Well, anyone who looked in the Joys and Sorrows thread saw that I was stressing over a statewide competition I competed in Saturday.

My Boomilever that failed early (Only holding 2/3 of the maximum weight...) actually ended up placing 6th out of like, 40+ teams. (The team count may even be in the 50's. I won't know for at least a day how many teams there actually were.)

I don't know if I should be ecstatic it did so well with such an utter failure, or depressed because I built one that may have won the entire event but ended up failing even AFTER I tested it and it should have held.

Other than that I can't complain. Had a pretty uneventful day today. Unless getting a new pair of boots counts as something exciting.

I wrote half a paper yesterday before realizing my chosen topic was awful and changing it and writing an entire paper from scratch today. so my Saturday was completely wasted.

Yep! I've been doing good cutting down!

*bans Zukio*

DANG IT!

Eh, my weekend was mostly boring, work Saturday night and my Mum's birthday was on Sunday. We were going to go out to dinner but she had a lot of work to do before today so we had to cancel. I mostly just feel bad for her, you should be able to have fun on your birthday, especially when it falls on a weekend.

Wow, sorry for your mom Nyaliva

Now, on another note, we're almost at the end, whats the next thread going to be called.

Why?!

Is it because I insulted McDonald's milk shakes?

Yes that's exactly why. You fiend.Are y'all at least going to reschedule?

I would say that being a moderator you have gone mad with power. But, that is assuming you were sane before you became one.

"Fiend"? You can do better than that!

Ask question, JeffCvt will be lazy and simply quote answer instead of actually telling you.

Hey guys, I found JeffCvt!

On an unrelated note, this guy in a red-and-white striped sweater is hiding behind my waste basket. I don't think he knows I can see him.

Darn it!

*Sneaks out of UnChance's house*

I knew I should have hidden in the closet instead of behind the waste basket.

Aww you guys are sweet!
Yeah, we'll hopefully go out sometime soon after she's finished the stuff she's working on at the moment.

Or you could hold a drawer between you.

Ackkk my back! Never do any strenuous yard work or exercise without stretching and proper hydration. My back muscle feels like a bunch of over stretched rubberbands.

He was just there to check the electricity meters! D:

Well, we aren't on the 87th one yet. But we are about to hit Chat Thread 40, that's a pretty major milestone. Maybe we should throw a party or something.

But every chat thread is already a party.

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A mega party then?

"Pinkie Pie loves combo parties! I’ll have her bring the Doozy Party Cannon and everything, and there can be games and food and dancing and fireworks and all sorts of fun stuff like that!"

We're almost halfway there!

And livin' on a prayer.

Am I invited? I just haven't been here for a while, because I'm busy with school. And I miss you guys. I would feel left out if you guys forget me...

We couldn't forget you TC!

A busy life's a wasted life
if no room's left for friends,
And only friends who cannot wait
need make any amends!

You're on the VIP list, TC!

He is on EVERY VIP list, unlike Sleet. Because (s)he is not fluffy enough

So I have a question guys:


This is a small piece of a fic I'm reviewing for someone on FimFiction.

The question I'd like to ask is should I separate his speech from the rest of this text by starting another paragraph, or leave it the way it is?

I'm not sure if there is some rule for this. I know about starting a paragraph every time someone someone new starts talking, but I'm not sure about this situation. It just feels like I should start a new one, but I'm not sure. (I honestly feel that there is no right or wrong here, just whatever the writer prefers.)

No, Jeff, keep it like that. That's a standard for conversation in writing. Seperating it would cause a reader confusion between who is actually speaking.

As a general rule, you really only need to break paragraphs for a new speaker or if the current character is going on a HUGE rant. You would specify him still talking by only providing an "end set" of quotaion marks at the very END of his huge rant.

Example:
"rant rant rant rant

Rant rant rant

More rant rant rant end rant."

Alright Beagle, thanks for letting me know. That's something I've wondered about for a while, and now I finally have an answer.

But I should correct you on a really long rant that the same person keeps speaking. It would actually be:

"rant rant rant rant

"Rant rant rant

"More rant rant rant end rant."

When starting another paragraph that the same character is still speaking, you open another quotation mark to show that they are still talking, even though you never closed the other one. That's actually something I didn't know until about a year ago.

Heh.

CT 40: Livin' On A Prayer.

nope, 40 has already been decided

Hm. Well, I guess that's what happens when you do don't check up that often anymore.

Classy lady, that's a mistake.

I agree.

Sleet is plenty fluffy, just like all Foxes.

*Throws bucket of water*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DFAQBYeELM

Not any more!

Don't think so.

*Hairdryer*

Now Sleet is extra fluffy.

Ah, yeah, true. I haven't read a good book in a while, which is how I reinforce my rules of grammar and writing style.

Heh, yeah I'm having to do that now, trying to reverse engineer grammatical rules from what I'm reading to help with how I'm writing. So far it's working out...?
It's amazing how much you don't realise until you have to imitate it.

Yeah, that whole "children who read more are better writers"? It's true. Our brains subconsciously register sentence structure and grammar as we're exposed to reading material, a lot like how we actively learn vocabulary when we're little kids or college students reading horrible textbooks. We learn when we're exposed to the content, and the more you're exposed to it, the better chances you'll have of learning it.

I used to read a ton as a kid. My aunt used to work at a bookstore, and lemme tell ya, I had plenty of children's books around as she basically bought me five books every week or two. And when I was in the second grade, it was clear that I had an awesome vocabulary and excellent reading skills, but my grammar sucked as we started doing more and more writing assignments.

And then, one day when I was seven, my mom basically forced me to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, as she heard all of my childhood friends talking about it. And then I found out that there were books beyond the first two movies. And at the age of 7, I was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It took an actual book, not a picture book, to expose me to some real application of writing. Needless to say, my grades got better!

That's cool, you saw a physical change in your ability to write by exposing yourself to better material! Very few schools of thought can boast such quick improvement in the people who study them.

See, I think maths is the same but different. Teachers think a greater exposure to the material will yield a better understanding but it's not the sums they should be exposing kids to, it's the logic behind them. I think I can safely say the whole reason I'm any good at maths is that I did puzzles and brainteasers in my spare time that required logic to solve them and as a result I came to understand not what to think when presented a maths problem, but how to think and that's the exposure most kids miss and so, to paraphrase you Beagle, they never move beyond picture books and so their understanding never improves.

Tutoring a 13 year old kid who's been home-schooled has shown me what little logic kids are taught as part of their maths, they just get taught material and teachers expect the kids to simply pick up the logic by exposing them to more sums.