mood: hopeful
Shiro's status: still hanging in there

On the writing front, revision is kicking my butt. At the same time I absolutely love the story, and I don't want to shortchange my characters. So that means I just have to gambaru*.

Re: Shiro —

On Monday, I held Shiro and cried. She was very weak, kept collapsing on her side and Hero Material and I were sure she was dying, esp. since she lost even more weight (17 grams).

The idea that Shiro might be cold and unmoving when I wake up made it very difficult for me to sleep, and Hero Material got up at 5:00 a.m. to check up on her. (He couldn't sleep well either.)

On Tuesday, Shiro ate some baby food, little chunks of her favorite nuts, grains and a little piece of dried protein treat. She also drank some water and walked better. Her eyes seem more open and alert, and we were just so grateful to have her still with us.

This morning, we weighed her. She's about 20 grams now. Hero Material held her and gave her more food. She loves the attention, I think.

I want to thank all my friends who sent Shiro good thoughts and prayers. I also want to thank generous people over at Hamster Hideout forum who gave me invaluable advice.

Thank you.

* gambaru — Japanese for “doing one's best” (at least in this context anyway)

Go, read and comment.

I'm participating so I thought I'd post the schedules & rules. :)

February 3, 2009 = Danielle Devon, Divinity in Chains
February 4, 2009 = T.A. Chase, Out of Bounds
February 5, 2009 = Rita Oberlies, The Catcher and the Lie
February 6, 2009 = Kimberly Nee, Eden's Pass
February 7, 2009 = Dawn Brown, Living Lies
February 8, 2009 = Lexi Adair, Rockstar
February 9, 2009 = Avery Beck, Sexy by Design
February 10, 2009 = Angelle Trieste, Devil Falls <— this is me writing under another name!
February 11, 2009 = Lissa Matthews, Pink Buttercream Frosting
February 12, 2009 = Denise Belinda McDonald, Second Chances
February 13, 2009 = Kelly Jamieson, Friends with Benefits

The authors will be posting an excerpt from each of the above-listed stories here. And where they stop, you will begin. You will continue writing the story as you see it, or would like to see it, up to two-hundred and fifty words. A winner will be chosen from the entries each day, and at the end, on February 14, a grand prize winner will be chosen.

mood: hopeful…!
currently working on: All the King's Women revision round 1

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the vet took some of Shiro's poo for tests on Friday. He said it'd take about three business days, so he told us to wait until Wednesday or Thursday for the result.

Meanwhile, Shiro's been very wet and uncomfortable. Also her diarrhea made her fur matted and dirty. I went out and bought a bottle of special unscented and alcohol-free shampoo for small animals for Shiro, and Hero Material and I washed her last night. She bit me hard twice. I didn't mind though. She's very sweet (and super-feisty) and doesn't usually bite, so I know she must've been extremely stressed out about getting washed with soap and water.

Hero Material and I've been also hand-feeding her. She's very picky about her food now, so we bought all kinds of stuff that a hamster might want to eat (except sweets) and chopped them up and fed them to her. She's been very good about taking those small bits of food from us, and she loves diced skinless almonds, walnut pieces, crushed peanuts, chopped carrots, corns and baby food.

Today, the vet called Hero Material. He started the conversation by asking about Shiro's health; he knows she's been losing a lot of weight. So he used a super polite form of Japanese to say, “Is Shiro still alive?”

Of course, we were happy to tell him. Shiro's one tough hamster, and she's a fighter.

The vet said that the test came back positive for parasite eggs. They're very unusual, and he doesn't know how she could've gotten them. But he said he'd prescribe some medicine to kill those nasty things in her tummy. He also wants to gather more poo samples and run extra tests to rule out other possibilities. Since there's no animal medical insurance, he said the tests and medicine would cost “too much”. Hero Material told him nothing was too good for our Shiro. (Besides, the Japanese doctors' idea of expensive is $20-30 for a visit plus medicine and $70-100 for lab tests. That's like nothing to us Americans who are used to paying hundreds of dollars just to say the word “doctor”.)

Hero Material and I are very hopeful that Shiro's going to make a full recovery. When that happens, I'm going to feed her so she doubles her weight. (She lost about half her original weight so far.)

A little haiku I wrote for Shiro yesterday:

Her life not an ounce
Small, wet white — trundling by
Brings tears to my heart

mood: slightly sleep deprived
currently reading: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Shiro's status: hanging in there; gained 2 grams :)

I can't believe Margie Lawson's Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors workshop is over. For those of you who know me well probably know that I'm not the one to get all spiritual and frou-frou, and Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors doesn't sound like something that would tempt me to sign up. You're right. It's not. But I'm glad I did. She teaches it once a year in January, and I encourage everyone to take it if they can. It's worth every penny and more.

Margie also teaches Empowering Character's Emotions (ECE) and EDITS workshops. I bought her lecture packets for ECE and EDITS, and already went through ECE and took tons of notes. Again, I encourage people to take the class. (She's teaching ECE in March.) The only reason why I decided not to sign up is because I'm planning to outline and draft a new project in March, and I honestly can't take a revision class while drafting a project. My internal editor will go crazy.

For All the King's Women 1st round of revision, I plan to do something a bit different. I'm going to revise backward.

What does that mean?

Instead of starting from the first chapter (my standard M.O.), I'm going to start from the last chapter. I tend to rush the ending, and I want to devote the most time and energy on making the ending very strong. Of course, I'll do a read-through from Chapter One to make sure everything flows correctly before sending the revised draft to my beta-readers.

I got to watch it today since it just hit the big theaters here. (Yes, the price I pay for living in Japan…!)

Quantum of Solace is a fantastic Bond flick. I loved it. I know some people complained about Bond being too dark and/or the character development relying too much on what happened in Casino Royale. But I always thought the lack of continuity and Bond's development were weaknesses rather than strengths of the franchise; there's something very callous about him not caring about all those dead Bond girls, etc. So I didn't mind that Vesper's death played a significant role in Bond's character in Quantum of Solace. As a matter of fact, I thought it deepened the movie and Bond as a character. Besides, the kind of work he does is dirty and not supposed to be light and fun. Read Fleming's novels; Bond might be a playboy, but there are other, dark sides to him too.

BTW — the theater had some technical difficulties, and the movie had to be stopped in the middle for about three minutes. For the inconvenience (for which they apologized in person four times), they gave everyone a voucher for a free movie ticket valid until April 30. We can choose any film we want. W00t! :) I think I'll save it for a reward day.