Category Archives: Language

The Return of the Kitsune

Leave a reply

Direlda has returned to his den in an attempt to rescue his ramblings from the clutches of Jabber the Procrastinator.

Little does Direlda know that the MUNDANE EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new ironclad routine even more powerful than the first dreaded Class Schedule.

When completed, this ultimate program will spell certain doom for the small band of storytellers struggling to restore insanity to the Library…

What that tells you is true, from a certain point of view. :p

For today does mark the return of this kitsune to his den. :D   It has been a long while, but I have grown in my time wandering.  I am armed now with a cork board, index cards, pushpins, and pens and markers of various colours.  So I should be able to work out a system and hold myself to it.

Today also marks the completion of another orientation session for the Master in Library and Information Science program that I have started.  The Chair of the department said, “You’re all going to be librarians, but you’re not all going to work in a library” and that part of my job is to “make humanity more human.”  I think I’m going to like it here.

This program may also give me the tools needed to finally get my den looking the way I want it to.  Or at least give enough of a kick to the tail to send my scampering to the resources to teach myself how.  The Chair made a spontaneous example for how career paths change of a person who wanted to do storytelling ending up in web design.  And that has got me thinking on how to integrate the two.  Because I do want the appearance of my den to convey a story as much as my ramblings do.  Stories are everywhere.

Speaking of stories, I have a short story being published in the Rainfurrest 2014 convention anthology! Whooo! :D   One of my artist friends, NovaWuff, did an illustration to go along with it that should also be in the anthology.

My story is called Neural Enrichment.  Here is a blurb-in-progress:

After saving for months on his hagwon English teacher’s salary, John finally had enough to afford a cybernetic implant.  He had hoped that his new Rycorp implant would allow him to fully enjoy all that the Korean Technocracy had to offer.  Instead it turned him into an anthropomorphic fox and now bombards his mind with adverts.  John is desperate to shut the world out of his head and is willing to seize any opportunity to do so even if it risks what humanity he has left.

I don’t know the cost of the anthology, but I do know that all proceeds will be going towards a charity of sorts (I think it’s the Clouded Leopard Project, but it could be the Cougar Mountain Zoo).  I also don’t know the content of the other stories aside from all being cyberpunk, but I do know that the anthology I’m in has a content rating of G to PG-13.  Come the evening of September 25 I will be able to give you more information.

That is all the exciting news I have for you today!  But I will be around more now. :)

Count the shadows.

The Nearer Your Destination…

Leave a reply

…the more you slip-slide away. (there’s a song with those lyrics, but I can’t remember the details abut it) I feel this way about my den, for it seems the closer I get to finishing the re-imagining, the farther I get from actually being finished. And this feeling of sliding down a scree slope comes up with my novel (I need to do more revising than I have), with my re-inventorying of the school’s library, with taking Korean fencing 검도 (keomdo), and with staying in contact with all my various friends and family who are several time zones away. I don’t want to be distant and yet I seem to be sliding down the slope.

Perhaps if I managed to juggle my time better, I could get everything done in a reasonable manner, but… I’m distractable and there isn’t much outside incentive for most of these. The library project is closest to completion because it’s my job and I want to finish with what we currently have before all the new books arrive. z.z I’ve come to realize that my self-motivation can only take me so far, especially when I have no definite timeline to work with.

Continue reading →

A Winter Adventure Part 3: The Stomach Cannot Hold

2 Replies

(In case you missed the previous parts, here is Part 1 and Part 2.)

By the end of the third full day in Cambodia I was getting better, or at least, I thought I was getting better.  And Eruanna was off the IV that evening, so we decided that we would fly to Siem Reap (rather than take the 6 hour bus ride) the next day, which happened to be the 1st of January.  The doctor gave his blessing on such a trip and reminded us to eat only cooked foods.

We didn’t stay up for the New Year’s countdown.  So how was it?  You can tell me about it in the comments, you know, and let me know that there are more than just bots and spammers visiting my den…  :p   In any case, I enjoyed the first good night’s sleep in several days.

On the morning of the first, Eruanna and I gathered up all of our things and went to Phnom Penh International Airport.  Our flight took only 45 minutes and I took several pictures.  The airline provided sealed water and some sealed banana bread, which I consumed. :)   We flew over Tonle Sap Lake, which is enormous!

According to Wikipedia (so caveat lector), it is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia.  I’m inclined to believe that, though I’m not sure what constitutes South East Asia, so I’ll put it as most likely true.  What I do know for certain is that Tonle Sap Lake is both fed and drained by the Tonle Sap River.  That’s because the Tonle Sap River reverses direction twice a year! O.O   That’s right, the river flows into the lake during the monsoon season and out of the lake during the dry season.  As Serrena or Julie or the guidebook explained to me, it has to do with the water pressure of the Mekong River; when the Mekong is swelling from the monsoon rains, the Tonle Sap acts as a release mechanism and drains excess water from the Mekong into the Tonle Sap Lake; when the Mekong is lower from the dry season, the Tonle Sap flows into it, shrinking the lake.

From the Siem Reap International airport we got on a Tuk-tuk, or a motorcycle with a passenger trailer hitched to the rear, and rode it to the inn (or whatever it was) we were staying at.  Well… actually we had to wait a bit because Julie and her husband, who had come up the night before on the bus, went to the international terminal to wait for us while Eruanna and I were waiting for them at the domestic terminal, which was a separate building.  But the waiting sort of adventure is more fun than the vomiting sort, so I didn’t mind it at all, especially since I got to work a little on drawing.

Continue reading →

A Winter Adventure Part 1: From Korea to Cambodia

Leave a reply

Now that I’ve recovered from the attack on my person by the agents of Darth Salmonella or Darth Escherichia Coli (rather, they are the two most likely suspects – it was too quick to be the work of Darth Giardia and while I may have spotted a figure with a red fedora measuring up the temples, her modus operandi is lifting famous things, so it couldn’t have been her), I have enough energy to ramble on about my adventure this winter holiday.  :)

You should find a comfortable seat, for I shall be rambling for quite a bit.  So much, in fact, that I’ve decided to take breaks in between.  This is the first part, the second shall come on my Saturday, and the third on my Sunday (this will also allow me to test whether or not I can schedule my ramblings to appear at a set time in advance).

You’re comfortable?  Good! :D   Now you’ll hear a tail, errm… tale, of a fateful trip that started from a snowy airport aboard a flying ship.  Actually, that’s jumping ahead of things – I think we need to go back to December 26th and go from there.  For it is around then that the sleepless nights first started…

Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo Report #1

Leave a reply

This is Direlda reporting in from the front lines of NaNoWriMo for Vulpine News.  Today has been a long day for writers, as they should be a fifth of the way done with their novel by the time the day has ended.  I started the weekend with a massive deficit, but now have a gain of 871.  This coming week at school will see if my gains will hold.  Or will a bear in tennis shoes come and ruin it all?

In other news, the past week was especially tough with extremes in emotional highs and lows.  La Niña wrecked some havoc, but this too shall pass.  The providential arrival of the superintendant has appeared to set a more moderate trend, but keep checking your barometers!

Finally, the Three Musketeers sang their way through my evening.  While I only recognized a few words (one of which being fool…), translations floated nearby them.  In Japanese.  So I understood slightly more than I would have without them, but not as much as I could have.  At least I recognize more kanji than I can write: 愛（あい）being one of them.

Tune in next week to find out if the 20k mark is reached.  And remember, we’re Vulpine News – our tales are fluffier and our spin is both admitted and more eccentric than the foxes on the tube.

Direlda signing out.

Of Water Hot and Cold

Leave a reply

I look forward to the day I break the language barrier.  But unlike Chuck Yeager and the sound barrier (hmm… Chuck Yeager and the Sonic Booms sounds like it would make a cool band name…), there is no specific target to surpass.  Fluency is a hard thing to measure and one need not be fluent to be able to read heating controls or tell the landlady about the unexpected wading pool in your living room.  This particular adventure of water hot and cold started with the switch to a new apartment.

On the day my wife and I moved in to our new apartment in South Korea, we received not only internet access, but a new washing machine and a new stove.  We soon discovered, however, that we could not get the stove to ignite (it was a two-burner, self-igniting gas stove).  And no matter how far we turned the handle to the hot side, the shower only poured out cold water.  Unfortunately for us, the person who had been assisting us was swamped with office work at the school, so he wasn’t able to get around to helping us.  We spent a week taking “brisk and refreshing” showers and heating up instant rice in the microwave.

Last night, the School Director took the school staff out to eat at a nice restaurant and afterwards I decided to head to noraebang (Korean for karaoke)  with some of my fellow teachers.  Eruanna decided to head back to our apartment.  I had a lot of fun, especially since the place supplied tambourines in the room we rented.  Unlike in America, where you get up in front of a bunch of strangers and make a fool of yourself, in Korea (and in Japan, I’ve heard) you rent a room with a bunch of people you know and make a fool of yourself with them.  There were plenty of English songs to sing, though some of the Korean teachers did sing one K-pop song (lyrics were in Korean, so I only sort of got the sounds).  There were live-action and cartoon videos playing behind the lyrics and I had a hard time telling if it was random or selected for each song.  I nearly lost my voice on Bohemian Rhapsody… ^^ Continue reading →