Parlez-vous francais? No.

So I had this HUGE presentation in my French class today that was worth a whopping 15% of my grade. I've been stressing about this thing for about a month now and spent the previous weekend working on nothing but this. No, needless to say, I was nervous. Incredibly nervous. I'd been shaking with nerves for a solid 24 hours! So before leaving home I made sure I had everything I needed, notes if necessary and my flash drive - very important - and I go to class.

Frere Taylor asks me if I would go first and I said yes just to avoid prolonging the torture. I'm shaking, a bundle of nervous energy, ready to drop dead at the slightest provocation. I had a poem that I wanted to share during my presentation, but for fear that I would throw up if I tried to share it, I asked my friend Nathan to do the honors for me. He agreed, and I felt a little bit better about my life.

Class starts and I head up to the computer, praying the whole way. I plug in my flash drive and ... no powerpoint for me. I was pretty sure that my life was over at that point. My teacher sees me floundering (and he probably caught the look on my face, too) and comes over. I explain that I don't have my presentation and that I need to run home and get it from my computer. I ignored the look of "you're a nutjob" and flew out the door, down the stairs, outside, across the parking lot, across the street, up to my apartment, to the door, and - locked. At this point I was cussing in my mind. I'm 2.3 seconds away from ripping out the screen and jumping through the window when my roommate opens the door. Miracles do happen. So I bolt into my room, re-save the stupid presentation on my flashdrive, and bolt back to my classroom in less than two minutes.

I'm not sure that my class knew what to make of my presentation. Here I was panting as i try to speak in coherent French (a feat on its own) while completing the most critical assignment of my whole life. As you may or may not know, I'm really bad at the whole "Speaking French" thing, so in my powerpoint I had some memory triggers and things to make it interesting. For instance, when I talked about this poet's parents, I put up two little cartoon pictures of a mom and dad - really goofy-looking ones - and I said, "And these are actual photographs of his mother and father!"

You would have thought these people had never heard a joke before. How can she kid around at a time like this? Doesn't she know what this thing is worth! Although they were probably grateful because I was currently in the process of making their presentations look WAY better.

I continued to ramble nonsensically until I came to another fun slide where I talked about this poet's dreams of going into a certain profession being dashed because of an illness. At the point when I said that, the pictures I'd put up of those two professions were crossed out with a "eeeeert" buzz like when you get an answer wrong on a gameshow. I thought that was pretty clever. Again, I was alone. All alone.

So I moved on again to the part I knew couldn't go wrong: the poem. So I introduce the poem and invite Nathan to please read it now. "Nathan. ... Nathan? ..." His neighbor nudged him and he sat up straight. I could be wrong, but I thought he might have been drooling in his sleep. Great. But we woke up for long enough to read the poem, but then dropped back asleep again.

Oh well, what can you expect?

I finished my presentation and went back to my char amid a smattering of applause while my teacher says. "Okay, next?"

So encouraging.

But hey, maybe I'll get points for grace under pressure. Or maybe my professor will just pass me because he doesn't want to sit through anything like that ever again. Who knows?

Pig Out

Well I can finally say that I have visited a pig farm. Now, this wasn't exactly one of my all-time top things on the list of things I wanted to do in my life, but it was certainly enlightening. I'm currently on my Spring Break from school, and for kicks, my roommates and I decided to visit our roommate's familyin Burley, Idaho. They live in the middle of nowhere on a mountain with a gorgeous view of the valley that is absolutely unparalleled.
Now, when visiting people, usually I get to sleep on a couch or in a spare room or something, but not this time. We were given the wonderful opportunity to sleep and stay in the barn. Yep, I was pretty surprised when I learned that, too. So here we were thinking that we'd be sleeping in the hay, relying on Jenna's comforter and mattress pad to keep us warm in the cold, windy nights.
But wouldn't you know it, when we got there, the barn was nothing less than a second house ... which was probably worth more than the house I've grown up in!
On Monday, Nicole and her brother took my roommates and I to the pig farms, which are also out in the middle of nowhere, just east. When you think about pigs, you think about how dirty they are, right? Dirty, smelly, muddy, etc. But the interesting thing about these pigs was that we actually had to shower off before we were able to go see them. We couldn't contaminate the pigs. Sounds crazy, but it's true! But it's actually a really good thing because the pigs have less of a chance of getting sick if people aren't bringing their sick people-germs into the room with them.
Pigs are so cool! Strange and kinda wierd, but cool! We had a ton of fun at the farm.
The best part of our trip though, apart from the pigs and the ridiculously long drive into town, was the family's dog. He was so adorable and fun to play with. It made me want a dog super bad.
One day I'll get a beagle and name him Ralph and he'll be my baby and I'll love him to death. But until that day, I'll just have make due playing with other people's pets.

Have a great spring day! :)
Kim

Pusblished!

It's official! I can now don my "professional" hat and wear it around while I prance about the park with no shoes on! My book just came out this last week. It's called Cupidity and it's totally wonderful! (I'm not biased at all!) Anyway, it's available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com and the list price is 15.99, but you might be able to find it for cheaper depending on where you go. :) I'm just thrilled with the book and with everything that has to do with it! No seriously, I start giggling like crazy whenever I tell anybody about it! I'm so happy!

So what are you waiting for? Go buy it!

Headache

So here's the deal. At the beginning of July this year I submitted my manuscript of Cupidity to a publishing company called Cedar Fort. After three months (which is their maximum amount of time that they said they'd take to review the manuscript) I still hadn't heard anything from them. This was just around the time that my dad and I were seriously talking about self-publishing the novel. So I sent an email to Cedar Fort and they told me that they had not yet reviewed the manuscript. After that, I pretty much gave up on them and we went along with our plan for self-publishing.

Here's where the headache comes in. Last week I recieved an email from Cedar Fort. After everything that's happened with them they had the ever-loving gall to actually like my manuscript! They told me that they enjoyed it and they think it has potential, but it needs some revision and they gave me some advice for how they would like me to change it and then they would like me to resubmit it to them and they would give it serious consideration. Ugh! Way to make things complicated guys! I guess this doesn't sound as complicated as it actually is, I have a hard time explaining it. See, we are at the point with the self-publishers that I should be getting my copy of the book in the mail any day now! It's complicated because I don't know what will happen with the Xulon stuff if Cedar Fort decides they want it.

It's a headache of both the best and the worst kind. I don't know yet what I'm going to do about it, but it should work out. I'll keep you posted!

Hello, my name is ...

We've all read the novels and seen the movies. You know the moment. The moment when the girl meets a boy and is so taken by their infatuation with the man's good looks or whatnot that they forget crucial things about the way they should be behaving. But of course that's purely fiction. Something like that would never happen to me. Famous last words.

So today I had the great fortune of meeting an attractive stranger. He was tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and incredibly gorgeous. Normally these type of people are, for me anyway, to be admired from a distance. But this evening I plucked up my courage and turned around in my seat to introduce myself and find out a little bit of information about this highly attractive man. So I turn around and ask if I had seen him before. He says no, that he's new to the branch, and sticks out his hand to shake mine. "I'm Tim," he says. (Names have been changed to protect ... well, mainly me) I shake his hand and say, "Nice to meet you Tim." All the while I am thinking about the warmth of his hands and the blue of his eyes and the familiarity of his name. Who do I know with that same name? Well, in the midst of my internal wonderings, Tim has asked me a question. It was a simple question: "What's your name?"

My mind went absolutely, 100% blank.

I stared at Tim, my mouth slightly open with what I'm positive was a dazed look on my face. I couldn't remember my own name!! I'm not even kidding, my brain felt like it had taken an unexpected and wholly unappreciated vacation! I just stared at him for a good ten seconds before shaking my head and saying, "Um, oh, yeah. I'm Kim. My name is Kim."

Never before in my life have I felt like such a dufus.

Tim was nice enough about it and we laughed off my idiocy. But I'm an still utterly embarrassed. So next time I watch a movie and read a book and the main character forgets something vital--like their identity--in front of an attractive stranger, I will totally be able to empathize.

Publishing

It's coming! Can't you feel it deep down in your bones? I can. My book is being published! I'm super excited, and yet petrified at the same time. *sigh* What am I going to do with all of these conflicting emotions within me? Oh, I know! How 'bout I use all of these bottled up emotions and write a spectacular book! Sounds good to me.

So, here's what's happening: My dad and I are going to self-publish my novel, Cupidity. This should be interesting. But it's the plan we're going with unless something else happens to spring up in my path between now and then. For instance, I'm still waiting to hear back from a certain Cedar Fort who has had my book for nearly three months now without telling me Yea or Nay about it. If that's not nerve-wracking!

But, it's not like we can really move forward with our plans at the moment anyway because my book is currently being looked at by an editor. So, until she gives it back to me, I wait patiently, or rather as patiently as I can possibly manage. And if, in the meanwhile, I happen to get an acceptance letter from Cedar Fort, so be it. I would absolutely love for that to happen! But, like I said, I'm just playing the waiting game for now.

Here we go again!

Self-Destruct

So, we've all heard about self-publishing, right? That's when an author cannot get someone else to publish their work, so they take money from their pocket, give it to a printer, and then have them print the books so the author can sell the books themselves. Well, self-publishing was never, ever a route I wanted to take. I shuddered at the thought, and figured I would rather not have my book published at all than pay someone to do it for me. And yet ...

Well, long story short, my dad convinced me that it might not be such a terrible road to take. He wants to partner with me, meaning that he'll take over the business side of things and I'll just keep doing the writing. So basically he's my publisher and agent person, but the only downside is that it's a huge risk in that it costs A LOT and we'll have to sell a lot of books to break even, and there's isn't a lot of marketing done by the printer. Meaning that we have to sell tons of books by ourselves. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just apprehensive about my ability to, essentially, tell everyone how great I am and have them spend their money on my product. Oh, geeze. I was never born to be a saleswoman.

More on this at a later date...