It's Almost That Time Again...

I had considered coming home this weekend, but I had too much going on here for that to be possible, so I will go back to Austin on Halloween weekend for the first time since moving to college. Usually, nothing particularly noteworthy occurs during the week, but I had another eventful weekend, starting on Friday night.

Christopher West, renowned Theology of the Body speaker, came to Texas A&M to deliver a presentation titled "The Longing." I was pleased that there was a large turnout and that both Trever and Seth came along. I was also happy to see my friend Ciera from my church at home. A group of Catholics from Texas State had come up that evening to attend the event, and I hadn't seen her for a couple months (which is hard to believe). I thought West's delivery was excellent, although most of it was what I'd heard in the videos I've been watching in my Theology of the Body study group, and I'm pretty sure he was preaching mostly to the choir, but maybe there were some people in the audience who hadn't heard the "revolution" yet.

I had to leave early because my friend Anna had invited me to see Where the Wild Things Are. I don't remember much from the children's book, which is apparently only about nine sentences long. It's strange yet kind of amazing how many movies are based off of books these days and how many are based on extremely simple children's books with hardly any plot to develop for two hours. My reaction to the film is mixed: Overall, I suppose I enjoyed it, but it was a very bizarre movie. It has some very touching moments, but the plot is kind of boring; I did crack up at some occasions simply because of the complete unexpectedness of certain scenes. As the movie became stranger and stranger, Anna turned to me at one point and said (jokingly), "Am I high? Stop putting drugs in my drinks." It could just be that Where the Wild Things Are was never a favorite of mine in childhood, but I preferred the film adaptations of Charlotte's Web and Horton Hears a Who much more.

When I returned to my room, I did my laundry then since I would not have time the next day. While I was waiting for my laundry, I wanted to try out a new piece of music I'd just printed-- lately, I've been really in love with Chopin's Nocturnes-- but I was very disappointed to be beaten to the piano in the All Faith's Chapel nearby by only seconds by a guy with a ponytail wearing a bathrobe. I waited for about half an hour (the length of a washing cycle) while he and a girl plunked out a pretty discordant duet they were working on, despairing how pathetic it was that I couldn't even find a free piano at midnight on a Friday night (when, I assume, most people are out getting drunk and hardly thinking of classical music).

Anyway, I got up earlier than usual on Saturday to go to Bryan in order to attend a writers conference that I had heard about from the municipal liaison of the Austin region for NaNoWriMo (more about NaNo below). There weren't many people there (it is Bryan, after all), but I did meet the very kind and noble Ms. Renée Giroux whose business, Stimulating-Conversation, sponsored the event. While she does not feel the call to write stories herself, she does feel it is her mission to help writers market themselves as effectively as they can in order to bring the stories they have to tell into the world. In an industry where there are many predators seeking to prey upon unsuspecting writers, I was heartened to meet someone who is using her talents to make her corner of the world just a little bit better. I also met a writer (Dawn Ireland) from Houston who gave a presentation about critique groups and was kind enough to actually give me a copy of her book The Puppy Baby Book. I also delivered a speech about National Novel Writing Month since it's right around the corner, and I was happy to find other people who were interested in the event. Overall, the writers conference allowed me to meet some other creative people and learn a few things, not to mention I got to bring home a free box of donuts.

After the writers conference, Anna picked me up and we went with our friend Carly from French Club to the new frozen yogurt place called Spoons. It was a sort of French Club outing, although Anna's original messages sent via Facebook arrived a day late, and there was a discrepancy between the times mentioned, so people kept showing up randomly. Still, it was really good frozen yogurt and a good time was had by all.

On Sunday afternoon, I went with Anna (again) to a really neat European-style café not too far away called Sweet Eugene's and spent most of the day there attempting to do homework until about 6:00. Carly was there, too, as well as Nicolas, a French exchange student from Paris I have met through St. Mary's. After Sweet Eugene's, Anna, Nicolas, and I went to the nearby Fazoli's for dinner, and I haven't been to a Fazoli's for a long time, so it was especially good.

All in all, not an extremely productive weekend, but I fortunately didn't have too much work to do. I am, however, trying to knock out two papers before they're even due in November so that I will have as much time as possible next month to work on National Novel Writing Month. I can't believe October is almost over and another year has come and gone since I last celebrated this annual frenzy of literary abandon. It's going to be difficult this year especially now that I'm in college and my schedule is so full all the time, but having "won" by achieving my goal of 50,000 words each year since 2006, I can't let my winning streak die. Fortunately, I've been planning my story for this November for a while, although I still don't feel entirely prepared; still, that's part of the challenge and excitement of NaNo, and now, there is less than a week until the madness recommences! I'll be in Austin to attend the midnight countdown on Halloween with my fellow Austinite wrimos (yay team Lushguins!), but for now, while the thunder is rumbling on the horizon, I'd better buckle down and tidy up what work I can do now before the real storm breaks.