Well, a "couple of hours" sure turned into ~10 hours... but I did finish Rise of Endymion this afternoon. :) I rather liked the Hyperion series - wish that Simmons could've extended the last book to incorporate all elements referred to in the first, but oh well.

Stuff that's happened:
-went riding on Friday - rode Gambit again, though he wasn't behaving quite so well as before. Lotsa fun to go over fences with him, though. ;) It really is fun - closest thing to flying without wings (well, without severely hurting yourself by falling off a roof). Even better, Yussanne got to ride too!! :) It was so nice to be able to ride with her again - it's much more fun when friends are around. And we've talked Sandy into riding with us as well! Sandy's quite a ways past either of us, though, so I imagine she'll be way beyond us as soon as she gets her muscles back. But she'll be in our class for now. -grins-

-this weekend: read a lot of history, and played some D&D. Curse this illness, I was trying to play Lyra while going through fever and chills and developing a sore throat. I'm afraid her character development may've suffered because of that... but oh well. I'll just make up for it next time. :) And I'd damn well better get well before the week's end! I don't want to be sick for weeks on end like I was frosh year... gosh did that suck. None of that this year, no sir.

Oh yeah... I figured it might be nice to get a description of Lyra, my D&D character, up here. She's a true neutral fourth level druid, pretty traditionally minded. She's got a chaotic neutral druidic half-sister, Lacha (played by Abby), who can shape-shift to mountain lion, and boy is she a handful. Lyra's mom is dead, having been murdered by a magical assailant 6 months before, and their dad is a mad hermit wandering through the forests. Ergo, they're traveling with a motley crew of nutcases, such as Toes (the chaotic good, somewhat greedy rogue/bard of the group - Pat), Hoon (lawful neutral monk - Brian), Ethan (lawful neutral ranger - Luigi), Melvin (Lyra's old friend from home, a good sorceror with an affinity for fancy clothes and BIG floppy hats - Nate), and finally, the good-hearted Richard (lawful good member of the Queen's Guard, usually on intelligence missions from Vittonia - Mike W). It's an amusing party, especially since Richard's the only lawful good one among us... and these are usually HIS missions that we're botching. ;) At last count, I think the group had left 3-4 cities running for their skins (it's only happened once with Lyra and Lacha there, when we hightailed it out of the College, a wizard university and town).
Anyway, Lyra's easily the best healer of the group - druids tend to get stronger healing spells than sorcerors, and Lacha's only a 3rd level druid planning to expand into rogue skills. She's not too squeamish about Lacha's mountain lion appetite, and I suppose she tends to be the most 'sensible' in the party (though that'll probably change... she's loosening up as she continues to travel with them). She's still more of a small-town girl - she's 24, but had never been very far outside her village until Melvin showed up in town with his new friends. She was originally shocked by the rapidity at which the others get themselves into and out of scrapes, but she's learning to adapt and act rapidly in combat, and I think that she'll come into her own in a couple months tops.
Anyway, I think it's time to sleep... but before I go, here's a picture of her, looking awfully dressed up. Imagine her hair in braids, hide armor rather than court clothes, a quarterstaff, wooden shield, and dagger, sling and scimitar in her belt, and that's about the right image. ;)

(drawn by Eva Wilderman - check out more of her artwork at http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.epilogue.net/users/boudicca/thumb/cailinn.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/list.pl%3Fgallery%3D468&h=100&w=61&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcailinn%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG )