So I discovered this game called Minecraft.

It's like Legos, but better.  And I know what you're thinking - "Legos are already awesome, how could they get better?!"

With monsters and lava, that's how.

 I mean, look at it! And sure, it might be a world composed solely of 8-bit squares, but it's brilliant! It's easy and you can basically build whatever you want to.

MINECRAFT ENTERPRISE

MINECRAFT CASTLE

LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT IT.

So.
Yeah.
Minecraft.

I think I am going to murder myself via my music choices.

I have been taking piano lessons since I was about twelve, so it's been, what? Eight years on the piano?  I really like to play, too, I wasn't one of those kids whose parents forced them to participate in activities.  I chose to keep up with my lessons in college, believing that if I didn't have someone behind me the whole time telling me to practice I would probably only practice about once a month (which is sadly true).  As much as I enjoy playing it, I just can't seem to practice often enough.

Over the past year and a bit, I decided to play songs by composers that I have admired since I started the piano, the major one being Chopin, but this year we have moved to Grieg.  I am supposed to learn three pieces a semester, and this time around all of them are by our dear Edvard.

I got a book of his Lyric Pieces and I was glancing through it to see which pieces I wanted to learn.  I hadn't heard of many of them, so I was playing little bits of them on the keyboard, just messing around really, when I landed on the Elfin Dance.

I really like it, I do, and I decided I wanted to play it. I am not very good at playing fast songs, but I decided, just this once, to try and improve myself.

Then I saw his Scherzo.  It has a lovely triplet-over-straight eighths rhythm which I am particularly fond of, and when I sounded it out I decided it was going to be my second piece.  Then, I looked it up on YouTube.

And it says, very blatantly at the top, that it is supposed to be played hella fast. Which I somehow missed on my first read-through. But the middle is nice and sweet, and I decided not to back down from the challenge.

Just this Thursday I got my third piece, which my instructor picked out for me, his Arietta, a nice, slow song.

So, yeah. It will be a challenging semester, if nothing else.

I haven't posted in two months, and I apologize.

I want to put some of the blame on planning for school and meeting up with old high school friends and then packing and moving, but that's not entirely the case.  My summer was just, well...boring, after a bit.  The highlight of the break being the time I went to Holiday World (the amusement park) twice in the same week.

That is the Voyage. It is the world's tallest wooden roller coaster. It occasionally hurts so much to ride it you feel like you need a safe word. The place is awesome, is what I'm trying to get across.

But after that, it was Netflix B-movie marathons and the occasional get together. Nothing terribly exciting.  I moved back to Bloomington about a month ago or so, and all has been well.  Classes are going fine, my friends are fine, my BRAND-SPANKING NEW APARTMENT is fine.
And, as a side note, this is what my room looks like:

I couldn't give up the books.

Wonderful keyboard via lovely friend, Tony.

That's Classic Batman, Sherlock Holmes, and Doctor Who all on the same door. I am an accomplished nerd.

The only real thing to note is that I am joining a Calligraphy club, so expect wonderful Christmas Cards.

Hopefully going to blog more often,
And wonderfully yours,

Caitlyn.

I did a thing.

I took a painting, one someone had dumped in the trash no less:

And I was looking at it, very closely, and I decided I wanted to improve it. And by 'improve' I mean 'give it tentacles.'

This is its story.

Knife-wielding octopus centaur. Oh yes.

And, if you want some really good paintings-in-paintings, look into this guy. It's just really great, people.

Everyone should know how to cook.

Because, I mean, food is nice. It's delicious, if you can make it right.  And everyone should learn to make it right.

My mother taught me how to cook, and she taught me how to be resourceful with my supplies.  I can make a delicious meal without a recipe or with a great recipe and half of the ingredients, which is really helpful now that I'm in college.

If you didn't know, the stores in the dorms have a very limited choice of foods, and most of those are microwave meals.  Which are fine, don't get me wrong, but if you can figure out how to make homemade microwave brownies, that's a lot better.

I can't make microwave brownies, but I can make this:

Not really homemade but tasty

And I could manage to make most of it in a microwave.  I like cooking, and I like being resourceful. And I like food. Tasty, tasty food.

Harry Potter murdered my childhood like Voldemort murders muggles.

I just...Give me a moment...

I grew up with Harry Potter. It was one of the first actual books I ever read, one of the first movies I remember seeing, the first fandom I was a part of even before I knew what a fandom was.
  
I've bought all the books. I've got posters. Pictures. Wands. Scarves. Banners. Toys. I've dressed up, laughed, cried.  I'm pretty sure Harry Potter is the one who taught me how to feel emotions.

And now it's over? Just over?  No slow ease into it, no courtesy! Like getting to Hogwarts and having Dumbledore tell you he meant to send your letter to your neighbor that you hate.

Harry Potter is my childhood. It consumed me. It still does, don't get me wrong, but a body starves when given no nourishment. A Potter fan loses some magic when Harry grows up. In order to thrive we have to give the books to our cousins, our nieces and nephews, our children, and we have to hope that they love it like we do.  We have to hope that they get that little spark of magic, that they grow so attached we can get away with dressing them up like a Weasley for Halloween.

I'm not going to say anything about the movie, just that it was spectacular. That it was brilliant, and beautiful, and... *sob* ... magnificent.

I thought I felt bad when Toy Story 3 came out, and this eclipsed it by a thousand fold.

I mean really, what do we have now? Twilight? That's the next big epic, children. Sparkly vampires and pedophile werewolves. Great.

Now I have to cling to Sherlock Holmes as hard as I can and hope then make seven more of those, or hope J.K. Rowling decides to just write about Harry Potter for the rest of her life.

Oh! And Pottermore. We have Pottermore. And hopefully Monsters Inc. 2 will be good.

But I have to stop rambling now. It's making me feel worse.

Mischief Managed.

 

The most adorable post I may ever make.

For the past two weeks I've been almost constantly at my friend Emily's house. Partly because she has instant Netflix, so we sit and watch horrible horror movies or Doctor Who for hours.  And partly because she has a new puppy.

The dog, Sophie, may or may not be the next regeneration of the Doctor. Which means if she meets my dog, it might be a little messy.

I like Emily's house.  She lives in the middle of town, whereas I live in the middle of nowhere, and it's hard to make fun of movies like The Beast Within (which you should check out, by the way) when you're the only one suffering through it.

And, for a while, we partied like rock stars.
  
And by rock stars I mean nerds. Whatever.

The Oncoming Storm, the Madman With A Box

When I went off to college I made some new friends, with new interests and new, um...obsessions...

And one of these obsessions grabbed hold of me and is determined not to let go.

This one.

Also this.

Aaaaaand this.

Doctor Who - one of the most influential, popular, and downright fantastic television shows to come out of the UK. It spans more than forty years, and because of that the Doctor (the main character, you know) must regenerate into a new man, a new face, and travel around the galaxy on the TARDIS, his spaceship - gah, you know what, just trust me. It's good.  And I like it.  I like it a lot.

So much I had to procure myself a Sonic Screwdriver, the Doctor's weapon of choice (and by weapon I mean a screwdriver that is sonic).The Doctors above are the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh incarnation of the original man. Nine and Ten have the same device, a sexy silver screwdriver, but Eleven's is different - all nice and steampunk.


But Nine has always been my favorite Doctor, so I decided to get his - and Ten's of course.

And so I ordered one. And I waited...

And I waited...

And I waited...

But today it came!  My excitement was obvious!

I rushed to the mailbox to claim my prize - which I will say was dropped of not by the mail lady but by the Doctor.  He just couldn't stick around long enough to say hello.

asdfghjkla

sdlfghealrkflakjeh;H;RKGJSHR - wait, hold on...

SLIGUESRHLEHSRLGUA;ueha;oguah;EH;GODHG;SERJ; - but is that...

That is the Tenth and Eleventh reincarnations of the Doctor on the package for the screwdriver of Nine and Ten.

What.

For some reason fewer people like Nine, but to not put him on the package of his own screwdriver is a little mean.

But none of you really care about that but me, so MOVING ON.

I am very excited.  I tried to Sonic my dogs to make sure they weren't alien life forms, but Goren just ran away.

I think that means he's a martian.

 

I am going to rename my dog.

This one.

His name is Goren.  For now.

I plan on renaming him Snorty BigHead though.  For several good reasons, not just because I'm quite fond of the name (which I am).

When Goren gets particularly perturbed he makes an odd noise with his nose.  You can tell it's a bothered noise, one he makes when something has gone horribly awry.  And for Goren, pretty much everything goes wrong every day.  He's not the most stable dog in the world.  He's afraid of round things and cell phones when they're on vibrate.  It would be hilarious if - no, wait, it IS hilarious!

He was making the weird snorty noise a lot the other day, because we tried to give him a hair cut.  He doesn't like change, aided by the fact that our dog shears are the noisiest contraption second only to a jumbo jet.  It was awesome (Read: horrifying).

Goren became so terrified that we finally had to let him go, halfway through his trim.  Now, normally we get a professional to cut his hair, but we weren't able to make an appointment this time.  With no prior dog-hair-cutting knowledge, Goren ended up looking like a weird Two-Face, except in tiny dog form.

Still-furry side...oh wait, TOTALLY SMOOTH.

And we didn't trim up any of his head, leading to an awkward, Two-Face Chibi Dog of Hilarity.

Now he's all out of proportion and I can't stop making fun of him even though he can't understand me.

Because he is a dog.  You know. Right. Anyway.

Like I said, he doesn't like change, so it might be a while before I can successfully get him to answer to Snorty BigHead, but I have time.  I am nothing if not patient.

I can wait.

The Nigh-Ungodly Heat May Be Causing Hallucinations.

It is hot today.  Very, very hot.

I think the weather man said it was record breaking, this heat.  (REALLY? I HADN'T NOTICED.)

I woke up this morning fully intending to exercise, or at least get some fresh air, but by the time I had gotten dressed and consigned myself to torturous repetitious lunges and push-ups and treadmills it was as hot inside as it was outside.  And but that I mean it was nearly 80 degrees in the house.

It's nearly 90 now.  Inside.  I asked my brother if the Gods of the Chill Wind were angry at us for something.  He collapsed and was unable to speak for the oppressive heat.  I suggested sacrificing a goat (they sell them on Craigslist apparently).

So now I sit in a pool of my own sweat, trying to prevent my dog from sitting on me and giving me heatstroke.  I try to watch television, but without cable my only options are shows about Judges like Judy or Alex or old black-and-white programs.

I tried to read, for a while. I tried to read The Lord of the Rings, but between the heat and Tolkien's very descriptive account of Lothlorien I began to imagine my house sitting in the middle of an Elven forest.  The leaves were gold and flowers bloomed everywhere and it was midwinter and I was actually cool.

Kind of like this.

And then I thought that perhaps I was going crazy.  "No, I can't be going crazy," I said to myself as Bilbo Baggins toasted me with Elrond.

My point is, it's really hot, and I don't know what to do except fill a grocery bag with ice cubes and lay it across my face.

There and Back Again: A Short Girl's Tale, by Leonard.

Yesterday, in a fit of what I can only call madness, I decided to visit our creek. Not that it's actually our creek, not really; it winds its way through at least three different properties besides ours.  

Or, in actuality, I went because I am reading The Lord of the Rings.  But that has little to do with the rest of the post, mainly because the rest of the post is designed to make you jealous of my back yard. Through photographs.