I’m sitting at home as it rains outside, watching my pager, praying that it won’t go off. Please, please don’t go off. I hate being on call. The husband is sleeping downstairs. His buddy was over last night, and I’m guessing they were up till the wee hours of the morning. The kids are, for the moment, thankfully distracted.

I haven’t been writing. I have seriously fallen out of writing as it is hard for me to maintain interest in something for too long. For a while I was obsessed with Guitar Hero to the point where I was seriously considering buying a drum set. But guess what I ended up buying instead. A ukulele! I absolutely love it.

You've got to fight for every dream
Cos who's to know which one you let go
Would have made you complete

You know what I discovered with writing that song in my last entry?  I discovered that I don't like writing that type of prose.  I probably won't do it again...  Unless there was another contest.  Contests are fun!

Some explaination.  Since I only seem to friend people in the Saiyuki fandom, the friends are probably wondering what the hell am I writing about in my last entry.  It's a song lyrics contest for writers_guide.  The winner gets to have their song professionally put to music.  Isn't that neat?!  Check it out.  It's due at 1pm.  There are two other communities participating, but I seem to be the only one participating in that one.

Lessons

Was it always this way?

This strange world around me?

Day by day still the same

And then this change upon me.

Gathering up the experience

I learn from each mistake

Every person holds a certain truth

Lessons of life await

Once I was a certain way

And these problems I couldn’t solve

Now I’m better than yesterday

Forever forward I evolve.

Gathering up the experience

I learn from each mistake

Every person holds a certain truth

Lessons of life await

See the world with brand new eyes

Brighter than ever known

Possibilities are endless now

On this day I’ve grown

Gathering up the experience

I learn from each mistake

Every person holds a certain truth

Lessons of life await

So I just realized that I have quite a bit of knowledge in the Japanese culture, but that most of my knowledge comes from a very embarrassing source. I went to visit my 79-year-old Japanese patient, and he had a large bottle of sake on the floor. As I sat down on the couch, I picked it up and there was a word in Roman letters on it. “Bishonen,” I read out loud. My patient told me it meant “beautiful youth”. I said, “Beautiful young MAN, right?”

My patient looked at me surprised and said, “You know Japanese?”

I said, “No, but I know this one.” He asked me where I heard it from. Now normally I don’t talk about my juvenile interests in a work environment, because I look (and sometimes act) like a 16-year-old and I need people to take me seriously, but this guy was OLD and I thought that to him EVERYONE was juvenile so I told him. “I read manga,” I said and, man, when I said it, it was like I was admitting to something bad. Now I know that EVERYONE in Japan reads manga and it’s probably nothing to be ashamed of, but the fact that I knew the word “bishonen” specifically MUST give away the fact that I read mostly manga geared towards teenaged girls.  I couldn’t tell what he thought about it, though. He just said, “Oh.”

So, our visit went on, and I facilitated “life review”, which is just a fancy way of saying that I helped him reminisce. And there was a point when he was explaining to me the school system in Japan when he was growing up. How you can go to a better junior high if you pass an entrance exam and how high school was optional, but you HAVE to take an exam. Without thinking, I said, “It hasn’t changed much since you went to school.”

He asked, “How do you know?”

 And, boy, I wished I could have said that I knew someone or I visited or even that I watched one of those artsy-type of movies, but instead I said, “I read manga.”

He said, “Oh.”

Someone in one of those LJ writing communities had linked this site http://www.watt-evans.com/soyouwanttobeawriter1.html, which I found interesting.  It’s a series of articles that gives advice to writers.  What’s funny is that the first article basically tells you NOT write fanfiction.  And their logic is sound.  One of the arguments against writing fanfiction was that it takes away time from writing original stuff which would be more opt to give you money.  That is so true.  I really don’t have a lot of time, and what spare time I have, I never chose to spend wisely.  When I told the husband that I was halfway through Sins of Angels, he wasn’t so thrilled.  He said, “When are you going to accomplish something that benefits the family?”  I have to say that if it was actually something productive, I would not have such a strong urge to do it.

Anyway, I’m not really a serious writer in that I’m not looking to change my career or anything.  I love my career, but it would totally be awesome if my hobby paid for itself. Then the husband wouldn’t be hounding me whenever he sees the word program open like he did today.  I came home from working all day so that I could work some more at home, while the kids (husband included) played video games.  After I haphazardly put together a meal and sat waiting for the kids to finish said meal, I decided to open the word program on my laptop.  He saw it open and freaked out, afraid that I would get carried away and waste the night away.  He’s so stupid.  I don’t do that UNTIL the kids are ready for bed and at least one of them was sleeping.  THEN I waste the night away.  What I was doing was EDITING!  No one in their right mind would EVER get carried away with editing.  However if I was paid, even a little bit, then I would never have to justify why I’m using the word program in the first place.  That would be awesome!

At first I thought it was because I lost my confidence (what little I had, that is), but now I don’t think that’s the case.  Because wouldn’t that mean I wouldn’t be able to write ANYTHING?  I seem to be okay writing if it’s not Sin of Angels, so I don’t know.  Boredom maybe?