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Are astonishing. I went to Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum with my dad today. G-d definitely gave man incredible creative powers, you know? Today I've seen everything, from the beautiful(delicate paintings eggshells and fragile leaves), to the cool (Spiderman comics painted on tablets made out of spiderwebs. Quite appropriate), weird (penis sheaths from Africa and Papua New Guinea. No, I'm not making that up. Apparently as well as being 'decorative', they protected one's tender parts from insect bites. Fair enough, but still weird.), wacky (I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why one would want to paint a full body potrait of Elvis on a common household needle) ...to the downright disturbing.
I saw actual medieval torture devices. Two real executioner's axes. All kinds of iron contraptions, all shining and clean, and all stained with invisible but very real blood. The designs were varied, but the purposes were all the same: to inlict pain (and often humiliation as well) on another human being. It's one thing to read that someone was whipped, it's quite another to actually see the heavy, spiked chain. It was locked in a display case, but even from the other side of the glass you could feel its oppressive weight. Even as a history buff who's read and known about such things from a young age, it was somewhat shocking. You couldn't see that room and not wonder what's wrong with humanity. How can we be so cruel to our friends and brothers? What is wrong with us, that we feel a need to kill and maim and destroy?
Man has great creative power. What we can do with it blows my mind. It can be used for such beauty, for such good. Or for such terrible ugliness.
I don't think I'll be forgetting the shrunken head of a five year old child any time soon.

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Nothing terribly unusual, but here I am, time to write some more. We were shifting house all through December.. oy. Never try to move house over Christmas, it's just not pretty. So moving over, it's time for me to start packing again. I leave for New Zealand in less than a month now, a prospect that's exciting and terrifying all at once. I think over all it's a good move, but I'm going to miss my family. Speaking of my family, oy the the fights are getting on my nerves. A girl can only take so much at a time. But that's enough of the mishygoss! I feel really good now. I had a good talk with Dad this morning and I think he understands what I've been trying to explain for years, at least a little bit. I have exciting things happening, things are kind of pulling together a bit in life, I've been having some fun, and to cap it off, it's Shabbat! I love Shabbat so much. Let me see... I might be getting baptised tomorrow evening, that's very exciting. Fun and interesting things are happening in the book-world too, though my poor NaNovel is a mess and it's scaring me a bit, just thinking of how much work I still have to do with it before it's even worthy of being stuffed in that drawer and forgotten for the rest of time. But it's ok, good things take time and effort and I'm rather fond of the poor sad little story. I went into the City the other night with Matthew and went to a concert, to see The Kin. I'm so, so glad I went! That was amazing. If you've never heard them, you must. Their voices are just beautiful, and they match so well! Listen to an accoustic version of their song Abraham on YouTube and you'll understand what I mean.

So yeah. I'm just lying on my bed, playing The Kin, enjoying the fact that there's a ceiling fan in my room... this is Shabbat. Everything is just fine. Shabbat shalom, haverim ^_^

What would you do with a million dollars? More importantly, what would you do for a million dollars? Beautiful Gypsy girl Janeal Mikkado is faced with a choice, and her father's fate rests in her hands. She makes a choice and lays her plans, but something went wrong. Terribly wrong. Retribution is swift and terrible, the whole kumpania is burned to the ground, and Janeal's entire life is turned to smoke. She flees and sets up a new life for herself, wanting nothing more than to forget the past. Fifteen years later, though, old ghosts begin to rise from the ash. Janeal was not the only survivor of the Mikkado Massacre as she had believed. Her boyfriend Robert and her best friend Katie also survived, and between them they have the power to destroy Janeal's new life. They know her secret. What lengths will Janeal go to to protect her carefully crafted hiding place? What will she do to be able to forget? And is there any second chance for Judas?

~~~~~

I've read a lot of reviews on this book, and almost every one said it was better than Kiss, Ted and Erin's other co-authored book. I was a little skeptical myself, because Kiss had a more instantly gripping plot line to my view. Having actually read Burn now though, I find myself having to eat my words. Burn is indeed even better than Kiss was, hard to believe as that may be. Burn is a tale of regret, loss, and second chances; a story of three friends suddenly faced with their past and with the present, and with what to do with the future and each other; a story of the struggle between the John and the Judas in all of us. A beautiful novel, seamlessly weaving the fast-paced thriller we've come to expect from Ted with the slower, deeper emotion we were introduced to in Kiss.

I can't wait for more from these two! There are no planned colabberations in the future as far as I'm aware, but Erin's first solo book, Never Let You Go is due to come out in the coming months! Hooray for new books! I'm very excited for this, if you can't tell. I'm very interested to see what what Erin has up her sleeve.

Burn is set for general release in January 2010. Find Ted Dekker's fan page at href="http://www.teddekker.com"> and Erin Healy's at href="http://www.erinhealy.com">

And of course, can't forget Facebook. If you're a fan of either author or both, or just a little bit interested, you can't miss these links. Find Ted at href="http://www.facebook.com/teddekker"> and Erin at href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Erin-Healy/59683195940">

And definitely read all the books you can by these guys. Very cool stuff :)

It's pretty much eleven at night and I'm desperately tired, but I can't sleep. I mean, I probably COULD, but I can't. I'm worried about a friend of mine... I know she's unwell, but I don't know how unwell. Optimistically she'll be fine, possibility she'll die tonight. And I have no way of knowing until/if she mesages me and says, "Hey, I'm fine."
I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to just pray and leave it in G-d's hands. But it's not easy, you know? I really care about this girl. And I know there's absolutely nothing I can do for her, I know that it's totally in G-d's hands and the HE knows what He's doing, and that I shouldn't worry, I don't need to worry. I know. Worrying won't help her.
But I'm worried anyway. I love you, Princess. Don't leave us tonight, please?

I'm just over a week into this thing, and I'm falling behind. I should theoretically have almost 15,000 words now, and I barely have 12,000. On the other hand, I've written 12,000 words in a week! That's amazing! I will see this out. I will, through sheer stubbornness if neccessary, win this thing. I will not be beaten.
But I also want to sleep at some point. And read books, and watch movies, and take naps on the lawn. If I can do this though, if I can win NaNo, I can do anything I want. Not strictly true perhaps, but a very good lie ;)

Also, GREATBIGHUGEEXCITING NEWS! I wn an ARC of Burn by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy today. My day is MADE :D

I can sooo do this. I'm way slower than most of the others, but I can do it. My handy word count predictor thingummy is green and burbling about 55k words by the end of the month (it was red and screaming about 30k this morning) and I have under 400 words to finish today's quota. I'm about 4 hours ahead of yesterday, and I took a nap and did chores today that I'd put of yesterday. I can even get ahead now, and make up for the days I'll have to miss, or not have as much time to write in!

I'm buzzing, in case you can't tell ^_^

I did it! 1688/1667 for day 1!


This is gonna be a long month, but I'm slightly (very slightly) ahead. I can do this! And, thanks to Cody, I have some slightly more interesting stuffs happening! I AM INVINCIBLE! *dozes off*