Random Ramblings CDXXVI

IN WHICH HAPPY BOXING DAY!
I meant to post while it was still Christmas (CST) but as usual I’m late. I hope my few remaining readers had a lovely holiday! Here’s a song that’s been in my head lately.

Chuu is one of those who, according to her coworkers, really is just a ball of sunshine. Follow me past the jump.

So, I’m taking the LSAT again after being unhappy with my score from this past January. Most likely February 8th. I probably could have gotten in this year but, even assuming I had the stones to ask former professors for letters of recommendation (which I didn’t), I would have had to give up seeing two of my favorite bands in Dallas, one of which had NEVER been to America before, right at the start of term (even though it was Labor Day weekend, I still would have missed 2-3 days of class). Plus not being there to take care of my mother who had a non-vital but still necessary eye surgery in November that required me to be her pack-mule even more than I already am.

Still, spite is a powerful motivator. Like being sued by a guy I’ve never met who thinks I was practicing law without a license (which is a criminal offense so why the hell am I being sued in civil court?) and thus botched his case that I didn’t even know about until months after it was over. Just makes me want to GET that license even more.

Am I confident? Fuck no. Last year I wasn’t able to move beyond my baseline score no matter how many practice tests I took, and that was a few points below my goal.

Changing the subject, I was taking a shower last night and an idea popped into my head. I was remembering James Earl Jones’s dramatic reading of “The Raven” from the first Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror, and I realized I could structure a similar poem for Sunset Shimmer. I’d LOVE to get something out before my annual January 20th story about Mayor Mare. But of course poems take more care than prose.

Still, y’all know I’ve done this before -- I structured a Sunset×Rarity story as a series of about a dozen sonnets of Rarity pulling a Shakespeare pining over a forbidden(?) love… and then I intentionally made the last two spicier. Honestly I wish I’d gotten more appreciation for that entry because, even though it wasn’t quite “canon” to my Sunset-based universe (it was the “Romance” spin-off series that some of my readers asked for and I wanted to see if I could do a genuine shipfic), I was still proud of it since -- let’s be honest -- not many people are willing to combine “high-art” poetry with a My Little Pony spinoff. So I’m going to link to that one.

Poe wrote “The Raven” in a very specific meter: Trochaic Octameter (with internal rhyming that makes it seem like tetrameter). Sonnets are written in Iambic Pentameter -- that’s true regardless of the rhyme scheme you use.

I want to challenge myself in writing-writing before I have to spend the next three years learning legal writing, which I already know to an extent, but not enough.

As for the Mayor’s story, I may not bother to include Trump-Pony (a.k.a Orangeglow) because I just don’t care. I’ll probably just try and structure it around Republicans being horrible. Maybe school board politics? That could allow me to bring Apple Bloom in, which as y’all know she’s always been one of my favorite characters to write. Cheerilee is also fun due to her being friends with Meyer.

Oh. Oh yes. This is sounding a lot better than my original idea about the main drag being torn up for water and sewer work (which really is happening just south of my home, and represents a promise kept from 14 years ago regarding sidewalks to connect my neighborhood to downtown).

Anyway, I’m going to go back to listening to music, watching Sonic game playthroughs, and drowning my sorrows, not necessarily in that order. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it and, if I’m not able to get the poem out in time, that y’all have a very happy new year!!

Peace out.