Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Image keywords: Ash Wednesday from ashes you came from ashes you shall return

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent

Thursday, March 9, 2006

This will be one of the few diary entries in which I write out-of-character, not as Yuoo the Fennec fox but as myself. Lately I've been thinking about the direction and purpose of this diary. Do I want it to be a personal diary for myself? Do I want it to be a fantasy story about talking foxes and magical lands? Do I want it to be cute and fluffy or serious? Am I writing it to gain fans and popularity, to promote a product, or am I writing it for myself?

Lately, I feel as if I've somewhat lost sight of the personal diary aspect, spending too much time on the fan and popularity aspect. This is especially true since I started putting comics into the diary and when I started designing a Yuoo costume. Don't misunderstand me; I enjoy comics and costuming and websites, but I'm afraid I've been focusing more on "What will impress other people?" rather than "What do I feel like writing about?" I was even thinking that maybe I'm growing out of this diary, that I don't need it quite as much anymore.

Well, yesterday I was looking through some of my old 3.5" floppy disks, and I found the files of my old diary entries. I compiled them all into one Word document, and I was amazed at the results. The entries ranged from my days in highschool (1997) to my time college, just approaching the times I went through depression (2002). All in all, the file is 105 pages long! As I read through some of the entries, I bet you can imagine how special it felt. It was like, "Wow! I've been through all of this?" It reminded me of how special personal memories are; you don't want to lose them.

Thus, I've decided to start writing more entries about my thoughts and my circumstances rather then presentation and product. I will probably draw comics less frequently, but I'll provide some way for you to just look at the comics if that's what you're interested in.

Well, that's all I can think of to say for the moment, but before I revert back into "Fennec mode," maybe I can answer a few questions about Yuoo and his diary. Let's see... First of all, who is Yuoo? Yuoo is myself. He's a mixture of who I am (both the good and the bad) as well as things I would like to be. He knows about me, and he knows that he's a fictional character, but that doesn't bother him. He likes me as a friend and as a counterpart, but he doesn't worship me as "his creator" or anything. He is a figment of my imagination, and I am a figment of God's imagination, so it all works out well. ( God has very vivid, powerful imagination. ;-) ) Anyway, as for Yuoo's Diary, it started out being modeled after the Redwall book series, or at least certain aspects of it. Unlike the Redwall series, I don't think in terms of good people and evil people. Yes, I do believe in Good and Evil, and I believe there are certainly evil people, but in general I think that people are just people, with their amazing triumphs and their sad shortcomings. I try not to see the world's problems as evil dragons that need slaying but rather as a hurricanes to endure or infirmaties to recover from. I realize that there are two sides to every coin... but let's say that there's one side that I like better than the other.

In Yuoo's Diary, it's quite an interesting thing trying to tell about my life in terms of talking animals. In some ways, it's easier for me to express myself when I can use metaphors. However, sometimes the metaphors can be distracting. I have to be careful with delicate issues such as human ethnicity and stereotypes; thus it makes it harder to write about real people. Also, since this is a public diary, I might not be able to talk about certain private issues. Even so, I think it's a good thing I'm doing, and I'll try to continue it. Thank you for reading. :-)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

This week has been Yuoo's Spring Break. He was going to go on a trip with Mortar Abbey to help storm victims in a nearby place, but unfortunately he couldn't go because he had team-project for school he had to work on. The project to make something called a "Randomized Spellweaver." It's very complicated because even the small phrases they're working on can be rewoven into tens of millions of combinations, and Yuoo's team has to organize them all!

This morning, Yuoo went to a place called Saturday Abbey. The service was good, and the creatures were nice, but Yuoo was a little nervous because it felt so strange meeting on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Tomorrow, Yuoo tells me he plans to go bicycling on the Santo Marco trail. I hope he enjoys it because he really deserves a good Spring Break. (At least, I think so.)

Sunday, March 12, 2006

This week has been Yuoo’s Spring Break, today he spent his last day of Spring Break bicycling on the Santo Marco trail. He drove his car to the trail junction point. (Bike racks are handy-dandy!) From there, he set out on his bicycle at 3:00 PM, heading south along the trail. The trail is a nice strip of asphalt running parallel to the road. A pressed-dirt trail for horses runs along side it. (While there is a wide variety of comfortable, ergonomic street-shoes for horses, many horses still prefer the feel of dirt beneath their hooves.) The trail follows the path of an old railroad, which now only remains as memorials and historic markers. Yuoo quickly made his way out of Loblolly, and he eventually made his way to the town of Woodvole. In many ways, this town reminded him of the town he grew up in. It is filled with loblolly and scrub trees, and many of the creatures there live in “mobile burrows.” Yuoo himself grew up in a mobile burrow (a double-wide at that), and it isn’t often he gets to see such neighborhoods. It reminded him of his childhood (or “kithood,” if you will), when things were generally quieter and at a slower pace. The name Woodvole seems to be a bit of a misnomer because most of the creatures that Yuoo observed living there were horses. Most of the roads there were dirt roads, and the more expensive homes there had huge yards with carefully manicured grass and neat, white fences.

Yuoo stopped at a trail rest-area in Woodvole, where he ate some food and talked with other cyclists resting there. Yuoo mused at the significance of someone making their living by taking care of the trail and such facilities. A bike trail isn’t as busy or as economically-important as things you’d find in a bustling city, but it sure is a nice thing to have.

Soon he was on his way, and he continued on to the town of Santo Marco. He noticed the land slowly changing. There were fewer loblolly trees and more palm trees. The soil became sandier, and there was the smell of salt in the air. There were fewer houses with farming equipment and more with fishing nets, boats, and crab cages. Soon, Yuoo reached both the trail’s termination point and the land’s termination point, for you see, Yuoo had reached the ocean (or to be precise, he had reached a bay, which leads into a gulf, which leads into an ocean). He was immediately greeted by the sound of Zydeco music and motorcycles pulling up to what seemed to be a party. This was around 5:00 PM. Such an event was not his first choice, so he biked around town. There was a marina and even a boat factory there, but not much else. He went back to the source of the music and saw several seafood restaurants with an unusual crowd assembled there. Many of them were otters, and they were what Yuoo can only describe as “motorcycle pirates.” Ahoy matey! Sail me Harley to yonder tavern and enjoy a noggin of ale with me matey, Jimmy Buffet. Arrrrrrrrgg!!! :-) Yuoo hesitated to go in because he thought it might be a bar, but he saw several people bring children in, so he went in himself. It turned out to be a restaurant having a stone-crab festival, complete with live music. The kitchen was overwhelmed with orders, so instead of eating as he had originally planned, he ordered a glass of lemonade. The lemonade was very good (probably fresh-squeezed) with crushed ice, and since the waitress heard that Yuoo had been bicycling all the way from Loblolly, she put lots of extra sugar in it! Yuoo really enjoyed the lemonade, calling it “a real ear-springer,” which I suppose is a good thing. Yuoo stayed and listened to the Zydeco band for a while, then he paid for his drink, giving the waitress a nice tip, and he was on his way.

The sun was beginning to set, so Yuoo pedaled faster, and he made it back to Loblolly quickly. When he got home, Yuoo took a nice lukewarm bath infused with magnesium sulfate, which is supposed to sooth sore muscles. He will probably be sore tomorrow, but the trip was very worthwhile.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006 -Spring Break may be gone, but Spring is still here. On Monday, Yuoo made a quick transition back into school-mode as he worked that evening and very early Tuesday morning on the next phase of his group’s Randomized Spellweaver project. The four of them got everything finished at the last minute (literally), just in time to hand to the teacher. Yuoo’s team has five members, including himself. One person, named Paul, is away from the team for now because his father died. Everyone is sad about this.

Yesterday, the Love Tower was quite chilly. You see, the weathermages are installing a new indoor weather control system, and they haven’t quite tweaked it properly. Even now, there occasional bangs, clangs, and strange noises coming from the ducts. There is a crane outside even now, lifting bulky, strange gizmos to the top of the tower. It will be very nice once it is all finished, but for now Yuoo will just have to endure the rotation of hot and cold.

This morning, Yuoo rode his bicycle to school, as he often does on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The trip from his house (or burrow) to school is about eight kilometers. However, about halfway through the journey, Yuoo took a different route that learned about yesterday from his friend Jairus. Yesterday, Yuoo was telling Jairus about his bike trip on Sunday. Jairus was curious about the exact route, so together they followed the bike trail from above, using a very handy magic telescope. From this, Yuoo learned that the trail extended further north than he realized, almost halfway to his house from school. So, this morning he decided to give this new trail a try on his way to school, and the trip was quite lovely! :-) There was a canopy of oak trees overhead, with the sun glinting through the leaves. The flowers were all in bloom, and there was a slightly chilly breeze blowing. Springtime is wonderful!

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