Kaymyth

Well, then. I haven't been officially informed as of yet, but given that the meeting minutes from last week make mention of me being "chair in training" for 2018, I think there's a pretty good chance that the board voted in favor of me chairing ConQuesT in 2019.

Or instead you could go to a convention, where you could then take the opportunity to play Magic: the Gathering with him.

I am home! I am le tired. It was quite a weekend.

Airbnb is weird, y'all. I am sitting in a stranger's house right now, in a strange room, and I feel perfectly secure. Just in someone else's house, with her and her daughter here, and another person staying in the next room. I crocheted my hostess a kiwi bird (cause she works for a NZ trade office and she used to live in NZ) because I have no idea what proper Airbnb etiquette is so I made something. Kiwi bird is adorable and rather muppetlike. Maybe I'm the one that's weird.

It's like they know you.

I'm sorry. I must have misremembered your age. Not because of looks, but because I'm a moron. And actually, yes, your appearance is totally going to change. There's a big difference that kicks in sometime in the early twenties that takes you from "looks like a teenager" to "looks like a grownup". (Also, I look a decade younger than I am. Always have since I hit adulthood. People still thought I was in high school when I was 25. It gets better. It just takes for rusting ever to get through the younger years and to an age where being mistaken for being ten years younger becomes a blessing.) I swear, you need to binge-watch Veronica Mars. Kristen Bell as Veronica is the perfect example of being tiny and adorable and terrifying as hell. It's not about your looks. It's never really about your looks. It's about attitude and whether or not the people you're angry at believe that you are capable of utterly destroying them.

It is what it is. (Might not be all bad. The ponified folks were prominent enough for a while that the Shard picked up a reputation for being "that Sanderson fansite where everyone is super into MLP for some reason. It kind of weirded some people out.) The end of an era! ....uh-oh. The site that @Nashan'Elin linked is the one that I've always used.

I just realized... I think I am the last active Sharder with a pony avatar. I mean, @traceria still has one, but I haven't seen her around in forever...

A regular job feeds your belly and keeps a roof over your head. Art feeds your soul. You need it, and the world needs your art. I confess, I wouldn't mind having another few inches myself, but your height isn't necessarily the deciding factor in how you're treated. Be vibrant and fierce, and people will perceive you as being taller than you are. Remember that you're only sixteen. I was a hot mess when I was sixteen; the most socially awkward daydreamer who got bullied constantly. Hell, when I was a senior, I had sophomores picking on me. It was that bad. It's rusting embarassing, really. Who you are now is just germinating the seeds of who you will become. You are awesome. Hang in there, make it out of high school. When you hit college, take full advantage of the campus health system and get a counselor to help you work through stuff. Don't do what I did and flounder through on your own and take a decade-and-a-half to realize how awesome you are.

I also have seen pictures of you. You are pretty. Here's the simple truth - we all tend to look at our own images and see only the flaws. We're not used to seeing ourselves and we're our own worst critics. I look at my reflection in the mirror and grimace at the pudge, the plain lines of my face, the scar on the bridge of my nose. The face that I'm looking out of every day is a strange thing to me, because I cannot see it most of the time. James looks at me and sees the woman he loves. I can be sitting there in PJs, no makeup, and feeling in desperate need of a shower, and he will look me in the eye and tell me that I'm beautiful. And he means it (the weirdo). Because he sees me every day and is used to that face being part of a person, not a random image that blinks back at him in the mirror now and then. As for the height - pfff, you're only 3 inches shorter than I am. That's negligible. Be like Murphy from The Dresden Files - tiny but fierce. And also I have seen your art. You DO have talent. But like any talent, it takes practice to bring to turn talent into skill. Keep drawing. Keep animating. Keep doing everything, because the more you do it the better you will get at it. I mean, what's one of the things I'm know for around these parts? Costuming. But I have created costumes that came out as absolute train wrecks. I have sewn miserable failures. I just don't show them to people, because I'm not masochistic. I do, however, learn from those failures and use them to improve my skills. You're still really young; quite frankly, people who are really, really good at things at your age are extreme outliers. You have plenty of time to develop your talents into marvelous things. You are already awesome, you just have to prove it to yourself.

"I make papier-mache wombats."

Nah, the ice storm, such as it was, moved through over the weekend. We got a little bit of icing, mostly Saturday night/Sunday morning, but everything was above freezing by noon on Sunday and it hasn't dipped below since.

Changing gears a bit... I have a ton of stuff to get done in the next four days before my weekend trip. Must gather things for packing. Need warm clothes, my best walking shoes, my hothands packs, and I need to put them all together so I don't forget anything. Need to finish the crocheted kiwi bird project that's meant as a host gift for my Airbnb stay. (Yes, I know, I'm weird but I've never done Airbnb before and I tend to err heavily on the side of SuperCrazySternEtiquette when presented with new situations.) ALSO want to whip up something for the friend I'm going to be hanging out with. Which reminds me! I must also remember to take the Masquerade video from WorldCon. Friend will want to see my performance. Need to send out surveys and put together a work spreadsheet for all the tasks that need done for the Guests of Honor at ConQuesT this year. I'm missing the monthly meeting for being out of town, so I need to send in some progress. I should probably do laundry in there somewhere. Another friend is coming over tomorrow night for me to study a jacket he's having trouble with and brainstorm good fixes. Oh, and Thursday night is basically shot because there's a big work thing I have to go to that night. This is why my sense of humor is on a low ebb, y'all.

Right. The Hall-Heroult process requires electricity to function properly, which is still very, very new in the Basin. Someone's going to figure it out sooner or later, but the instant it's patented and licensed aluminum prices are going to tank and production is going to skyrocket. While I'm sure that Lurchers will have their utility in mining and prospecting, not all metallic ores are metals themselves. A lot of refining processes require some chemical separation of the metal from the rock its bound to, and I have too many questions about how "pure" a metal has to be before it becomes visible to Allomantic senses.

eh I mean, I do have my weaknesses. But this is an internet forum and not an actual Epic fight, so this whole thing is really getting quite silly.

My thought process on reading this: "Wait, going from snow to 30 degrees...but 30 degrees IS snow oh wait she means Celsius."

I think you're mixing me up with Twi. We're brain-sisters, but we're not completely interchangeable. Well, that's hardly my problem. Now, if you continue to try to use arcane mathematics on me, I might just have to exercise my mod powers and go back and edit your posts to screw up your math.

Well, if you can do all that, then certainly you're clever enough to navigate a three-dimensional sphere such that you can make it to some of Brandon's signings yourself. Cause you still ain't getting my books. I enjoy sleep. It's fun and educational!

But, see, I can generate my own eccentricity out of pure nothingness. That boring room won't stay boring for long. Besides, I'm a writer. Without stuff to read, I'll just create my own. Even if I have to write it on the beige walls in my own blood. K, seriously, need bed now. Is late.

Oversleep did. When he said he stabbed me. Besides, as an eldritch goddess of eccentricity, I am immune to stabbing, bending, folding, spindling, mutilating, dog-earing, magicking, chopping, burning, burninating, hitting, punching, kicking, elbowing, headbutting, shooting, bazookaing, getting blown up, and getting nuked.* *Disclaimer: this list is not comprehensive.

Aww. It's cute how you think that a mere stabbing can kill an exalted one such as myself. Eldritch goddesses of eccentricity are made of sterner stuff than you mere mortals can comprehend without going mad.

Well, because the forum is built on a framework. Lots of internet forums run on this same code platform; that feature must be built into the base code, and is something that webmasters can choose to activate or not.

Most books are easy to give away when you have them on Kindle. Sanderson books are...not so easy. Signed Sanderson books...well, you can have them when you pry them out of my cold, dead, and lifeless hands. (You'll get the Oxford comma first!)