"I'm so wonely, so wonely..." Weekend
This weekend saw Paul’s departure to Chile for a full month. Seeing as he’s literally on the other side of the world, and has only limited communication access, I’m doing my best to keep myself preoccupied. Weekdays aren’t so bad seeing as I have something on every evening, but going it solo on weekends takes some getting used to. Mostly I’ve been taking time out for a little “me” time. Well, that’s the plan anyway.
After dropping Paul off at the airport, I was roped into helping my uncle and aunt with some preliminary moving stuff. I did very little of the packing and lifting – instead I was mostly monitoring my baby cousin, who has this amazing knack for finding the most dangerous items in the midst of the chaos to play with.
For the record, driving around on Saturday, there were people everywhere wearing the green and gold Springbok colours, and several cars, including ours, were trailing large SA flags. This said, I actually didn’t watch the Rugby World Cup Final properly. My nerves and superstition got the better of me – you see every time I watch an important game, things go horribly wrong for the team I’m supporting. So on Saturday evening, I sat playing World of WarCraft, darting off to the lounge every 5 minutes or so to check the match score. Eventually I sat watching the last 15 minutes, and prize-giving – relieved about the victory but a tad sulky that no tries meant my predicted score in the office pool was way off.
Anyway, speaking of World of WarCraft, Brew Fest has passed, and now it’s Hallow’s End. There are pumpkins and decorations in all the main centres, as well as in some of the smaller towns. Innkeepers trick or treat you, giving you pumpkin heads, dwarf masks, and turning you into anything from gnome lepers to black cats. There are also various holiday missions to complete – like collecting candy for sick orphans, and putting our fires started by the flying Headless Horseman.
I haven’t posted any recent pics of my main character in a while, so here’s my hunter Bestilla with Paul’s warrior– please note the rugby scrum cap to coincide with the World Cup.
On Sunday I spent most of the day outside in the sun trying to regain my Greek tan, seeing as since I’ve been back, all it’s done in Durban is rain. In the process, I finished the first story of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet, A Wizard of Earthsea. People close to me will know that I’m generally very disdainful of traditional high fantasy as a literary genre – seeing as it tends to be dominated by bad, superficial writing and endless clichés as far as I can see it.
However, I have been making the effort to read some of the acknowledged classics (many of them classified as Youth reads), like the Earthsea books. And I’m pleased to report that out of 20th Century fantasy pioneers I've read: Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin, Le Guin is the most skilled of the writers – her stories are essentially powerful parables and she writes in a style that is appropriately simple, but strangely “otherworldly”, as if told by one of the Earthsea storytellers themselves.
Anyway, National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November and I’ve been contemplating joining in the project this year… perhaps with a fantasy story of my own that I’ve been brewing over for some months.
I rounded off the weekend by watching the horribly mediocre You, Me & Dupree, finishing off my Stardust review and starting to put all my Greek papery bits and pieces together in a holiday file.
After dropping Paul off at the airport, I was roped into helping my uncle and aunt with some preliminary moving stuff. I did very little of the packing and lifting – instead I was mostly monitoring my baby cousin, who has this amazing knack for finding the most dangerous items in the midst of the chaos to play with.
For the record, driving around on Saturday, there were people everywhere wearing the green and gold Springbok colours, and several cars, including ours, were trailing large SA flags. This said, I actually didn’t watch the Rugby World Cup Final properly. My nerves and superstition got the better of me – you see every time I watch an important game, things go horribly wrong for the team I’m supporting. So on Saturday evening, I sat playing World of WarCraft, darting off to the lounge every 5 minutes or so to check the match score. Eventually I sat watching the last 15 minutes, and prize-giving – relieved about the victory but a tad sulky that no tries meant my predicted score in the office pool was way off.
Anyway, speaking of World of WarCraft, Brew Fest has passed, and now it’s Hallow’s End. There are pumpkins and decorations in all the main centres, as well as in some of the smaller towns. Innkeepers trick or treat you, giving you pumpkin heads, dwarf masks, and turning you into anything from gnome lepers to black cats. There are also various holiday missions to complete – like collecting candy for sick orphans, and putting our fires started by the flying Headless Horseman.
I haven’t posted any recent pics of my main character in a while, so here’s my hunter Bestilla with Paul’s warrior– please note the rugby scrum cap to coincide with the World Cup.
On Sunday I spent most of the day outside in the sun trying to regain my Greek tan, seeing as since I’ve been back, all it’s done in Durban is rain. In the process, I finished the first story of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet, A Wizard of Earthsea. People close to me will know that I’m generally very disdainful of traditional high fantasy as a literary genre – seeing as it tends to be dominated by bad, superficial writing and endless clichés as far as I can see it.
However, I have been making the effort to read some of the acknowledged classics (many of them classified as Youth reads), like the Earthsea books. And I’m pleased to report that out of 20th Century fantasy pioneers I've read: Tolkien, Lewis and Le Guin, Le Guin is the most skilled of the writers – her stories are essentially powerful parables and she writes in a style that is appropriately simple, but strangely “otherworldly”, as if told by one of the Earthsea storytellers themselves.
Anyway, National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November and I’ve been contemplating joining in the project this year… perhaps with a fantasy story of my own that I’ve been brewing over for some months.
I rounded off the weekend by watching the horribly mediocre You, Me & Dupree, finishing off my Stardust review and starting to put all my Greek papery bits and pieces together in a holiday file.
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