I am now a college junior. Finished year two of college. In a few days I will be starting spring term. My concern is getting burnt out this year.

I’ve already been in a frazzled mess over finals from this past semester. I usually need my 3 month summer break to relax and recoup, but this year I have almost no down time for that at all.

I’ve had this week off, then I’m moving right back to school for spring term, where I am taking two full Writing classes and Logic (math credit, can you believe it?!) for the next six weeks. After that, I have a few days to prepare, then I’m on a plane to England and Europe for the next month and a half or so. Then I have two weeks to get over jet lag, and then get ready to jump into the fall semester with another fun, full load of classes!

Let’s hope I can keep up with it and maintain my sanity as well! Wish me luck!

So I haven’t been posting a lot, one reason being, I’ve been busy taking photos! I founded and currently run the GVSU Photography Club, so I’m always planning and participating in Photo Shoots for that, most recently being a night time photo shoot, and a walk though downtown Grand Rapids viewing Art Prize pieces on display throughout the city. The other event being a wedding I shot, as representative for the Photo Club. It was so much fun! I hope to do more weddings.

Click through the images below to see more on flickr!

Night

Art Prize

Wedding

(not available on flickr)

These are not all the photos lately. These are just the ones from the beginning of October. I’ve been so swamped with school and NaNoWriMo and other projects that I’ve been slow to get around to edit my photos. So expect fall photos round about when it starts snowing! Just kidding… I hope.

So Monday and Tuesday this week, I spent around 25 hours on set for the movie What’s Wrong with Virginia? I found a link online that said they were filming in my hometown, so I clicked on it and read about it, and it had a link at the bottom to go sign up to be an extra. So… I clicked it and signed up!

It ended up being two days of very little sleep and long days of waiting around on set just being fascinated by the film crew, and a little time where you’re actually doing something useful while filming. I was cast as a hot dog vendor with three other guys, so I spent most of my time inside a little glass box that blocked the cold, under 50ºF winds and got to warm my hands on the heat lamps for the french fries. The other extras played tourists on Virginia beach on a hot Labor Day afternoon. HAH! Some warm Labor Day. Everyone was shivering and got to wear coats in between sets.

There were, however a few celebrities on camera. Jennifer Connelly plays the crazy ex-wife of Ed Harris, who is a sheriff running for State Senate. Toby Jones has a part. He plays Dobby the House Elf’s voice in the Harry Potter movies. There was one guy who was cast from Michigan playing Dale, the friend of the sheriff’s son, Emmett who was played by a guy cast from Australia. Dale has a cool death scene that was right outside my hot dog stand, so I got to witness that being filmed about two dozen times from inside there.

I’m so glad that Michigan passed the film incentives and is bringing the film industry into Michigan. It’s a beautiful state that can use the economic boost of Hollywood films. And a big thanks to TicTock Studios as well for being one of the first film studios to cater to Michigan. I hope to see lots more film productions coming to Michigan. I greatly enjoyed my teensy acting experience, and would like to be an extra again in the future.

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.” ~What Is NaNoWriMo?

So, I love NaNoWriMo. This is my 5th year participating in the madness. I began my sophomore year of high school when a friend told me about it over the summer. I idly blew it off. But then when she started getting excited for October to start when the NaNo forums open, I decided to check it out and I was hooked. I stayed up late that night, refreshing the NaNoWriMo home page on October 1st, 2005, the first available day for new sign-ups to start that year. And every October and November since have been filled with novel writing goodness.

The first two years I completed NaNo with two sci-fi novels in a series. The third year, I tried to continue the series, but I think they ran out of steam, and I was also swamped by my senior year of high school and college applications, etc. Similar story with my freshman year of college. I was simply too busy with the new load of homework and social life I was unused to. But this year I have more free time, a lighter class load, and my own apartment to escape and write in. I’m determined to finish this year with a new slightly sci-fi/adventure novel. Catch my synopsis under Novel Info on my NaNo Profile.

This year I started my free trial of Scrivener for Macs (which is recommended for large research papers and writing projects, even if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo). And there’s a special offer in the forums that gives you 50% off the purchase price if you win and would like to buy it after NaNo! Definitely a great motivator for me this year, because I love this program already and I’ve had it a week. Also, there is an offer from CreateSpace to give you one free printed proof of your book if you reach 50k. That’s right, you can hold a copy of your book, for FREE! I’m definitely doing that as well. (Keep in mind, these offers are only for registered NaNo users who reach 50k and validate it on the website.)

This year I donated $25 to The Office of Letters and Light that runs NaNoWriMo! $5 for every year I have participated. And if you’re a NaNo Participant on Twitter, be sure to add this Twibbon to your avatar! Made by me!!

So the past week or so has just been miserable and drizzly. And it looks like this theme will continue the next week or so as well. This is not the sort of rain I like. Especially with the colder fall temperatures. Being wet and cold, with sharp wind blowing at your face is not fun.

The kind of rain I do find fun are summer storms. I love it when the wind is warm, and you’re surrounded by the exciting noise and energy of lightning. But when it’s cold, wet, windy rain, it’s just not as cool.