Devin's paintings

A great end to a great month!

We won!

Merlin
10,156 words in 30 days
****

Devin
80,743 words in 30 days
****

Wendy
103,557 words in 30 days
****

We got up early and wrote, we raced home from Chinese class and wrote, and we wrote instead of watching movies. Merlin let Devin write when her word count was behind and Devin let me use the computer when mine was. I went easy on all the other homework and we can now say we've written novels.

Tia asked if they'd be available any time soon and honestly, you wouldn't want to read them at this point. They're incredibly rough and probably too wordy (we were aiming for quantity here) and though Merlin won two times over (she finished her word count goal AND finished her story), Devin and I didn't actually finish the stories. We're going to work on that part-time this month and hope to finish filling in the general plots and then we'll do some major editing. Besides, I still need a title. Neither of us knows if we'll do anything with them (Merlin's already recognized that her story too closely resembles fan fiction to be able to do anything with it besides cherish it as her first NaNoWriMo Novel. Her novel's style is based on a book she really likes, though the characters are all her own).

Now, we can't imagine November without all the fun and despair. Dan was lucky he missed half the month (his trip to North America), that way he only had to put up with the insanity for two and a half weeks.

All in all, it was a success.

Big update

We're writing like mad over here, simply like mad. And it's only a slight exaggeration to say that we're subsisting over the weekend on pastries (ok, I give in, I'll cook dinner!). I haven't been this willing to get up early (4:30) in the morning in ages, Devin begs me to get her up at 5:15, and Merlin writes when she gets up at 6:30.

The stats so far:

Merlin:6,599 words as of this afternoon, or 94% of her word goal which may be revised soon to reflect her true capability. Her synopsis:

The Miraculous Journey Beyond, a Summary: A girl named Feena dreams of living a life in the wild but she is kept in the castle as a princess. One night, she runs away from her province and ends up with a wolf pack. As she journeys toward the Firelands she must defeat Minya, the evil king of the Firelands. But will she and the pack members defeat him and his warriors?

Devin: 22,221 words as of this afternoon. She's at 55.5% of her new goal of 40,000. She intends to actually write 60,000 I think. Her synopsis:

Season of the Dragons, a Summary:

Freyja an orphan girl of age fifteen is trying to protect the pendant that her mother had given her only a year before her family was destroyed by the Dragons of Koraith, but some how her necklace is stolen and she sets off on a long journey to get back her only memory and link to her mother. Some how Freyja was gifted with the power of Dream Sighting and the band she is traveling with soon realizes that and agrees to head off to Koraith the land of the South. But before she is allowed to plan out her revenge she has to receive the Six Elemental Elixers from a few special beings of directions. And there is more trouble than Freyja can ever imagine. Will she get back her pendant or will someone else keep her essence imprisoned?

Wendy: 29,373 words as of this afternoon. This is 58% of the the 50K goal everyone strives for, but I'm actually working for somewhere between 60-90,000, which means I'm 48.9 to 32% of the way there. My synopsis:

Untitled at This Point, a Summary:
Survivor of a ritual sacrifice which has left her mute, a young captive in the walled city of Tavall discovers her connection to a deep source of power that promises an end to a decades-long drought, but which shakes the foundation of the only home she has ever known.

Meanwhile, Dan is heading for Nashville, Tennessee for a work conference and a pair of cowboy boots. When he returns we'll be able to post some of the photos he took during his students' field trip to Qinghai. Should be good, as usual! :-)

Last minute preparations

NaNo checklist:

1. A supply of snacks stocked. Check.
2. Rewards for reaching word count goals purchased and stashed. Check.
3. Calendars with word count time lines mapped out. Check.
4. Character outlines, world/culture building notes, plot structure, languages, religious practices, maps worked out and ready to use. Check. (well, Devin and Merlin each get a check, anyway).
5. Good writing music transferred to the mp3 player. Check.
6. Computer repaired (the giant dust bunny was evicted). Check.
7. (Pre-)NaNo cold caught and out of the way so we don't have to deal with it in November. Check.
8. External hard-drive ready for backups. Check.
9. Time zones correctly set on the NaNo site so we can write according to our local time rather than always keeping an eye on Oakland time. Check.
10. Stories summarized for easy explanation. Check.
11. A teaser to get you to come back and check for our next NaNo related post. Check.

And no, we're not staying up until midnight just to get a head start. We'll be at it bright and early tomorrow morning, though. The housework will have to wait.

Last of the Summer T-shirts

Seen on T-shirts, before the weather turned cooler and everyone put on jackets:

Stupid

I'd trade my boyfriend for a Miller

A Bathing Ape

flip flop like a tot

c'est un idiot

Anti-riot and Explore the Truth

passion... keep a long time music

Pull a Stranger as Leg

Beauty 'tis melody

shave your style

twisty table jeans

it lives my own way

Back Sky Clear

Ere Sports

Fashion Liberty Spout

Don't Lose Double Dazzle

Hang Thinking

Smart Young Fashion

Cheerful Trio: Uno Dos Tres: Fly me to the Heaven

A88 Spirit A Devaitation

Juicy American Princess

You've Been Very Naughty, Go Straight to My Room

No Crying

Central Wonderland

Inspire Truth

person with a cool head

Surfer Dreams is Wet

Salt Urea

Enjoy my Game

Bug is Over

We Will Find Something

Sexy Diamond Taipei Up the Stakes

Feed the Smiling Cat

Fashion and Yishion

Sorry if I look Interested I'm Not

Re Lax Get Juicy

Rear Your Fair

Don't Touch Head

Fly Eagle

Kingston Pretty

Spark Yite Girl

Stone Hot Pot

Ollywood, I'm Gonna Hollywood

High Speed Money

Drink. Barn Life.

Feel 101 to be

I am cat person

Mare who?

Movie ready then silver

Groove Food

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posted by all of us

Yay! A violin!

Yay! I just got my new violin (and hi Tanya - my violin teacher in Davis). I've been really hoping to get a violin for I don't know how long. My dad had been so busy (and my mom didn't know where to get one), but we finally did it!

So when we bought a violin in China it wasn't like we just went to one ginormous music store, we actually went to many tiny stores about the size of half of Davis' Baskin Robbins. We went to a bunch of stores and they were jam-packed with instruments. Down at the bottom is a gourd flute (something they have in China) and up at the top is something that might be a Chinese zither.

Right here I'm learning how to put in fine tuners and how to restring the A string. This is the shop owner he actually gives lessons and taught me a few things for free!

My mom and sister are watching also, there's my mom, with my bow.

While I was watching the shop owner put in fine-tuners, my sister was with the shop owner's friend learning how to play an erhu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.
Here he is playing it for Merlin and talking at the same time or looking somewhere else.
We are just about ready to leave, only waiting for the extra strings and a few touches of the new violin that only cost half as much as it would've in America.
*********
By Devin

Autumn

Finally! Autumn at last! These last few days we've been waiting for autumn and it hasn't been here because autumn starts early um I mean we haven't see the actual happenings of autumn until today, so what I mean is that it doesn't give the trees a chance to start mmmm... lets say becoming pretty? No not that, yes that's it! Leaves falling to the ground and begging to be picked up because they're soo colourful. I think I got it right! It seems like it's only the spiky leafed trees, the yellow err... golden colored ones with a hint of red and orange.

It's a nice day actually. The sky matches the leaves, a nice baby blue with golden leaves against it I like it! Oh yeah just to add a nice touch a grey bluish building (just the tip anyways) in the back left corner, I think it's our apartment from the outside.

Merlin holding a nice leaf infront of the the new camera, a nice touch with the background, some dappled cement (the sunlight that shone through the bush in the back).
Just got home, thought it be nice to take this picture of a messy but... stylish or um... fake version of a you know one of those cheesy pictures that goes on the front of a journal.
Merlin just insists that we walk through the leaves on the corner sidewalks once more, but I mean who can blame her, it's her first experience of Autumn in Beijing, so my mom and I had to agree after a minute of hesitation. Oh! I just wanted to include my final sentence, that this day was a very windy one, as you can see Merlins hair blowing across her face.

*******
by Devin

The Kingdom of Really Good Popsicles

I do believe we've found the popsicle holy-land, here in China. We never knew what was possible, being from the land of something as weird as Otter Pops. Having given up on popsicles in the U.S., other than the ones we made ourselves (coconut/pineapple juice with banana - yum!), we've been converted!

Here's what we've found so far:

Hawthorn - tart and sweet
Cantaloupe/Honeydew (two flavors, two colors, swirled)
Sweet Red Bean (Dan's favorite)
Sweet Mung Bean (surrounded by vanilla ice)
Yogurt (tangy sweet)
Green Apple 'Jello' - as it melts it's actually jello-y
Yogurt with dried pineapple and raisins
Pineapple with icy crunches in the middle
Orange - with orange flavored ice on the outside and 50/50 style orange & cream on the inside
Orange and honey with chunks of orange-y ice and orange zest throughout
Purple taro root - admittedly, not that tasty
Strawberry
Coffee ice cream
Coconut
Bubblegum flavor
Iced Honey Peach
Kiwi
Milk - kind of like sweet milk (ice milk maybe)
Cake (like a white cake)

The smart things: the icy coating on some keeps the softer 'ice-cream' in the middle from melting too quickly and contains it when it does start to melt; the icy chunks in the middle are tasty and fun to crunch without being too hard.

posted by all of us.

Tiananmen visit

Tian An Men Square

天安门广场

On July 7^th, 2008 at 9:30 A.M. my family, a friend, and I went to Tian An Men Square, the largest public square in the world. It is 440,000 m² and can hold 1 million people.

The layout of this square is very simple, the South side of the square has Mao Zedong’s Memorial Hall ( it holds the embalmed body of Chairman Mao, it was completed in 1977), on the North end of Tian An Men Square is the Forbidden City it was a large fortress once, but now it is a big tourist attraction. It was completed in 1417 during the Ming Dynasty. The West end of the square holds the Great Hall of People or the Peoples Congress (it was completed in 1959), on the East side is the History Museum it opened in 1961 ( right now it is under rennovation). South of the Memorial Hall is the First Gate that used to be the entrance for a no longer existing wall that surrounded the city. It was built from 1402-24, and in the center of the Tian An Men Square is the Memorial for Soldiers ( built either in 1954 or 1958, this information is not clear).

Even if this layout is simple there are almost too many interesting things to see.

_______

posted by Devin

Dragon's Well Good Luck Shop

Ancient China, Greece, India, Egypt, and Rome filled my head every hour of the day, and why?

Some time during the school year my teacher, Mr. Cook announced that we would be doing a very important project on one of the five ancient countries we studied about. And, it was only a few days ago that it really happened. It was called Market Day.

Market Day was a day when all of the sixth graders got together and everybody chose a country and a job. People were chandlers, potters, fisherman, and glassblowers from all countries.

I, myself, was a Chinese good luck fortune shop owner. First I brought goldfish and crickets which were the most popular things in Market Day. I also brought good luck knots that I had made, and told fortunes.

The fortunes didn’t really make it through but the knots were second choice. Surprisingly, I was even written about in the Davis Enterprise.

Market Day ended with success, as I had gotten many items in trade. At the end of Market Day I lugged my wagon full of stuff (the wagon I used to bring things to Market Day) all the way back to school.

posted by Devin

Spring Show

Every year the 4-H clubs have a fair called Spring Show. Spring Show is about showing animals and entering projects like sewing, woodworking, and knitting. Right here I am working on our 4-H group's booth. I am putting up some words that say "Golden Valley 4-H Club Goes Green."














Right here my sister is helping by pasting some glue on some pictures of the members in our club.


Right here I'm about to show my friend's goat : Nin. Goat showing is hard because you have to get the goat's stance correct.












The picture below shows my goat project leader showing a goat.

The knitted yellow thing here is my sister's cat toy. The picture below is the skirt I sewed.





















We made/sold cotton candy at Spring Show to earn money for our club.

posted by Devin