I'm thinking again about applying to grad school, but there are several things I need to do first. One of them is figure out who the hell I can get to write recommendation letters. Most of my profs from undergrad won't remember me. The one prof I was very to died. I have another prof who could write a letter, and I my bosses at work could do one too. But I know it's good to have letters from school experience rather than work experience.

One thing I've thought about doing is taking a couple night courses. I could take a course in writing, which I'd like to work on anyway. At the same time I could try to cultivate a relationship with the professor, if that is possible at all, and maybe they will turn out to be someone who can write me a letter. But again, that's not the only reason I want to do the night course; I want to do something that will get me writing (more precisely, something that will get me finishing writing) anyway. If I did a night course in English it would be nice to get some essays written, too.

Anyway, my very stupid question is: . . . uh, what IS night school, anyway? I don't want to enroll at a school yet. But aren't there courses you can take at community colleges and universities in which you don't actually haven't to be a student? Aren't there some classes you can just sign up to take? And if so, how do you find them? Are they what is called "continuing education"? Can't you sign up for just one course without enrolling? And will you be with other people who ARE enrolled, or will you be with a bunch of other people just signed up to take that one course? And if the latter is true, will the course be crappy? Will it still be taught by a professor? Can you take a course in English or Creative Writing that isn't taught at a university or community college? Are those courses reliable? Does it depend on the course and the program, whether it's reliable or not? Why am I so clueless?

Yay I was tagged! That's so exciting. Thanks, ladycat777.

Tagging: cordelianne, minim_calibre, jgracio, lillianmorgan, and gaudynight

If you've been tagged, you can (if you want) write your answers in your own LJ and replace any questions that you dislike with a new, original question.

( Questions about me meme )

( How I read = how I write . . . on books. And now thinky includes fun poll hijinks! )

If you want, I'd love to read about how you read, what books you mark up, how you mark them up, and why you desecrate your reading material so. (Sacrilige! Besmircher and betrayor!)

1. I think someone on lj just spoiled me for BSG. It was about my favorite character. I'm going to kill someone.
( I don't frown because I have a list. Lists make me happy. )

So this post isn't from my list. Because my_daroga told me about this, and I had to Google.

Jane Austen on Wii. - Basically, someone wrote up what playing Pride and Prejudice on a Wii might be like.

( Not so wee thoughts on Austen game idea! )

Other Period Themed Links:

-Wuthering Heights Role-Playing [Paper and Pencil] Game Rules (linked in comments to Wii idea). For fun Victorian times. When creating your character, you roll for the amount of Rage and Despair, and then calculate the number of Problems your character has. It obviously must be awesome.

-Regency Era Dress Up: heroine and hero. I spent nearly half an hour with the hero one night, because after I dressed him I decided he needed an invisible male partner, because he was gay and also having issues with his magic. He accidentally made his husband invisible, see. But his husband was a good sport about it, and got dressed to go out with him anyway, and they posed. They held hands. Invisibile hands.

Suffice it to say: I love people.

Whenever I think of first lines I think of Melanie in the Gone With The Wind movie. At one point she starts reading David Copperfield, and it goes something like this: "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I am born."

That's actually the second line. The actual first line of David Copperfield is this: "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

I bring this up because one of my actual favorite first lines is: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probablywant to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." Which is from Catcher In The Rye. I quite like Catcher, but it is not my favorite book. But I do love this line, and remember very distinctly picking up the book in the bookstore and reading this line. This was my reaction:

1. I did not know you were allowed to start a book in that way!
2. He said crap!
3. Geez I really want to read this now.
4. Geez, I also really want to read David Copperfield.

. . . I was a conflicted child.

Anyway, here are some questions I thought up, because I'm interested in first lines, and want to know what first lines people think of when they think of first lines, and what first lines people like!

What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you like?
What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you remember off the top of your head?
What's your favorite first line you've written?
What's the first line you've spent the most time on?
What's your least favorite first line you've written?

Also, here is a first lines of English "classics" quiz!

There are more similar quizzes for other genres here. Which ones did you pick? How did you do?

Here's text to put in comments so you can answer more quickly:
<b>What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you like?</b> <b>What are some first lines to novels/stories/fanfic that you remember off the top of your head?</b> <b>What's your favorite first line you've written?</b> <b>What's the first line you've spent the most time on?</b> <b>What's your least favorite first line you've written?</b>

-Angel/Spike ficathon: grazieprego. It's been decided Buffyverse is retro enough to be cool again. Throw your hat in; it's going to be amazing. The awesomesauciest of writers are doing it! Except for you, you're not, so why are you still here? Even if you don't sail that ship, you're welcome to write their canon selves--there was enough subtext (sometimes text) there to canonball a ship, get it? Wait that metaphor does not make sense. It can involve other ships and people as long as there is Angel/Spike. Just do it; I love it.

-Speaking of ships and canon I don't understand myself. I really don't. I, in fact, stopped understanding myself the moment fodian began to show me pictures like this:

I seriously regard that as my downfall, because that was the first thing I was attracted to (uh, in a sexy way) something that didn't fall along what I'm usually attracted to. And then it turned into 'ships--Spike/Connor, of all things, and Angel/Connor, and there was that weird two months where I lived and breathed Angel/Spike. But then it REALLY went downhill because there was Draco/Harry, which I understand even less. And then out of left field there was Commissioner Gordon/Bruce Wayne, don't even ask. And now it's Godfather. No, seriously. WTF, brain? There are only even like 2 Godfather slashers on the whole planet (both of them rock, btw, and have awesome hot fic. hollycomb and igbc).

-On that note, I have meme: Ask me a fandom-related question, anything related to fandom, and I will try to answer. Ships, het, slash, wank, wars, posting, TV, books, movies, comics, fanon, canon, whatever.

-( And because I have a MILLION OTHER THINGS to do I made a list of everything I've ever shipped in a serious way. )