Where WAS I?

Hello, blogreaders, loyal followers, my minions. For once I am sitting with my computer with some time on my hands and no school I should be doing with it. Yeah, that's right. The end of the semester is finally here. My review sheet for my only remaining final is all filled out, and I feel pretty good.

I've hardly blogged at all, and I have indeed missed it. I've been spending a lot of time over on tumblr, and while I occasionally make posts about my personal life, I just don't feel as much freedom to do it there. People on tumblr care more about funny posts and pretty pictures, and I like those things too. There are just certain places for certain things in people's lives, I guess. Just like I'll rarely make a blog post for a 3 sentence thought, I won't ramble on in detail about my life hardly anywhere but here.

I haven't had a lot to write about. I only got 25k on NaNoWriMo this year but I'm okay with that because I was working a job as well as 12 credit hours of college classes. And at least I wrote something, even if it ended up being a mishmash of journaling and freewriting.

I've gotten more into Owl City again. I mean, it's not like my like of it ever left, but I never bothered to get into Adam Young as a person or a musician, I just listened to the music a lot. Now I listen to the music a lot AND keep up with the fans on tumblr, participate in the twitter Q&A's, want to draw pictures based off of like every song and well... daydream a lot. Why can't I know Adam personally? I think we would get along swimmingly.

...I'm okay.

What else? I've been making a lot of art. A lot of my doodles end up on instagram, if you care to follow at mangapasta. I'm probably also going to make a megapost of what I've been working on in my sketchbook. I could make individual posts. Then it would look like I've been blogging more. But maybe that's not fair...

It's been cold for the past week or so here in Austin. Almost nobody spends time outside and it's hilarious to see people all bundled up. I like the cold and don't get cold as easily as my roommates, so it's giving me hope that when/if I move more north, I will survive.

Have I mentioned this? The current plan is to move to Portland Oregon for at least a year, probably in 2015. I hope to eventually do housesitting jobs so I can live all over the nation, and pare my possessions down so that they all fit in say, a Honda Fit or something. Swap out a futon or a bedroll sort of thing for my comfy mattress, own just a few dishes, and of course I'd keep my art stuff. I already don't have a lot of stuff I don't use, but I bet I could cut down on it more. I could probably contribute all but my favorite manga volumes to a library, for example.

I wonder how much cutting down I'd need to do on clothing. I'd need enough to account for multiple types of weather, and stuff that was simple enough that people wouldn't care how many times I wore it. Maybe it would mean getting rid of some T-shirts. I do have a lot of those. I have just the right amount of pants already (4 skinny jeans, 1 pair of corduroys, and 1 pair of thin pants for layering etc.) I have a good amount of shorts too. I could use more skirts, though. This girl can always use more skirts. Preferably just over knee length, twirly, and patterned with designs and colors that I like. Probably only need one, two dresses, tops. Short (above the knee) dresses pretty much count as shirts though. I PROBABLY don't need so many sweatshirts and jackets. Then again if I move up north long sleeves will be more commonly found on my arms.

I just feel like I have too much stuff all the time. I always want to get rid of some of it, but then I use most of it. I just have this stubborn minimalism streak in me that conflicts a lot with the artist in me that has a zillion hobbies, but I want to satisfy them both?????

STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR DREAMS, CLAIRE, you yell at me, WE WANT GOSSIP. WHAT ABOUT YOUR APARTMENT LIFE????
Mainly my struggles with apartment life involve dishes. I've become almost as guilty at the others at this, but dishes get left in the sink even when the dishwasher is empty and ready to receive. And me and Emma are usually the ones to clean it when it gets to the point of topple-potential. Or inability to use the sink. I seriously want to try putting most of the dishes in storage and having specific dishes for each person, so that we have to wash our own when we want to use them. To see if it works, you know?
When it comes to general mess it's mostly not mine, so that can be frustrating. But in my room most of the mess is mine and not emma's, because I throw my laundry on the floor.

I'm really happy that after Thursday I won't have to get up at six fifteen in the dang morning. I am nOT a morning person, and my 9 AM class this semester has only had the pleasure of my wakefulness because I am a good student and try really, really hard. Yet still today I literally fell asleep sitting with my chin resting on my hand. It was probably only a minute or so, but it was definitely at least the second if not third time I drifted off despite every effort not to.
Today, I skimmed a book about sleep and definitely show signs of being sleep deprived, but I knew that anyway.

I start feeling tired around 1 AM usually, so I'd like to be able to sleep until at LEAST 9 if not 11.
Next semester I have a 9 AM class again, but at least Emma's in that class too and she will already be driving. If I don't have to take the bus, it won't take nearly as long to get there.

TWIG had some massive error and we're having to start the site sort of over from scratch. Fun times. We all lost a lot of work. If you're a young writer looking for a forum community, try twigwriters.com. We could definitely use new members and content right about now. 

UMMMMM there's probably much more to update y'all on but you're probably remembering by now that I'm not good at sticking to a theme when blogging. "why did I ever miss her blog posts," you're thinking. "Plus now that gifs work on blogger, we'll never see the end of them."
(I'll try to do better. But the gifs may not stop)