Updates and Whatnots

I finished The Silver Crown the other day. What a fun book! Really captured the setting well, without a lot of pretension and verbosity. If’n ya know what I mean. I started reading another Werewolf book I have, When Will You Rage?. It’s an anthology of short stories, so I thought it would be cool to just digest the World of Darkness in smaller pieces. However, this morning I changed my mind and perused my bookshelf for something new and different.

What I settled on was The Coming of the Horseclans by Robert Adams. It’s the first book in the Horseclans series, and I’ve heard good things about it. Good, old-fashioned post-apocalyptic swords (& sorcery?) adventure. Sounds perfect! But, with my track record of starting and not finishing novels, we’ll see how it goes.

Been wanting to work on a couple of writing projects this summer, but things have been chaotic in my head, and I can’t seem to focus on anything for very long. So, instead I have been working on smaller projects, like RPG material, and some ideas for short stories. I’m pretty sure that’s where my niche is always going to be. The longer forms of literature just intimidate me to the point of creative paralysis.

Also had a bit of wake-up call yesterday. Got an email from Sallie Mae about my student loans. Basically it was an update on my loan balance and my projected payments. Yeah. I’m definitely going to be looking for higher paying jobs. In fact, after some financial upheavals this week, I already have. Which conflicts me. I like where I work, and who I work for, if not what I do. But, it simply isn’t enough to support my family these days. Submitted a couple of applications yesterday, and am looking at what I will need to do to get into the education field.

I know a lot of people say education is not a good field to be in if you are looking at making a decent wage. However, the people who say that obviously have very different standards than I do. Right now, we do ok. And the average starting salary for most teachers in this areas is already about 25% more than what I make. So, it’s all relative. My only real concern is whether I have the temperament to be a teacher. Or if I have the confidence to stand in front of a group of students every day and try to sound like I know what I am talking about. I’m looking into ways to test that before taking the plunge into certification.

In other news, finally got to have a date night with the wife last weekend. We had a nice dinner out, and then saw X-Men: Days of Future Past. Honestly, I think it’s the best X-Movie to date. I mean, I’ve liked them all to greater or lesser extent. But this one really pulled a lot of things together, into a very cool story. Was it predictable? Of course. Were there plot holes? I dunno. I seem to never be able to spot those on first viewings, so I don’t care. But, like a good comic book movie, it was made for the fans, not the critics. And in that, I think it did pretty well. And Hugh Jackman should just change his name to Huge Jacked-man. Cuz, holy crap!

Oh, and if you haven’t seen it, but plan to, make sure to stay for the after-credits scene. If you are a fan of the X-Men comics, you will geek out. If you aren’t up to speed on X-Lore, you will most likely be at least intrigued.