For anyone keeping track, I am removing my prose from DA. It's no particular dig against DA, but I've discovered that some places will not publish your work if it's available online somewhere else. So in order to protect the chance of me getting paid with some of my short stories, I am deleting most of my stuff on here.

Thank you to everyone who hs read and commented through my stuff. I really have appreciated it.

And for now, I must get back to: working, finishing my senior thesis, schoolwork, planning a wedding, writing, taking care of my stepkid...

Blessings,

Silviar

It randomly erased all of the new pieces of art everyone created. And I'm upset because I had a lot of stories slated to be read... those arse monkeys!

Randomness: Flying out to see my boyfriend today - I'm so happy!

So, uhm, yeah. Sorry to all of my fans who enjoy my writings and ramblings on here. I had one hell of a semester, which dropped me to lurking status, and then a really bad summer, which dropped me to not even bothering to log on. >.<

My stepdad became really sick, I got into some credit card debt, *I* got sick, boyfriend's been having problems with his parents... the list is long, varied, and ultimately led to me shutting down for the weekend.

I wrote a story not too long ago, ostenibly for class, but really for myself. I had to cut the story off short to meet a size limit. Like my other short stories, it'll probably be lengthened out to something of book size when I can get it published that way. I hope you all enjoy it.

I'm back. *hugs to everyone*

Update: There seems to be a minor problem with viewing what I've written - you'll have to download it to read it. The text won't fecking wrap!!

A happy day of drunkeness and debauchery to all of you who partake. I probably shouldn't because of religious reasons behind this holiday but I do anyways because it's always fun to have an excuse to drink beer.

I've been busy looking into digs to go on so I can get some field experience before applying to grad schools, and was accepted into a dig in Ireland that one of my professors is heading.

I talked to the man in charge of the Ireland dig yesterday - Tom, he's a professor I've had at my university, and in the 45 minute talk we had he blew my mind.

He's offered to introduce me to the top professors in the field I wish to study, at some of the uni's I was considering joining. When I told him I didn't know how to go about picking my school off of professors since it's the people you know and work under in grad school that's important, he told me to print off the faculty lists of the schools I wished to join and we could go over them together. He also offered to help me write out the Fulbright scholarship, which is a really good scholarship for grads wishing to study abroad, but the slots are very competitive for Ireland (and the UK, which are the two options that I'll be looking at). So he's going to help me find a research topic for that, write the proposal and send it out. Oh and he's going to introduce me to two professors who are visiting in May, one from the University of Galway and one from the University of Cork, and hopefully one of them will write me a letter of recommendation whereever I choose to go for the Fulbright, so I will almost be guaranteed one of the coveted 6 slots for Ireland. *crosses fingers and grins*

Additionally, since I've volunteered to work at the dig at Cahokia mounds which is only 20 minutes from here, I'll have more dig experience than probably anyone else there, so when I go back to the dig with Tom in Ireland next year he said he'll be able to give me a title, like "assistant ground surveyor" or something like that so it looks really good on my resume.

When I talked to the woman in charge of the Cahokia Mounds dig site, she told me that she would see if there was a way to have me volunteer for one night a week in the fall and help out in the lab, so I can get more practice in doing work with archaeology equipment and such, and that will also look kick ass on my resume.

It's was such a good day that it totally makes up for the past few turbulent ones.

*dance*

Ahem.

Or at least I'll keep writing until my morning ADD kicks in and I go on to some other item this morning. I'm trying to get a ton of things done today before my stepmom gets here and we start touring around Japan. I'm mini-tourguide Marf!

Ahem. Well, if you noticed from my information, I'm currently in Japan. I am here on study abroad. Due to personal problems that included depression, financial constraints for a whole year's worth of living, a sick grandmother, and living in a dorm where no one cared to talk or interact with the foreign students, save a very small handful. There were a lot of problems, both for me and with the program.

In the end, I decided to go back after a semester rather than the year that most people spend here. I've been met with a lot of hostility and mistunderstanding, because I've chosen not to tell everyone why I'm leaving, so some of the foreign students choose to gossip behind my back and claim that I'm going back for my boyfriend because they know we had talked about getting married. Well, here's wehre the next part comes in.

I'm no longer with him. At least, not as a couple. I've had several epiphanies about my life lately, and I've realized that I'm not in a place where I want to be with my life. I've been doing things because I saw they made others happy, and I thought they would make me happy, too. A serious relationship, marriage, settling down, finishing just my bachelor's...those aren't for me. I want to go out. I want to live, see, do. And so, we're going back to casual dating partners. If we want to go out, we will, or see others, that's fine, but neither of us are in a position to make a serious commitment. We went into the relationship for the wrong reasons, and we both have growing and thinking to do.

As for me, I've ripped myself out of my prison that I've been in for a long time. I was in a fake happiness, but my soul was never at peace with the rest of me, and I'm ashamed to admit I didn't listen to myself to figure that out. But now I have, and for the first time in three years, I am listening to myself. I'm not in a position where I have to make decisions, but simply am being. I've actually been able to meditate, and I picked up my fortune-telling again. It's been really nice.

I've started doing my Irish studies again, and I'm thinking about doing Celtic studies masters program. As soon as I get back to the states, I'm going to talk to my professors about my options about grad school, although I'm shooting for something in Ireland and possibly doing studies out there, especially if I could get in with some excavation teams.

Oh - I forget that most of you don't know. I'm a religious studies major, so it's not a good degree for an after college job, and impossible to get a job with at the bachelor's level. I love school though, and I love my classes. And I've never really challenged myself, I realized of late. And from now on, I'm going to.

And so, this is the longest I can make this update without getting into personal details, but I leave those for my blog. And by blog, I mean my xanga since that's my personal blog and I only let friends have the address. So I suppose if any of you really want it, you can have it, just let me know. Just be warned it's my philosophical meanderings.

I will hopefully be posting another chunk of one of my stories up once I get back. I will be on checking things over break, just probably not writing much and so on.

Take care, all of you. I look forward to seeing your progress on current projects when I get back.