What a relaxing week. Compared to weeks of recent memory, this week has been very relieving: less homework has given me free time to focus on catching up with general studying for my classes, as well as wrap up some more of my Almost Gone rewrite...
Which brings me to my first point of the night. It was my story on the chopping block today in my fiction workshop class, and the "results" were fairly interesting. Almost Gone didn't get quite the same positive reception as the previous incarnation did, however I did get deeper feedback into the development of the characters. It proved to be very helpful. Ironically, in writing a novel chapter, I've learned that I need to write less than I am so far. My biggest faults seem to be inconsistent voice, undefined character personalities, and sometimes confusing dialog. I'm fixing these problems right away, and I'm also restructuring my current draft considerably. I believe I'm on the right track, however.
For as stress-free as this week has been, this coming week might be tricky. For one, I have to balance a couple of school projects at once. What worries me more is personal: my desktop computer, the DragonFly, is in need of a format/reinstall. I typically wipe my hard disk drive and reinstall Windows about once a year, but it's been almost two years for this computer, and I'm a bit torn.
On one hand, it needs done: Windows performance is miserable, and I have a lot of junk sitting around that is starting to clog my Windows Registry. This does point to one possibility, however: upgrading to Vista. I've been using Vista next to XP (and Ubuntu) for a while now. Vista's quirks aren't quite as annoying to me now as they once were, and the only big issue for me is software compatibility: I haven't fully tested all of my back-catalog software on Vista, and I'm afraid of future issues (I'm getting a hankering for Thief II, for example - a game from 1998!). I might wait until spring break to work on a plan for my computer.
Speak of spring break, it's off to Cincinnati for me! My sister is letting Colleen and I stay with her for a couple of days, which means that most of the trip will be cheap. I'm planning on stopping by a few places with them: definitely Newport Aquarium, lots of food joints, and maybe the Air and Space Museum near Dayton. Perhaps we'll even venture as far south as Mammoth Cave? That would be too cool, but probably not very likely since I'm not sure if everyone would like cool caves, dark places, and small spaces.
And that's it: I have this coming week to survive, then an awesome week off work and school to relax. I can't wait. As it turns out, not all "vacations" are bad.
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