h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, how are things? I see you've been quite busy improving your user page and writing new entries. Must say it looks very nice and I liked your entries - keep 'em coming. I've also been a bit busy - first my sister got married, then I got sick, then it was Christmas, then I went mountain climbing and now I'm back.

You like writing, don't you? Have you ever considered writing as a profession? As a freelance contributor to magazines and newspapers and internet sites? Or writing a few books? I think you'll be good at it.

thanks very much for the feedback! it really means a lot to me that someone out there actually took the time to visit my page!

actually, when i was little (i'm 17 now, but relatively i was little then) i wanted to be a writer. it was my life's passion... but i haven't really done all that much recently. my guide entries are really only eloquent rants... you see, if i need to get my thoughts out on something, i write an entry. it's very threapeutic.

i've always had little problems with writer's block. then again, i always used to write fiction. maybe i should do more of the non-fiction variety... an interesting idea... *grin*

thanks again... and i'm sorry you were sick! i was too... we all were.

Seventeen? You've got your whole life ahead of you! Writer's block? Only worry about it if it lasts longer than five years!!! Me, I really LOVE writing. I guess you can tell! I happen to own the current record for the longest postings here on h2g2! If only I wuz paid for it ... *sigh* ... But this place is a blast, I can't imagine a nicer web community being around. And I like writing entries, too. I'm going to swamp this place with entries soon - all kinds of weird animals. Hopefully Bigfoot as well.

Writing rants like that can be therapeutic, but your rants are also quite entertaining to read! If you try you can make them even funnier. Do people really act as silly as that? I wouldn't be much surprised, but it's still rather tragic!! But you know, the kind of frenzy you described in the bit about technical theatre more or less describes my sister's wedding as well! Of course yours truly, and Mom and Dad, were the ones behind the scenes in that instance. And luckily it was only a one-time performance ... we hope!

You're involved with the theatre right now, and it seems to me to fit right in with a career as a writer. I should say writing a play for high school or college is quite an achievable challenge. I don't know if I would want to write plays though ... it's a bit of a risk, because a play could flop in performance even though it might be great on paper, and getting a play produced and performed is more or less a requirement for getting plays published in written form. There aren't many playwrights who write plays primarily for being read rather than performed.

I must say, I think it's great that the theatre is still alive in the USA. Over here it's just about dead and buried. The SA entertainment industry isn't very healthy. Over there you have Hollywood ... whether THAT is healthy is another matter again. You're in California ... I always think of theatre as a more New York thing. Are there many theatres and plays over there, and do many people go and watch them? How's the scene in colleges, and what are the prospects after college?

By the way about that missing NYU letter - you didn't happen to mention in it that you were a Wiccan, did you?

I really hope it comes soon. Was it the only place you applied to?

I dream of being an author. I wanna write books - HUGE ones, LONG ones. Fiction and nonfiction. I will put in lots and lots of pictures to illustrate my arguments and stories and to relieve the text. What is great about writing books is that you can really get into what you want to say. You can say it at length and in detail. It's better even than conversation. I'd like to see the person willing to spend two weeks listening to me for five hours at a stretch while I talk! But it's not so hard to read a long book for such a period of time, and if it's a really great book I'm actually sad that it isn't even longer! When you read a book it feels as if you're getting into someone else's mind, seeing the world through that person's eyes. Therefore writing a book also seems to me to be the best way of sharing ideas.

And if you're a writer you are somewhat more free than when doing "regular" work for a boss. Even within the constraints of having to write stuff that ordinary slobs would enjoy reading you have a lot of room to maneuver, to be really creative and to get your points across. And if you nail just a single bestseller you have no further financial worries for life and you don't have to worry about the market any more and can write books as obscure and weird as you want. And maybe they will also sell well!

I think the way to be a good writer is to write for yourself. If you want to read a good book, write one. If there's no good book about a particular topic available at the moment, write one. Chances are that your taste is equal or better than that of the average slob so if you think the book is good, Joe/Josephine Blow will concur. The real difficulty is persuading an editor of the fact...

You may wonder why I go on and on ... trying to maintain my record in mint-fresh condition, and getting practice for my own impending writing career!

You don't hafta be a writer of course, I just think being one is neat and I would always encourage people to think about it. And you're young, if you start now you can do it. Jeez, if I could only take my own advice and write with a bit more purpose...!

See ya later!

By the way, just because I call people slobs and snobs don't mean I disrespect them! Those are just terms of endearment. People are generally either the one or the other. Nobody's perfect, and most people are mostly harmless. And as a writer I hafta be a mirror for society, so I hafta be a slob AND a snob!

lol. i fully understand.

no, actually, i didn't mention i was wiccan. i don't think. NYU isn't the only place i applied, but it's my first choice and i applied early decision, so i was SUPPOSED to have heard by now, and I'M GETTING ULCERS FROM THE WAITING!!!!! (it still hasn't come, btw...)

theatre IS largely a NY thing, after all, Broadway is there. but there IS a lot of theatrical opportunity here. in my area, there are.... four community theatres, and there are several professional ones in Los Angeles. but you're right, southern california is mostly concerned with Hollywood.

i really think you should start writing... i mean, if you can convince ME to keep trying in regards to my fiction... you never know.

Hi, sorry to hear about your deferral. It makes one feel so small and weak to be at the mercy of these vast impersonal mindless uncaring beaurocratic forces. Social institutions sucking as much as they do here in South Africa is one reason why I decided to go in an off-the-mainstream direction with my life. But at least I think the systems work better in America than they do here. I really hope you can get into NYU. I tellya, if I ever had the opportunity to study at a large and competent international university, I would leap at it!

I should have spelt it "bureaucratic".

Anyways, Melissa, don't get so upset! You are a powerful immortal soul and well beyond the ability of these small, temporary illusory social constructs to hurt or destroy!

*grin* thanks... i'm trying not to dwell on it. hey, you never know. now, i might find a school that's even BETTER for me. and i'll have a choice. i guess it's probably better this way, but i still would rather be accepted. after all, now i'm going to be stressing out in march/april, which is the same time as my spring play, which is ALWAYS a stressful time of year for me anyway. add in income taxes and my parents' inevitable short tempers.... ugh. awful. but i'll deal.

Hey, congratulations on becoming a subeditor! How did you do that, and what exactly does this mean as pertaining to your status here on h2g2, benefits and perks and so on?

well, you can go to the h2g2 subeditors' page and check that out, or you can e-mail anna to volunteer. ([email protected])

basically, the benefits are that i get to have my name put under the hallowed "editor" spot on the guide entires that i edit. and since i'm pretty sure i'm going to end up being an english teacher, this is really good practice for me. i'm still waiting for my first assignments, and i'm really looking forward to it!

oh yeah, and the best part is that i get to have that cool banner thingy on my user page!!!

A teacher, and a Wiccan - say, did you by any chance consider what your pupils might feel inclined to call you?

I used to be a teacher's accomplice! Um, not exactly, but I did help grade university exam papers.

So let me get this - you have to work, do editing and stuff, and for that you get a token title and a token token! Jeez, did these guys ever hear about MONEY? At least I got some for helping out the profs!

lol. money would be nice, but hey. it's good experience. and besides, this can go down as volunteer work on my college applications, as well as an extracurricular activity. "subeditor of web community" sounds pretty cool, if you ask me.

you know, i never did consider the names my students would call a wiccan teacher. maybe i just won't tell them i'm wiccan. but hey, at least i don't have warts! they'll never know. lol.

Yes, it does sound good to be the subeditor for a web community. I do hope this h2g2 place keeps on growing and getting better. I'm trying to do my part - I already have three entries in the Edited Guide! (boast boast boast!) And I'm writing new ones at a rapid rate. Maybe soon you'll have to edit one of my entries! Ha ha!

If you become a teacher, I just hope its in a school with a good educational philosophy and practice, with students who really want to learn and know about this thing called "discipline". These kids who don't care for discipline do not realise that it is one of the most self-empowering attitudes that it is possible to develop.

*agrees fully*

congrats on your three entries! i've got two going through peer review at the moment...

yes... i do wish that more young people knew that school is actually important. it breaks my heart to see one of my best friends going to a community college for the sole reason that she's too lazy to fill out college applications. i was pretty pissed at her for a while, but then i realized that it's her life, and she can waste it if she wants to. i blame her no-good college-dropout boyfriend who is three years older than she is, and has been out of high school for three years. let's not start THAT rant.

i love h2g2! i think it's one of the greatest ideas anyone ever had. i mean, where else do you get people from around the world getting together to contribute their views on everything into one big... Hitchhiker's Guide! lol.

Yes, I think it's great. You also seem to be quite energetically involved over here - but why do you waste so much time on those CHOPPERS goofs - I mean, those guys are so lame that they need the villains to act ultra stupid and incompetent so as to make them look good!

You know, I wish I could change the heading of this forum! I wanted to render "very nice" into a thick South African accent but the more I think about it the more I'm sure that the best way to write it would be "vary noise". But that might have been confusing!

My own name is throroughly unpronounceable in English. But to give you an idea, Transvaal pronounced in a Transvaal accent is pronounced "Trawnsfawl". Especially dumb blondes talk like that nowadays - it's getting worse than ever!

why do i spend time fighting with CHOPPERS? i don't know. it's almost fun. and i get to be thoroughly evil, which is something that is frowned upon IRL. and i really enjoy roleplay. i just wish they would let us win a few tiny unimportant battles every now and then. it's no fun to be a villain knowing that there's not a chance in heck of you coming CLOSE to winning. especially when they ruin our plans in one post. (that's been bugging me lately)

i understood the forum heading was meant to be said in an accent, actually, i find it fascinating. my english teacher has a tape of a native south african reading "cry, the beloved country" and it's a beautiful accent. not all that much unlike that of the english, but with a slightly more musical lilt to it. i love accents- my own isn't really a california accent. it's rather odd, people always ask me if i grew up in the South (southern US, like louisiana and mississippi- in case you didn't know) but i was born and raised in southern california! there are just a few words that have the accent. it's very strange. i personally think it is because i did a lot of travelling as a child... but who knows.

Well, there are a few different kinds of English over here. There's the "highbrow" kind, like you heard on the tape, and the "lowbrow" kind like I was referring to in my last posting. If you're hanging out with a bunch of regular SA redneck slobs, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's English heavily influenced by Afrikaans. And on the other hand, if you hang out with Afrikaans slobs you'll hear loads of English words sprinkled throughout the conversation. Then there's a kind of English heavily influenced by African pronunciation, such as you are likely to hear during South African news bulletins or advertisements. The TV presenters are often trained to have a "classy" accent, which usually sounds American or British!

I think you can beat those CHOPPERS guys by totally ignoring the laws of post continuity! For instance how will they react to this:

*Sea materializes out of nowhere, blows CHOPPERS headquarters to a billion billion bits, destroys, murders, kills, eliminates, obliterates and vaporizes all of the SuperHeroes, and swings off again into the darkness leaving behind only smoking ruins, blood, bodyparts and the echoes of her maniacal laughter*

rotfl!

actually, i've considered that at times.

but if i actually did it, they'd Plan Beta me, and i don't want that. (that's the dreaded "shun" plan. eek!) so we have to fight fairly, even if they don't!

lol. THAT's a switch. the villains fight fair and follow continuity, but the heroes post one-post solutions and basically screw everything up!!! argh!

never thought i'd hear anyone say "south african redneck slobs"!!! to me, rednecks are people from arkansas and alabama, whose mothers are their aunts and sisters!!! lol!

I know about Southerners from the U.S. being called rednecks, but that's also our name for English speaking South Africans, or English speaking tourists. We have been calling the English "rednecks" since the early nineteenth century because when they first came here they were used to Britain where there isn't any sunshine at all, and within a day of coming here their necks would be burned bright red by the sun. There are still European tourists who come here and they don't yet understand we are pretty close to the equator, they walk around in their swimming trunks or bikinis all day long, and soon afterwards they get a nasty surprise ... One guy has actually burned to death as a result of falling asleep in the full sun on the beach.

Skin cancer is also a problem over here. At least two of my acquaintances have gotten skin cancer. The ozone layer is pretty ragged around here and it's getting worse by the year. When I go out hiking and the sun is too bright I cover up completely, no matter how hot it is. Not even sunblock works because the sweat washes most of it off.

I guess Americans would be smarter about the sun, because at least in southern Texas in the desert there's probably about as much sunshine as over here. Pietersburg, where I live, is only a short distance from the tropic of Capricorn. It's pretty dry and there's full sunshine on most days of the year.

It sounds to me if you want to be really evil you should join CHOPPERS!

*shudder* terrifying idea...

wow, i didn't know that the ozone layer was so bad down there. it's kind of ironic that it's bad over africa, where less people use aerosol cans than in the US... sad, really.

although i guess it kind of explains why the african tribes are so dark...

i had a chance to listen to a man from the masai tribe talk about his life, and his first visit to the US. he went to michigan in the wintertime, dressed in his tribal clothes... it was rather amusing.

and it IS pretty hot in Texas. i went to visit some of my family there one summer.... wow, was i hot!!!