Feeling better...

Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better for this week's entry. Last week... oi. That was a bad day.

But today is pretty good. It's been a reasonably good week, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so I get to spend some time doing absolutely nothing... except eat. Eating's good. I'm looking forward to that.

So what happened this week...

Well, at work this week, I got to put together our weekly newsletter, The Good News, more-or-less all by myself. Normally, we collect all the articles from people, type them up in a big Word file, and send them to one of our congregants, who works as a graphic designer. She puts the newsletter together, sends the file back to us, and we make the copies and mail them out. Well, because our pastor tends to ignore deadlines that don't suit him (but are necessary to everyone else around him), this was causing all kinds of bottlenecks. He eventually bought Adobe's Creative Suite, especially so we'd have InDesign for the office so we could do the newsletter like usual, and throw his (always late) contribution in on our own when the file came back. He neglected to remember that we use PCs. Windows. Windows platforms, in my experience, don't play nice with anything. Often, not even with other Windows platforms. So we gave that plan a try last week and it didn't work.

So this week, I got to do it all by myself. Miracle of miracles, it actually worked. I did get a great coaching session from the lady that usually does the newsletter for us; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to manage. As it is, I was pretty overwhelmed, since people kept asking me to do more things for them while I was working on the newsletter... I was getting quite upset and frustrated, but I got through it all okay.

Then I went to rehearsal for Troupe on Monday afternoon. Doc called me up after rehearsal and asked if I'd still be interested in doing my Master's Degree there... because "I'd really like to have you as my assistant, Schwang." Woah... that's huge. That's almost like handing the assistantship to me. I sputtered for a bit, and told him I'd think about it. I'll have to sit down and chat with him at some point reasonably soon to sort all of this out -- what's required, what the assistantship covers, etc. But hey... it might mean that I'll be spending another couple years here in Ithaca!

Wednesday was another good day. The Good News got out to the post office on time, and I got to go play at Evensong again -- and we played "Drop Kick Me, Jesus" again! That's got to be one of my favorite songs, honestly. It's just so much fun -- very silly, but still a reasonably-worded song of surrender to God. Tons of fun. Plus, this is the second time this semester that we've sung it! We sang the song at Evensong maybe as many times in the four years I was attending! So that made my night.

Thursday and Friday... well, nothing terribly exciting. You know, alone and single on a Friday night, no place to go... except more work. But even work was fun last night at the liquor store... we had some really funny conversations with the other employees.

Throughout the past couple weeks, I've been reading the "Inheritance" trilogy by Christopher Paolini. Only two of the books are out so far (Eragon and Eldest), and I just finished reading the second one this afternoon. It's set in this fantasy world, full of dragons and magic and elves and dwarves and such... and it's exactly the same story as Star Wars. I kid you not. Here's a quick review (I'll try not to spoil it too much for people):

Main character (Eragon/Luke Skywalker) was raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle. His mother was known to the locals, but she was only there long enough to give birth, then she left; his father is a complete mystery. They live in a backwater town that's part of a larger empire, ruled over by a twisted king (Galbatorix, evil Dragon Rider/Palpatine, evil Sith Lord). The local old kook (Brom the storyteller/Ben Kenobi) often tells stories about an order of great heroes of old (the Dragon Riders/the Jedi), but nobody really takes the stories too seriously. Eventually, the main character finds a great and mysterious object (a strange stone that turns out to be a dragon egg/two droids) that start the Empire looking for him. While he's away, the Empire sends agents (the Ra'zaac/the Stormtroopers) to raid the farm and get the mysterious object, but obviously fails to get it. Instead, the Empire just toasts the farm, killing the main character's remaining family. Main charcter leaves town with village's old kook, who turns out to know the stories about the heroes so well because he WAS one of the heroes. On the journey for revenge, old kook teaches main character what he can before he meets an untimely end (ambush by the Ra'zaac/duel with Darth Vader). Lost and alone, main character must seek out the aid of the rebellion against the evil Empire (the Varden/the Rebel Alliance), where he must play a key part in a massive battle that could mean the end of the rebellion. In order to do this, he must destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon (the Shade Durza/the Death Star), by relying on his mystical powers (magic/the Force).

And that's book one/movie one. Book two/movie two were likewise, parallel. The Empire cracks down on Eragon's home town, so the villagers go rebel and have to abandon the village (just like the Battle of Hoth). Meanwhile, Eragon has to undertake a long journey to a heavily forested area (like Dagoba), to seek further training with a master (like Yoda). His training is cut short by an attack of the Empire's, so he rushes to the aid of his friends and takes part in a great duel with another Rider (Jedi). Here's the biggest departure: the other rider isn't, in fact, Eragon's father. I won't ruin the surprise, but if you were at all like me, you'll already know what the relationship is by the time you get to the revelation.

For all their predictability, they're really very fun books. Pretty absorbing, and quite easy to read. Plus, the details the author works into the world are pretty interesting: different mythologies for the different races, the way magic works, etc. My favorite parts are the simple interactions between Eragon and his dragon, Saphira. Saphira is just as intelligent -- maybe more so -- than any human, elf, or dwarf, so they have very meaningful conversations, and some are downright touching. There were moments when I found myself near tears, just wishing I could have a dragon like that.