I know it sounds like an oxymoron, and it is an oxymoron but it's also a legitimate literary genre. I just bought a book called The I-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Illinois. It's filled with "true" stories of ghost sittings, close encounters, big foot, a killer kangaroo who the writer believes to be a Chupacabra, vampires, and crop circles. All these stories are backed up with eyewitness accounts taken from newspapers and police reports, photographs, and scientific evidence that the writer twists a little to fit his theory (that's what all non-fiction writers and most scientists do, actually but that's another conversation for another time). It's all true. Sort of. So, you're probably asking yourself why I'm reading this book, or maybe you aren't. Either way, you're still going to find out. This quarter I'm taking a c l a s s called Writing Non-Fiction. It's similar to the one I took over the summer only less annoying, and more fun. Instead of having to write a research paper, I get to pick a topic and write a story with it. Think non-fiction novels and short stories or articles VS research papers. It doesn't have to be a regurgitation of what I read but rather a true or somewhat true story told in an interesting way. Anyway, enough explaining how this course is different from last quarters. I'm really interested in this c l a s s. I can't wait to read all sorts of non fiction articles and stories from books and magazines that I've started to collect about flying saucers, werewolves, vampires, and all sorts of other X-filesy stuff. Speaking of the X-Files, I got the term non-fiction science-fiction from them, in an episode called Jose Chung's From Outer Space, which is about a writer who went to a small town where UFOs had been spotted, and the body of a dead alien was found. It's a Rashōmon episode, wherein a story is told from the point of view of multiple characters and they all have a different version of events. I highly recommend the episode, even if you don't like the show itself. I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to write about now, although I might right about my own UFO sighting, in a sort of multiple point of view sort of way. Anyway, I'm really excited about the whole thing, and just wanted to share. Now I'm off to write a journal entry for class about the non-fic Sci-fi stuff and about how I'm not the sort of person who journals—mostly because we're supposed to keep a journal for class.

Preface: So, I haven't been on TV.com in almost a year! WOW! I didn't realize just how busy graduate school was going to make me. Plus, I've been working (I'll get to that later) and trying to find time to write, and watch TV, hang out with my friends, play poker, and eat and sleep.

Part One: School

I have been in graduate school, getting my Masters in Liberal Arts with a focus in creative writing. I took two classes each quarter for my first two quarters (live or in person courses) and then I took an online class in the spring all about Harry Potter, which was a ton of fun. It was actually really cool, but also extremely intense so I didn't have much time to do anything else aside from working on my stories, my weekly poker game in Denver, and going to Super Target for groceries and essentials. Over the summer I've been working and I took one of the requirement courses I had been able to dodge until now. It was called Graduate Research and Writing and we spent most of the quarter learning how to write a "proper" research paper, which would have been great except that the teacher was nuts and I didn't learn anything I didn't already know except that apparently now when you write something professional, you are supposed to put one space in between sentences, after the period. In the third grade, when we were learning how to do a five paragraph essay for the first time, the teacher taught us to place two fingers one the paper next to the period, and then start the next sentence then. Ever since then, I have been putting two spaces after every sentence (which has been considered right) and while I don't mind changing, the teacher didn't tell any of us this, it was just one sentence in the middle of a paragraph on how to write essays in the style our school uses, and I missed it so I didn't find out that I was supposed to do this until the day before my final paper was due and I only discovered that by a coincidence. Anyway, enough of that rant.

In the fall of last year, I took a class called writing the short story which was really cool and fun and in which I wrote a story I had been thinking about for several years, about a vampire hunter. As of right now, I think it's the best story I've ever written to date. I also took a class called Artists on Art, which was interesting but not great. I posted some of the pictures from this class in October, but I'm going to be posting more stuff since I've got a ton of pictures from the last few months. The teacher wasn't great at giving directions, but that's okay because he didn't take points off when he asked us to redo assignments.

In the winter quarter I took two writing classes, one called fiction fundamentals and one called memoir and the personal essay. In the first class, I wrote a story about a guy who died but he didn't know he was dead and so his soul wandered the Earth, basically living his old life except for the living part. In case anyone didn't know, I'm working on a book of short stories, sci-fi/fantsy/horror stuff, which is going to be my big project (my masters "thesis") and I'm working on one story each semester so I don't have to write an entire books worth of material in ten weeks (which is how long the quarters are at the University of Denver). In the memoir class, I wrote a story about one of my summers at one of my overnight camps.

Part Two: Poker

I have loved cards ever since I was a little kid. I always called myself a card shark, because I could beat people at card games they were great at even when I was still learning the rules, but more than anything else, I love poker. I'm good at poker. I will play any kind of poker I can learn (including Chinese Poker or Big Two, a game my cousins taught me in which everyone is dealt out an equal number of cards and whoever had the two of spades goes first. Twos are high, and the lowest hand playable is high card. The suits also have different values, diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades in order of highest to lowest. The first person plays a hand and the person to their right has to beat that hand (so if you play the two of spades, I have to play at least a pair of three. Then, the next person has to beat that hand (two fours or two higher threes, or whatever) and you keep going until somebody runs out of cards. They are the first place winner (also known as president). The second place person is vice president and third place is secretary. If you are playing with three people then when you start the next hand the president gets to trade two cards with the VP and they can have anything they ask for that the other person has. The other person can ask for something else in return, like if they have 3 sevens and want four of a kind (a basically unbeatable hand in this game, unless you are really lucky) and the president doesn't have to give it but they usually do. The second place person gets to trade one card with the secretary. President goes first and then you go around in order. I didn't like that game at first, but I eventually learned to enjoy and got very good at it.

As I was saying, I love poker but was reluctant to learn Texas Hold 'em, because I thought it was trendy and complicated but as it turns out I was really missing something. I eventually learned the game, and I really liked that one too. But the only people who play it are my little brother and Jack so I only got to play a couple of times a year, when we went to California. When I was in Denver, I met a bunch of people who lived very close to me, went to DU, and who play poker on Saturday nights. So, I went to one of their games, and became quick friends with several of the regular players. The guy who runs the game is named Spencer, and guess what? He loves House! So that was cool too. The first time I met him in real life was when I went over to his house for my first poker game, and I saw the House season two and three DVDs on his coffee table. He's also very funny, and sarcastic. The game is pretty fun. It's a $5 buy in for TH poker, 5 cent small blind 10 cent big blind, and we play from 8:00 to around 11:00 on Saturday nights when Spencer doesn't have other plans and enough people show up.

Part Three: Work

I am a writer, and so I constantly try and publish stories, but as of right now I still haven't had a chance to see my name in print, except in my high school's literary magazine. So, I currently baby sit and do respite care because I love working with kids. When I was in Denver in the fall I interviewed for a lot of jobs but only got to work with one family. They had a four-year-old boy named Sebastian and needed to take him to a doctor's appointment, but there was going to be some time after he was examined, while they talked to the doctor about this problem (I think the kid was developmentally delayed but it's hard to be sure because I didn't spend much time with them) but I ended up getting in a fender bender and was about 10 minutes late (I called and said there was traffic, and might be ten or fifteen minutes late) and then they spent another twenty minutes getting ready to leave. Then, they got stuck in traffic on the highway, got off and tried to take surface streets and got lost. The dad started screaming and cussing at the mom, who kept asking her not to swear in front of Sebie, and then couldn't find the parking lot. By the end of the whole encounter I wouldn't have worked for them again even if they'd asked me. Over winter break, (Thanksgiving to New Years) I worked for a family that lived near my parents. They had two kids, ages seven and eight who was very sweet and very fun to play with. I taught the boy (the older one) some magic tricks, which he was fascinated by and so when I came home for the summer I called the mom who said her son still asks about me and that she would love to have me come and baby-sit some day, but then she never called me again. In the winter quarter, I met another person through sittercity.com who said she needed a one time sitter to watch her seven-year-old daughter while she went to a business dinner. I came over and helped the girl with her homework which was a nightmare because she had supposedly learned how to count by fives in school that day but didn't seem to remember how to do it and couldn't grasp the concept no matter how many times and different ways I explained it to her, and needed to be re-reminded how to add five to a number with every step of every problem (they were given a sheet of paper with problems that looked like this. Count by fives starting with the first number and write down the answers on the spaces provided. 1. 25 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___. So I said, "What is five more than 25."

She said, "I dunno."

I said, "Okay, well let's count. What's one more than 25?"

She said, "26."

"Good." She started to put 26 in the first space. "No, wait. That was only one more than twenty five; we still have four more numbers to go." She counted, skipping 27 and then finally scratched the number 30 OVER the number 26 even though her pencil had an eraser and she could have erased it. We moved onto the next space. "What's five more than 30?" She still claimed not to know. "Okay, count."

"I don't know how." I gave her some gentle prodding and she started to count. She still couldn't do it after ten problems each of which had just as many steps as the first. And as if that wasn't frustrating enough, she wanted me to sit on the side of her bed while their new puppy chewed on me and she 'read' from a Dr. Sues book. Only she, a second grade student, could barely read and seemed to an undiagnosed be dyslexic. Kid was sweet and we had some fun playing when she wasn't doing homework or trying to read. Between then and when I came home for the summer, though, I didn't get to work at all.

I came home just as the spring quarter was ending, did my summer school class and got a job (long story) doing respite care for a family with a nine-year-old with severe Cerebral Palsey named Kiki. I come over and hang out with the kid, take her swimming, feed her, play with her, change diapers, watch TV with her and stuff, which gives her mom some time off to relax, clean the house, take nap, or whatever. I also work with the same family I sat for last summer, Daniela, Natalie, and Gabe from time to time.

Part Four: David, Josh, Jack, Kristi, and Niki

Josh and Kristi finally got the divorce, which is actually better for them. And Dave is much happier now. Niki (the 19yo Apache girl they adopted a few years ago) just graduated from high school, Jack is repeating the 10th grade, and David just started his first year of real school. He's in first grade for part of the day (he's also Dyslexic, this one I'm POSITIVE of) and as a result of Kristi "home schooling" him for two years can barely read) and in second grade for Math and Science, and a few other classes that he's really good at. We have been hanging with them a lot. We went to San Clemente where Josh lives and works. We went to Victorville and everyone went bowling, including Niki's boyfriend, Big David. Josh and 'Little David' met us in Las Vegas for my parent's anniversary and they just flew into Chicago and stayed with us for a week in July. David is growing up to be a great kid. He still loves Legos, and JLU, and has the best ideas for playing action figures, (although they are usually silly and involve fighting and one guy getting hurt) and he is learning how to swim, and he is much happier, much more relaxed now and so is Kristi (although she is being totally crazy about the divorce and child support stuff and so they have to go to a mediator or whatever).

Part Five: So Now What?

Now, I'm at home, and I signed up for another Internet course for the fall quarter (starting September 8th) and I'm staying at my parents place because it means I'll get to spend more time with my friends, and keep working, and live in a house that has more than one room. I may have more time to post and talk to you guys now that I've gotten adjusted to the schedule but I don't wanna make promises I can't keep. Anyway, can't wait to hear what everybody else has been up to.

Bye for now,

Rachel

Afterward: sorry or any typos, but keybord sticks and so sometimes when I hit a key nothing comes out and I don't really have the time to go through my whole blog and look for missing letters. Sorry. If anything is too confusing to figure out on your own post it under comments and I'll try and figure out what I had intended to write orgionally.

http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x256/lexjluthor/?action=view¤t=DSC_1152-1.jpg

These are pictures from last year. It goes through California, David and Josh in Chicago, my friends and me at the taste of Chicago, Las Vegas, my family trip to Jamica last Christmas, all kinds of stuff. Keep going to the next one until you hit the images from Halloween. I think you already saw those. If not check them out too.

So I haven't had much time to post blogs lately (except on my myspace page) what with my starting graduate school in September, but I wanted to share some pictures I took for my Artists on Art c l a s s. Charles is really into this whole challenging the definitions of art, and breaking molds, and pushing boundaries. Our most recent assignment was to make "sculptures" out of everyday objects, based on themes set forth by a group called the Janfamily (they don't have a webpage, but if you do a google image search, you might find some of the stuff) and take pictures of it. For one of my sculptures I used my action figures, and actually had a lot of fun with it. I sort of played with the idea of how when you take someone's picture, their first instinct is to look right at you and smile, which I don't like, but my action figures are all smiling (even the bad guys) and so I put them into a couple of different situations and took pictures. I think my favorite one is Hero's Park, because it's got this whole story behind it, and some of the characters actually represent the personalities they have on Justice League Unlimited. One of the girls in my c l a s s pointed out that Flash looked like a dork who was trying to impress Supergirl, and it made me think of the show, how Flash is a not so smart guy, who is always trying to impress the girls and constantly saying the wrong thing. Then we have the classic image of good VS evil, Lex Luthor and Superman fighting (who them pause and look/ smile at the camera) and Supergirl, just trying to live her life, walk her dog, and running into 1. An annoying, overly-egger guy, and 2. a (possible) dangerous situation with Lex and Supes. The other pictures are all based on the same (smiling) theme, but they have slightly different figures in slightly different situations. I also made "sculptures" out of a crate of pumpkins and dirty laundry, if you wanna see them, which you probably don't... :-D I'm off to do my five other projects that were assigned tonight and due next week.

Heroes at my window

Just keep clicking next until you get to Battle Dance.