Survived

It's the last week of school. I survived. Eight weeks ago I wasn't so sure I'd make it this far, now I can't believe it's gone by so fast!
Not that I'm whining about school being over or anything. I'm just amazed that I actually made it to the end. One more year to go and I will officially be out of 'the grades' and grown up. It's actually kind of scary to think about.
Oh, good news, my cold is a thing of the past, though the mysterious health problems remain and the cough hasn't skedaddled yet (I love that word, skedaddled, sounds so weird!)
Also I had a breakthrough with writing this morning. On Friday I rewrote the same chapter 3 times to no avail until I finally backtracked and thought about what I'm doing, I'm thinking about it now and going, this is going to make people HATE the Secret Keeper, but we all fall for temptation, and the Secret Keeper realizes what's really going on and flees. It's the first major character development for him in the series, it's perfectly natural for a wraith to do the easy thing, they're lazy! But it's harder for them to look back and think, whoa, that's bad, REALLY bad! Usually they're the ones causing the bad!
On Friday I watched the Fellowship of the Ring and as you can guess I was fascinated by the Nazgul. Just the way they move, and oh man! The shot they had of the standing in the Prancing Pony in front of the bed was terrifying I said to my sister, "If I saw that, I'd wet the bed! And it'd be the last thing I ever did!"
"Lame last thing to do," my sister said.
I was also completely freaked out by the way that the Nazgul surrounded the hobbits on Weathertop, how the first one just appears in the crumbling archway. Man, I realized that though I joke about them all the time, wraiths aren't that funny and I wouldn't have the courage Sam did to fight one. I'd take one good look at the Nazgul and jump off the other side of the hill screaming my brains out.
My sister and I didn't watch the whole movie, we got to the part where the Nazgul were washed away in the river (saddest part of the movie!) and it was eleven so we decided to go to sleep, but I had to pace. It's what I do to get my brain going with creative juices. I was pacing in the dark with my music and the only light was coming from nightlights in the hall (darker than the inside of a dragon's stomach otherwise, nothing quite like stumbling for the bathroom in the dark after a creepy dream!) and from a stationary exercise bike.
The bike turns itself off unless you're peddling and since I was pacing, I had no concern with peddling and I kept going until it turned off and I suddenly found myself in the dark. I was like no big deal, I'll just pace in the dark, and then I remembered how the Nazgul had just appeared on Weathertop and I thought, light is good, and turned the bike back on!
I didn't get attacked by Nazgul as I paced, (I'm sure you would've heard me screaming if I had) but it's brought me to this nice realization, my imagination is way, way, way! too active! It helps me imagine every step my characters take, but in the middle of the night when I'm listening to things go bump, it's a wonder my imagination allows me to survive at all!

Awesome prank people pulled as a Nazgul haunts a movie theater for the opening of the Lord of the Rings in movie.
Don't get between a wraith and his popcorn =)