Germanistik ist mein Hauptfach. Ich hoffe dass jemand mich helfen mit meinem deutsch kann. Ich will die Grammatik und die Vokabeln nicht vergessen. Jetzt lese ich „Die Geschichte von Kalif Storch“ für mein Deutschkurs. Die Geschichte handelt von Tierverwandlung und das ist immer ausgezeichnet!

Oh yeah! Almost forgot a joke!

Q: What does the second derivative test and digging a hole at a furry convention have in common?

A: Con-cavity!

As the season changes there will be many changes in my life. There's a new school year, a new job, and new classmates and friends. In the season of major changes I hope I can keep some old things in my life such as my friends and my knowledge of advanced German grammar.

Well, it's been a while and I haven't actually posted another story but I'm almost done with one that I'm still working on.

I'm also going to be at RF and I'm going to have a story published in the anthology, which is really exciting! Hopefully I'll meet new people, see old friends, and make new ones there.

Joke: What was the chemist's favorite smoothie ingredient?

A: Berry-um!

Note: Don't ingest barium carbonate or barium fluoride since they're both poisonous. I used the past tense because the chemist probably had a terrible fate.

It's summer break and now I can focus on writing and reading. I've put up my first story Zoned Out today and I'll finish some more stories during the rest summer. I wish I could just stay home and lounge around but I have to work this summer so I might not be able to churn out stories very quickly but I'll get some more out eventually. Hopefully things go smoothly without mountains of school work in the way. I still love college even though it can be stressful at times.

Music joke:
What did the songwriter and the lyricist have in common?

Consonance and consonants.

Oh puns where would I be without you?

So, yeah. I've been gone for a while due to school school work and never ending assignments and all of that good stuff. Finals are coming soon and it's crunch time. So math joke.

What did the mathematician say to the surrealist about his artwork?

A: This "art" is derivative!

What did the surrealist say back?

A: This is anti-derivative! (Then he wrote a big "S" on it).

As fall quarter of school wraps up, finals are once again here. I'm not looking forward to my German final, which unfortunately is on a Saturday. So ist das Leben. I have a week to memorize half a textbook of vocabulary words and go over all the grammar we've learned so far. My film final is at 8:30 AM and usually my class starts at 12:30 PM. I have a week and a half to review film terms and reread things for the test. I know that this is pretty much nothing compared to what other students are going through. I only have two final tests this quarter, which isn't so bad. I'm also glad that I've finished all of my final essays. After dead week and finals week I can actually dedicate a good amount of my time to writing stories and editing the ones I've already written.

Oh yeah, cheesy math joke.

What did the protester say after he left jail?

What was i before? A radical expression of a negative one.

I know, that was a really bad joke.

I love math and it seems as if mathematics is something a ton of people hate. I have a good amount of friends that despise math. I've kind of always been a math nerd (okay, I've always been a nerd, period). I've memorized 110 digits of pi for fun. In my opinion math is a beautiful form of art. Math is in everything and it's a tool that can be used to do so many things in life. I like to use math in order to learn foreign languages. I make formulas in order to memorize grammar. To me, math is neither useless nor is it evil, it's a great thing that will help us. Math isn't just about being in class and solving textbook problems, it's about its application in the world and beyond it. So let's get on to some math jokes.

What is a mathematician's favorite geographical landform?

Answer: A Cartesian plain. (Like a Cartesian plane)

Where do exclamation points get manufactured?

Answer: Factory AL. (Like factorial, and look! There's my name)

How is a turtle most likely to find out the volume of a solid of revolution?

Answer: The shell method. (Captain Obvious says, "Turtles have shells." But you need to know calculus in order to use the shell method, which is probably not obvious)

I know, these are puns and you don't need to do math to solve them but I hope they were a fun distraction in your life. I really shouldn't get distracted from writing my stories but I felt like I should actually write something on FA.

Plus if math didn't exist then I wouldn't be able to make cheesy jokes. ~A⊃~B. I definitely don't want tilde B.