Remember, Remember

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason, and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

- trad.

So here it is November already and so much has happened in the measly two weeks since the last time I wrote. All right, two weeks is a long fracking time in this world of blog updates and other fun jazz, but here is a small sampling of the things I have done, will be doing, or am currently in the process of doing since October 24...

• Become involved with the funky production company EpicMegaPro to work on sending a fancy rock opera, created by iconic Swedish band Brainpool, on Swedish tour sometime in the next few years. I've been visiting with Swedish consuls, hanging out at Swedish mixers, and writing letters in Swedish, which is particularly engaging because I DON'T SPEAK SWEDISH. Thank you, Google Translator! They're probably all wondering, "Wow, this sure is an interesting idea, but why do all the letters sound like they were written by a five year old?" So far, no-one has pinged me as being little more than Eliza, and most Swedish people speak English anyway, or so they tell me. Our boss is going to Stockholm in January to have business meetings. As much as I would like to go to Sweden, STOCKHOLM...in January. Can I get a "Hell, no"? I'm sure the Northern Lights are very pretty, but I don't like freezing cold places with dark, gloomy daytimes.
• Received my Australian student visa ten hours after applying for it. You know, when I first saw the application process necessary for visa application, and the warning that it could take up to 3 months to get it after you applied, I started to panic. Proof of medical health? Four passport sized pictures? Proof of financial security? Gosh! Then I checked the online form, which didn't seem to have places to attach or append any of that information. Weird, I thought. Maybe they ask you to send it later. I filled out the online form, signed it digitally (basically typed my name under the place where it said "You better be you if you type your name here") and bit my fingernails. The NEXT DAY, at 7am my time, after I'd sent the application at 10:30pm, I received a blythe little notice that said, basically "Thank you for using our weed-out-the-truly-interested form! Because you applied online, we've ALREADY GIVEN YOU YOUR VISA. Here it is. It's good from right now. Yep, until March 2011. It's a party in Australia, and you're totally invited!" Okay, maybe I'm paraphrasing, but it took LESS THAN TEN HOURS to get a visa for an entirely different country, which says I am allowed to study and work there for a long time. Um...sweet!
• Bought my plane ticket to Perth, via two weeks in Thailand. You know, I've never been to Southeast Asia. I'm totally into Southeast Asia. And so when I received the go-ahead from the Rotary travel agency that they couldn't find a ticket to Perth for less than $1200, I leapt into action and quickly investigated the sales I had just seen on STA Travel. Sure enough, there was a ticket to Perth for $986, including tax. But...hmm. What if I went somewhere else first? Let's look at other places I could go...Hawaii? Ooh, almost $2000. Solomon Islands? Fascinating, but tiny airport, and therefore expensive. How about Bangkok? Turns out that a one-way ticket from LAX to Bangkok (via Seoul) and then from Bangkok to Perth (via Kuala Lumpur) costs only $200 more than a ticket that flies directly to Perth. So who's going to Southeast Asia? Me! Got any suggestions for places I should contract intestinal parasites? I hear everyone does it. So far, according to my research, it's not really a matter of whether you contract diarrhea and vomiting in Thailand so much as when you contract diarrhea and vomiting. My hope? Not on a long ferry trip to Laos.
• Started writing for NaNoWriMo. I've done this a few times before -- the most recent time, I started writing TWO NaNo Novels simultaneously, one a YA novel (which I cannot locate on my hard drive, but I'm sure it must be somewhere) and one an erotic novel (hey, why not?) and then dumped them both in disinterest and languour only a couple of days in. The first time I did it, I blazed through, wrote the whole thing, and then got me a literary agent using that there NaNo Novel. I mean, she may be an agent who hasn't returned my phone calls in over a year, but she's still a god damn agent. So this time I'm writing a murder mystery, set at Burning Man. Why not? One of my favorite reads is a book called Murder At The War, written by Mary Monica Pulver, and it's a murder mystery set at Pennsic. I seem to recall someone wrote a mystery set at Burning Man several years ago, but *I* haven't, and darnit, now's my chance. So far, I'm wrestling with making sure I'm not just stringing together thinly veiled anecdotal vignettes, and actually creating a cohesive, interesting and FICTIONAL story, despite my amusing myself by putting people I know into it all over the place. If you can't directly describe your friends and acquaintances in a NaNoNovel, where can you describe them?

So that's what I've been up to. How about you?