80 Prompts: 5. What comes to mind when a person uses the phrase "prolonging the magic"?

What comes to mind when a person uses the phrase "prolonging the magic"?

An intense fight scene involving wizards, creatures, crumbling bridges and flavors of Gandalf and Sirius Black dieing...all at the same time. I get this mental picture of this really intense fantasy scene where there is a troupe wizards fighting nasty, 8-legged volcano creatures over a pit of lava for some obscure, but important reason or other that no one can really seem to remember. At some point the bridge starts to cave and all of the wizards are about to die, but one uses his telekinetic powers to keep the bridge from falling into the boiling lake of lava and their imminent deaths. One of his comrades takes a hit from one of the creature and is dangles from the bridge by his wounded left hand. The telekinetic one almost breaks the spell on the bridge to save the falling guy, but the guy shouts, "No, you fool! Prolong the magic! The Obah Cypt is in the cavern of the griffin-chimera-snake-sphinx-thing! Do not fail!" After that incredibly cryptic and unhelpful "hint" that no one (character or reader) can figure out because the author has failed to mention any of that stuff before, he falls to his fiery death (only to show up two books later, to everyone's relief because they can finally figure out what in the wide world of Waldo he was talking about in the first place, minus his right arm and with a bionic left eye).

It broke my heart when Gandalf died, and I definitely cried when Sirius Black died (I'm still a little sad about that one). Sorry for all of the run-on sentences. That happens when I get really excited about something, like boiling lakes of lava...and I don't really edit these posts, that's not really the point of this blog.

+5 awesome points to anyone who knows where the "Obah Cypt" shows up in popular fiction (author and book title, please...AND if you can name the folk story that the book is based off of, you will receive an extra 10).

80 Prompts: 4. What is on your calendar for tomorrow?

What is on your calendar for tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Friday!

12:00am: Homework/anxiously waiting for my tie-dye shirt to set so I can wash it.

12:30am: Productivity declining slowly, probably a random article hop through Wikipedia

1:00am: Homework! Finished paper!

1:30am: A significant amount of thought devoted to dinosaurs, poetry, pirates, Star Wars, tea, and/or art.

2:00am: A long conversation with myself about stuff that happened today.

2:30am: Tie-dye set completely! :D Wash shirt.

3:00am: Another long conversation with myself about whatever I feel like saying.

3:00am: Try (unsuccessfully) to sleep.

6:00am: Awake, because my body likes to be awake at 6:00am lately. :(

6:30am: Convince body that sleep is a good thing.

8:00am: Wake up for real.

8:30am: Don new tie-dye shirt!

9:00am: Do something cool because Hebrew is cancelled today (I'll probably eat, or something equally exciting)/Homework

10:00am: Shelve books and obsessively clean the circ desk.

11:00am: Receive or send obnoxious text message about getting food.

12:00pm: Actually crawl to the dining hall to get said food.

1:00pm: Homework.

1:15pm: Be an evil mastermind/homework.

1:20pm: Homework.

2:00pm: A meeting, or something important like that.

3:00pm: Find random stuff for people I don't know/wonder about people's interests and research projects.

5:00pm: Shoo people out of the library.

5:05pm: Send obnoxious text messages about food.

5:10pm: Wait for dining hall to open.

5:20pm: Decide what to eat.

5:30pm: Eat.

6:00pm: Long conversation in the tunnel about random stuff, probably plotting a peaceful take-over of the world, or survival strategies for the zombie apocalypse.

6:45pm: Homework.

8:00pm: Tea.

8:15pm: Homework.

11:00pm: Seek out other forms of life (it's Friday!), or go to bed early.

There you have it. This is pretty much what my day will look like, from some skewed perspective, anyway. Disclaimer: It is right before finals, so my Fridays usually have less homework and more random stuff...my life is not usually this boring.

80 Prompts: 3. Have you ever done something just to "feel the danger", or to "feel alive"?

Have you ever done something just to "feel the danger", or to "feel alive"?

Of course I have! I have an inner-adventurer under my reserved and *cough*cough* classy exterior. I like to indulge my curiosity by planning little explorations for myself. For example: I sent a friend a postcard that featured the Landmark Center, which looks like a castle to me (so I call it "the castle"). I promised this particular friend that I would visit the castle and take pictures for her, since she lives far away and will probably never get the chance to explore the Landmark Center herself. After a particularly stressful week last semester, I decided that I wanted to get out for a while, so I hopped on my bike and went downtown alone, dressed in my pyjamas and armed with a camera and hand sanitizer. It was a wonderful adventure! I found a "secret" pathway, uncovered a plot to undermine the Galactic Alliance, and I also slew a dragon. All in a afternoon's work! ;)

So, what are your adventures?

80 Prompts: 2. Share a secret about yourself.

I'm randomly choosing numbers off of the list to add a little bit of mystery to the prompt sequence.

Today's prompt:

Share a secret about yourself.

I'm not really in to sharing secrets about myself, but here goes:

I have a secret desire to join a circus. I'm thoroughly convinced that the life of a circus performer is one of the most "legit" existences on the face of the earth. I would, of course, have some reservations towards the circus costumes; I'm not much for wearing "bedazzled" and/or flashy things on my person, with the exception of my sequined zebra flats (zebras make everything cooler). Flashy attire aside, working for the circus would be pretty nifty. Who wouldn't want to run around with clowns, elephants, stilted people, and bearded ladies all day? Also, imagine the stunned and disbelieving looks on people's faces after a conversation such as this:

Stranger: "What do you do for a living?"

Me: "Oh, you know, I'm a mime at the circus."

Stranger: [insert priceless facial expression while trying to find something nice to say that isn't awkward here]

If I were in a circus, I would be either trapeze artist or a mime. Trapeze people are totally hardcore. They pretty much spend their lives flying about over other people's heads and doing insane, death-defying things that their audiences cheer for, AND they get paid for having fun! No one else can jump through flaming hoops, dragging another person without some sort of legal action following. It's one of the best gigs I've ever heard of!

On to the subject of mimes: mimes are great. Perhaps my introversion finds something sort of peaceful about a person entertaining people with silence. Talk about Jedi mind-control powers! I think mime jokes are really just acts of jealousy, since it takes an uncontrollable amount of coolness to be one. Don't despair, mimes, your pain has not gone unnoticed!

Also, people who picket circuses make me angry (as a side note). Do they really have nothing better to do than stand around and pick apart an institution invented for the enjoyment of children? I could understand picketing a circus in the 1800s when animal rights weren't really an issue that crossed anyone's mind, but in 201l, I don't think circus-haters have all that much to be concerned about. A person can hardly even take his or her own dog on a merry afternoon walk without enraging some maniac about the dog having feelings, and the inhumanity of collars and leashes...blahblahblah. When human trafficking, clean water, education in third world countries, starvation, child armies, deforestation, and genocide are no longer issues, I may begin to care a little bit more about whether elephants prefer to sleep on down-feather pillows or hay. I love animals and care about how humans treat them, I just don't think circuses in America should be a pressing issue on our consciences. If you do picket circuses, however, don't picket on April Fools Day. This happened near my school and I was confused for the rest of the day about whether the protest was all an elaborate joke that I was missing, or if it was actually a serious event. Dates are important, people.

Well, I hope this has been enlightening for you.

Share a secret, if you want, or tell me what you think about circuses, mimes, and/or trapeze artists.

80 Prompts: 1. Name something that you lost or gave away that can never be replaced

I stumbled upon this journal writing prompt site the other day and I decided to give it a shot blog-style! Woohoo!

Here goes:

Name something that you lost or gave away that can never be replaced:

As funny as it may seem, this item would be a little rubber rat that I had in kindergarten. The story behind the rat goes like this:

When I was a little kid, my paternal grandparents lived in the same town as my family, so my brothers and I were over at their place on a near-daily basis. My grandpa was something of a prankster (to put it mildly). One of his greatest joys in life was teasing my grandma through various practical jokes. One day, he hid a little rubber rat in a house plant in their kitchen, hoping that my grandma would find it and that he would have the unparalleled pleasure of hearing her scream.

As luck would have it, I was vising my grandparents that particular afternoon. While I was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating frozen orange juice cake with my grandma, I noticed the little rat in kitchen plant. I pulled it out and showed it to my grandma. She was a little surprised by it, but I'm sure years of living with my grandpa had sort of dulled the shock of finding such little treasures about the house. We decided that the little rat should stay in the kitchen and that the house plant would be his home.

When my grandma died a few months later, I took the rat home with me; I'm not really sure what happened to it beyond that. It may very well have been confiscated by my parents, since I had the unfortunate habit of bringing the rat to school with me (it sort of scared the other children), but I can't really recall that happening. Now it's just one of those weird, childhood memories that pops up every now and then. So, yeah, an irreplaceable rubber rat.

So...what irreplaceable thing have you lost or given away?