Hello, France. Nice to Meet You Too?

Is it strange that I check my blog stats every few weeks despite the undeniable fact that I do not post regularly?

I don't think so. Imagine my surprise then to see 368 visits from somewhere in France. This would be an adequate picture of my face.

Courtesy ifbyyes.wordpress.com

Yes, when I'm intrigued, I look like Joey from Friends. I also share his sentiment about sharing food. I don't do it.

Now, as for the strangely large number of French visitor(s), I'm left with these questions: Are you one person or are you many? I'm assuming here that a) you (the visitor/visitors from France) are actually real and not some fluke of the Internet and b) you are reading this and can answer me. Preferably in English. I understand the gist of some French, but if you (or anyone, really) started speaking to me in French, you or they would see that Joey face followed by a grin and my Spanish reply of "No comprendo francés."

So, here we are. Or here I am, staring awkwardly at this page and Joey's face wondering what to type next. Perhaps a status update on my thesis prospectus? Yes? No? Okay. Yes it is!

Update:
My mentor thinks my prospectus is very well-written; however, I used "however" too much. And will likely continue that pattern indefinitely because I could not write that sentence without using it. My fingers just wouldn't let me. As for the prospectus itself, my mentor believes I will soon be ready to defend it, and once that is checked off the list, I can actually finish the thesis in question and in short order defend it as well. Right now I'm focusing on the offense part of my game--actually getting the things written. Defense is something for Future Me to worry about. In a few months.

Until next time...

OH WOW! 90 Neighbors!

Isn't it pretty?
This blog is my own version of Tara.
Thankfully, I don't have a war to worry about.

I always have this moment when I look at the Neighbors area of my blog and I think to myself, "Those people are either super awesome or lost." And then I laugh and promise that I'm going to do my best to keep y'all entertained and one day to do something SUPER DUPER FUN.

Like hold a blog contest. Ninety is such a big number. It's almost one hundred. I can't believe ninety people want to follow this little ole bloggy blog. It's mind-boggling. Or...mind-bloggling. Oh boy. I've had too many Starbursts today.

Are y'all sure y'all aren't crazy? (Asked the crazy girl.)

Here's the proposition: we get 10 more new neighbors and I'll have a contest with PRIZES!

Does that sound copacetic? I know I like the idea. I've been itching to have a contest for a while now. I have so much fun entering other people's contests that I can't help but imagine how much more fun it will be to host my own. *stares into the future*

Yep. I see fun in our futures. Fun and prizes and whatever else I can think of to add to the overall FUN. For some reason, I've been using lots of all-caps lately. I dunno why. It's an emphasis thing I guess.

Alright, now that we all have our missions (y'all's is to round up 10 more souls), I'm going to start the plotting for this event. I'll have to create a snappy name for it and everything...this is going to be great.

First ever game for USA Jaguars in 2009.
This is from the student section.
It was darn hot that day.

Once we number 100, this thing will happen and happen big. If you've never been to a football game in the South, there is no way I can describe the atmosphere in my head right now. IT'S BLOG GAME DAY! BRING IT!

Commence yaying! (That's for you, Kills.)

OH! And I want to give a huge shout-out to those readers who happen across this place from other countries. Y'all are great! Latvia, Malaysia, South Korea (Hey, Jim!), the United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, Canada, the Netherlands, Romania, Germany, and everywhere else!

It's so nice to have neighbors from other places. I'm simply astounded at the diversity of Over Yonder's viewership. And diversity makes me happy!

Until next time...

I've Lost Your Comments!

I'm so sorry anyone who's ever commented on here! I just switched over to Disqus so I could actually comment back to each of you individually, but alas! Your comments were lost to the world as a result! I still have them in my archives, so if I ever get lonely I can go back and read what you've all said...

But I'm not sure if I can get them to come back. :( Y'all wouldn't mind going back and re-commenting? No? Oh well, it was worth a shot. I don't blame y'all one bit! 

Anyway, I just felt like I had to explain why there are NO COMMENTS on any of my posts anymore. It's really sad. Forgive me?

I still love every single one of you for each and every comment tossed my way! You're lovely, dear people.

Each comment is like being hugged. Or in the case of this tiny kitten, being licked by a giant tongue.

Thank you all sincerely for all of the hug-licks via comments.

Wow. That image keeps getting funnier and funnier.

I wonder if the kitten grew up thinking it was a German Shepherd?

Interesting...

Kitten: "Mom, how come people don't run from me when I bark at them?"

Dog: "Honey, you're a cat. You can't bark."

Kitten: "Whaaaaat? LIES!" *hisses and spits*

Hey Y'all. How's it Going?

I missed RTW and the Friday Fives post this week. I feel lost. I need to make up for it somehow, but the only thing I can think of is to write this. So...yeah.

I was being all monitory today and took a gander at my stats for the ole bloggy blog, and somehow, some enterprising individual found me through searching "aragorn return of the king." It made my heart all warm while making my head spin.

How in the world did they find me using that search criteria? I'm not complaining, since I find it extremely flattering that I could be connected to Tolkien in any way, no matter how minuscule, but still. It's a puzzle. And I don't like leaving puzzles unsolved. It makes me itchy.

However, due to the fact that I don't have much time to invest in ferreting out the answer (if there is one), I'm going to have to be content with not knowing. No matter how much it irks me.

I'm off to read The Scorpio Races in hopes of finishing it today so I can focus on those research papers sitting menacingly in both corners of my mind.

*looks askance at papers* *papers crack knuckles*

Yep. I'm going to have so much fun this coming week. Someone shoot me now.

I'm Not Myself, But Don't Worry

I've made a change, folks. I hope it's for the better, but sometimes my whims don't have the same effect I had planned them to have. What did I do?

I am now going by the name Bailey @OverYonderLit. So that's how it will look from now on whenever I leave a comment on here or on something else, somewhere else, and when I post. Hopefully.This way I will be able to separate my school life, blog life, and work life. It also means I will have four email accounts to keep track of, but I'm trying to figure out a way to make that even easier. It's a WIP.

Anyway, I did this because I was tired of people somehow finding my old blog from EDM310 and leaving comments on it. This blog was getting jealous, so I made a NEW Google and Blogger profile to keep this from happening.

At least, that's the plan. Now whenever people click on my name to stalk me and my blogs, Over Yonder... will be the only one to show up! Haha! Take that phantom stalkers! No more commenting on my projects from last semester or watching YouTube videos of me talking about my teaching pedagogy. Just me and you and whatever is on my mind right here, right now, on this blog. Welcome to the new Over Yonder...

However, this entire process has taken much longer than I thought it would. Why?

Well, it's not easy transferring blog follows to an ENTIRELY NEW Blogger profile. Until today, I had no idea how many blogs I was following. It took me an hour to copy and paste all of the URLs. An hour. You people that I follow should be so honored, because I didn't give up once. Not even when I reached the N's and despaired of ever finishing the process. No. I kept going all the way to the W's. And boy, there are a lot of W's.

Now that that is all done, I've come to announce that I'm not myself anymore, but I'm still me. If that makes sense. So don't worry about me, or the blog, or your blogs, or my comments, or your comments, or my responses to your comments, because it's really just me using a different name. I think.

I Smell Roses

This is what my mornings look like.
Scary, I know. You get used to it after a while.
Mostly.

Good day, world of the blog variety! I woke up this morning, as I usually do, and thought to myself, "I sure hope I don't get hit by a car today." And what do you know, I didn't! Instead, I found a notification in my email stating that this little blog had won another award! That's practically the opposite of getting hit by a car in my opinion.

So, with all of that in mind, I've determined that although I may have a test on Shakespeare's tragedies today that I haven't studied nearly enough for, a writing workshop to teach this evening, and a zombie-filled event to attend that will make me miss watching a new episode of Psych tonight, today is going to be a good day.

Couple all of that with the fact that the weather has finally become less hot and humid and more fall-like, and you have one happy girl with a cup of hot coffee in her hand.

As for the award, it is called One Lovely Blog Award, and the wonderful Eve over at Clueless Eve has so graciously awarded it to me. How nice of her. The award is lovely in its own right, I think. I just love pretty things, especially when they're given to me. Even more so when they're edible, but alas, this one is not. That's okay, I can deal.

Now, there are some conditions applying to the awardee of this award (what a mouthful) and here they are:
1. Thank and link to the person awarding the award to the awardee. (I take it back, this is a mouthful.)
2. Choose fifteen other blogs that you've recently discovered to share in the loveliness of the award. Spectacular.

Well, I've already linked to Eve earlier in the post, so all I have left is to thank her. (I've already done it in a comment on her blog.)
"THANK YOU, EVE! You contributed to making my day wonderful!"

All of that was easy, but here comes the difficult part: choosing the other recipients. I hate making decisions almost as much as I hate the idea of being hit by a car or a bus. But I have to make some choices this morning, so here they are:

1. Colin D. Smith
2. Sioux's Page (which I just found this morning due to the sharing of the previous award, see this post)
3. Daily Dodo
4. Fantasy Nibbles
5. StupidGirl over at generationwhynot (she's not really stupid, just funny)
6. TeenShiver
7. K.M. Weiland over at Word Play: Helping Writers Become Authors
8. Write Escape
9. Write-or-Die
10. Suspense Author Jeremy Bates
11. Mireyah Wolfe
12. Donna's Book Pub
13. DAILY DRAMA OF AN ASPIRING WRITER (yes, she uses all caps)
14. Bookworm Castle (found this blog this morning thanks to the Halloween Hop going on over at Jeremy Bate's blog)
15. A Daft Scots Lass, a.k.a. Gillian Hefer

There you go! All done and it's only taken me a whole hour to do it! Now I just gotta go back to all of those blogs and tell them that I gave them a rosy award...yay.

Until next time...have a great day!

I'd Like to Thank the Academy for This Award

Well, this was quite possibly the best way to start off a week. My first blog award! Colin D. Smith, over there, gave it to me and now I get to participate in the sharing of the 7x7 Link Award! I'm super duper excited! Here are the details: any recipients will provide seven links to the blog posts of their choice, according to the categories to follow, and then will choose three lucky bloggers to also have the award. It's never going to end, I can tell. I like to think of it as one of those giant chain letters in blog form.



Anyway, without further ado, I give you my choices. *drum roll*
Thank you.

Most Beautiful
I'm allowing myself this one instance of vanity, so please bear with me. On Being a Writer. I don't necessarily believe the prose of this post is the most "beautiful" but the message is one that I find to be worthy of that title.

Most Helpful
During the horrible weather last spring, I donated my services to some online auctions being run by fellow bloggers to raise money for those affected by the tornadoes. Another Chance for a Portrait and to Help a Whole Town! is my second of such instances of aid. I helped the best way I knew how.

Most Popular
The most popular post (that wasn't a part of the blogfest) is one of the Road Trip Wednesdays from YA Highway. It's actually last week's, RTW: Path Less Traveled, and I feel like it might be one of my favorites simply because of the wonderful, supportive comments I received. I was so amazed and I feel blessed to have such sweet friends in this virtual space.

Most Controversial
I'm not sure if it's controversial, but the topic could lead to some controversy, especially where some parents are concerned. Thank You, LZ Granderson. You're My Hero.

Most Successful
This has got to be the Pay It Forward Blogfest post. I've met so many new people and found tons of new blogs to follow, and it's all thanks to this. I hope that the blogs I linked to are having as much success as I am witnessing for myself.

Most Underrated
I know I'm not that bad of a poet, guys. Sappy Sunday just never got that many page views. Must have been a slow week or something.

Most Prideworthy
It's Official, I Now Know How to Work the Library. Ahhh, I remember that day. It was such a great moment. I was a little embarrassed to ask for help, but I could look back and laugh the next day and even now. Good times...

Now that I've sufficiently plugged myself seven times, let's get down to the awarding business! It's so hard to decide who to give the award to...decisions, decisions.

1) Pro(B)logue I know, I know, I already listed her on the PIF post, but technically she wasn't supposed to be included in that list and was just an honorable mention. This time though, I'm linking to her FOR REAL. And also giving her this lovely 7x7 Link Award. *pats award* Good award. Be nice to SilentPages. She's nice to me.

2) Unbagging the Cats. This wonderful lady is so hilarious, that I can't help but want to see what posts she chooses for each of these categories. Seriously. She's super funny. I found her blog via the PIF fest, so hats off to it!

3) Last but definitely not least, Lindsay Writes. I met this lovely gal through one of the online auctions that I mentioned above and I'm currently working on a portrait for one of her characters. It's slowly but surely coming along to being finished. I haven't had as much time as I anticipated I would to work on it. Lindsay is a young adult author and she's awesome. That's all you really need to know, but if you hop on over to her blog, you're going to see what I mean.

Well, that's all folks! Go check out these posts and these other bloggers, and thanks for stopping by!

Oh yeah, and here's a kitteh.

I love me some Monty Python and the Holy Grail humor. Simply love it.

Pay It Forward Blog Fest Fun

So, there's this awesome thing *points at picture* going on this weekend (over here) and I saw it and said to myself, "Bailey, this is a great thing. You need to join and spread news of bloggers and their bloggy blogs all OVER the Interwebs. It's your destiny."

And now I have blog post number two for today. I'm on a ROLL. What is this, like number four for blog posts this week? Wow. I'm pretty sure that's a record for me. I wonder what that means for the world. I'm scared to actually ask.

Anyway, if you are a follower of Moi, please check out these awesome followers of mine and fellow bloggers. They deserve it and since I'm repping them, it must mean they're awesome. Which they are.

Group Blog
Scratchlings is a new blog put together by a couple of the cutest little writers ever! (Not to say that they are in any way  little, but since I have the "big dog complex" I consider anyone younger than me by at least one year to therefore be smaller than me. I know. I have issues.) They all hail from the Young Writer's Society, so of course they use their user names as pseudonyms. It's cute. They're pretty much the most knowledgeable bunch of teenage writers ever. I'm not even joking. They will awe you.
Also, the Pro(B)logue, which is run by SilentPages, who is also a contributor to Scratchlings. I know this is cheating, but she deserves a shout-out too.

This is my blog anyway. I can list more than three blogs. Muahahaha! Power is mine! Ahem.

Actual young adult YA Blogger
Kelsey Sutton is one of my dear, dear writer buddies, and I love her with all my heart. Right now she's on submission for the second time *fingers crossed folks* and I'm praying her book sells, because I know it's awesomesauce with spectacularchips on top. So stalk her. I do.

Adult(ish) Blogger
Another of my dearest of dear writer buddies, affectionately known as Tiger, is milady Tanya. She's Canadian and I'm Southern, so we get along great. She the Yin to my Yang, the salt to my pepper, the sour to my sweet, and every other kind of pair that you or I could think of. In short: she's wonderfully lovely. Also, she's very pregnant and I can't wait until she pops little Liam out so I can see what he looks like via Skype. I just feel so proud.

Completely Adult Blogger
Colin D. Smith is a guy that has a family and once lived in England where he rode a bike. His blog is quite interesting, with snippets about history and theology, and he comments quite often on my blog, so I always feel welcome whenever I traipse on over to his blog and leave a note on random posts of his. It's fun. Anyway, he mentioned me in his Pay It Forward post, so I've just came back here to add him! This blogfest is already working! Awesome!


Okay. Get to blog hopping! I wanna see some page counts go UP!

I Love Potentially Winning Things

Image via WikipediaOf my many activities involving the World Wide Web, my favorite has to be blogging and blog lurking. I'm a Blurker. That's the new term I created for my current state of existence.

Anyway, while blurking around I tend to find wonderful things like ideas, new people to blurk on, new blogs, funny stuff, and of course, CONTESTS! No blurking session would be complete without my entering another contest and having the potential to win some free STUFF. Who doesn't love free stuff? I do! (Love free stuff, that is.)

The contest I found today is from the blog Slice of the Blog Pie and it's a great blog that I will plan on following (blurker style!) from this point forward. To get to the point: there's a contest and I'm entering it.

Wish me luck! Oh and my roomie has just popped popcorn and turned off the lights on her side of the room so I think she wants me to stop giggling at what I find when I'm blurking. Shoot. It's time for my second infusion of coffee anyway.

Until next time...have fun you bunch of blurkers!