changelog @ tengrrl.com: Erasing your cell phone data - Lifehacker
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Erasing your cell phone data - Lifehacker
Erasing your cell phone data - Lifehacker—given that my two years are up and I can get a new phone soon, I figured that I better save this.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: TechRhet: Tag Literacy
Line56.com: Tag Literacy—now tagging is important and all, but I'm not sure that it's a new and different literacy.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: For Win or Mac: Rip a CD as one continuous MP3 in iTunes - Lifehacker
For Win or Mac: Rip a CD as one continuous MP3 in iTunes - Lifehacker
Rip a CD as one continuous MP3 in iTunes - Lifehacker—while I am not trying to rip an opera to my iPod, this could still be quite handy, especially for some partitioned audio books that I have that always want to play out of order.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: CW2006 Presenation: Lakoff DVD
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
CW2006 Presenation: Lakoff DVD
I've watched the companion DVD to the Elephant book, How Democrats and Progressives Can Win: Solutions from George Lakoff, several times this evening—for lazy reasons, as it seemed much easier than slogging all the way through the book and I needed to feel like I was accomplishing something. The video is really to short to be very helpful. It's as if Lakoff decided to read the outline to us. Very little explanation. I was hoping for more, especially for what I paid for it. Oh well.
Still much to figure out, and I've pulled a number of books off of the shelf. At some point, I acquired The Power of Metaphor in the Age of Electronic Media by Raymond Gozzi, Jr., and apparently I need to skim through it. Ir worries me too that I don't know how Media Ecology fits into my A/B scheme. I keep running into it,and it feels as if it's just beyond what I'm doing. But it troubles me that it keeps coming up. How can I possibly work anything else into this craziness?
changelog @ tengrrl.com: In the News: Beeks reading program is a success
In the News: Beeks reading program is a success
NRVToday.com - Beeks reading program is a success—from the world of strange things from my hometown. Apparently, a bearded dragon is a lizard. While I'm sure that kissing such a lizard is harmless to the human, I do wonder what the hell that poor lizard thought.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: TechRhet: Internet Debate: Preserving User Parity
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
TechRhet: Internet Debate: Preserving User Parity
NPR : Internet Debate: Preserving User Parity—isn't it interesting that people don't care to notice that there are fundamental race/class barriers to digital access, but if the conversation is about commercial access, everyone is outraged? Well, if you define everyone their way.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: lost dna
When I notice a stray piece of hair or a jagged, torn fingernail fall to the ground, often I think that I should scoop it up, catch it from its fall and put it in my pocket. I must keep the evidence that I was there so no one can trace me. Must stay unknown and unseen. This thought of invisibility happens most often in places where anyone would expect me to be—my car, my house, my office. Maybe it's just that I don't pay attention in other spaces. Or maybe it's in those spaces that I most need to disappear to ease it all away.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: CW2006 Presentation: More Heidegger
Monday, April 24, 2006
CW2006 Presentation: More Heidegger
My knowledge of theory could be bound in nutshell, but for some reason I'm investigating Heidegger. Mostly, I think I just feel smart when I hear the sound of the word in my head. So this morning, instead of getting ready for work, I procrastinated and googled for [heidegger technology]. For no particular reason that I recall, I chose the third link: Professor Hubert Dreyfus. It turned out to be far to long to read when I was supposed to be in the shower, but I did scroll it a bit and found this (I wish there were a way to insert a named anchor in someone else's page):
In a quite different domain, in a talk at Berkeley on the difference between the modern library culture and the new information-retrieval culture, Terry Winograd notes a series of oppositions which, when organized into a chart, show the transformation of the Modern into the Postmodern along the lines that Heidegger described. Here are a few of the oppositions that Winograd found:
LIBRARY CULTURE |
INFORMATION-RETRIEVAL CULTURE |
Careful selection
a. quality of editions
b. perspicuous description to enable judgment
c. authenticity of the text |
Access to everything
a. inclusiveness of editions
b. operational training to enable coping
c. availability of texts |
Classification
a. disciplinary standards
b. stable, organized, defined by specific interests. |
Diversification
a. user friendliness
b. hypertext–following all lines of curiosity |
Permanent collections
a. preservation of a fixed text
b. browsing |
Dynamic collections
a. intertextual evolution
b. surfing the web |
It is clear from these opposed lists that more has changed than the move from control of objects to flexibility of storage and access. What is being stored and accessed is no longer a fixed body of objects with fixed identities and contents. Moreover, the user seeking the information is not a subject who desires a more complete and reliable model of the world, but a protean being ready to be opened up to ever new horizons. In short, the postmodern human being is not interested in collecting but is constituted by connecting.
Either I'm losing my mind and totally lost, or I am completely on target and have a 500-page treatise to write. The columns are backwards from my notes—Winograd has B-A, and I have A-B. The need for "control of objects" in Winograd's Library Culture parallels the Information Architecture control over agency that Marilyn Cooper identified in the CCCC session. The "protean being ready to be opened up to ever new horizons" is a more positive reading of the organic and systemic Information Ecologies. Library Culture is the "strict father," and Information-Retrieval Culture is the "nurturing parent."
As I said, I either suddenly undertand everything, or I'm totally lost and making things up.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: C&W 2006 Presentation: Conference Info
Sunday, April 23, 2006
C&W 2006 Presentation: Conference Info
Because I keep finding links and then forgetting where they are, I created C&W2006: The Unauthorized Collection, where I have linked to everything I have found for the conference. Now perhaps, I won't keep losing my links.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: C&W 2006 Presentation: the Heidegger . . .
C&W 2006 Presentation: the Heidegger . . .
I've been thinking about the Heidegger quote in my sleep it appears, and I can't help but think it's wrong or at least wrongly applied here. While I can clearly see ways that it applies to some of the items in the B column, I'm not at all sure that I can extend it to everything.
That means that I've spent the last hour digging for Heidegger. I have this shelf of theory books that I frequently think about trying to get rid of for shelf space. I can't bring myself to dumping them in the usual used books places though because there are some books there that would be very useful to a grad student. As a result, they just sit on my shelf over there, in my way. I pulled all of the anthologies off this morning, but didn't find any Heidegger essays sadly.
I checked the technorhet books, and while there are some that may help with this process, the Heidegger essay I need ("The Question Concerning Technology") was no where. So off to Amazon. $14.00 could get me The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. I just hate having to buy a whole book for one 32-page essay. :\ bleh.
So back to lazy research, and behold, I found the essay online! Okay, I know that this is some copyright violation, but I'm using it anyway. I compared it to the pages of the essay that Amazon has available online, and the transcription looks accurate. Also found an online guide to the essay which might be useful, but which at present is mostly pissing me off because of the silly, unexplained iconography.
Having not read anything, which is of course the worst time to try to guess what something means, I have this feeling, as I mentioned above, that it's not an either-or thing. If the Heidegger fits, it fits the columns in a post-structuralist both-and sort of way. I just haven't quite figured out how yet.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: C&W 2006 Presentation: Musings
Saturday, April 22, 2006
C&W 2006 Presentation: Musings
I've been sitting around trying to figure out my presentation for Computers and Writing. That means, of course, that I've been fidgeting with trying to find information on the conference online, researching this and that, and other "prewriting" activities.
Yesterday, I sadly realized that I actually have to read the Lakoff book very soon. So I've been trying to plug through it, but I'm not making much progress. Not because it's hard to read, but because I'm having a hard time figuring out how I'm going to connect something that is so firmly grounded in Republican-Democratic political ideology to my ideas about technological literacy. In my heart, I just feel like I'm going down some crazy road, where none of this really will make sense. If anyone comes to the session, they'll just wonder where I got the crack that helped me come up with these ideas.
I seem to be taking more breaks from reading than actually reading, so I've been at the computer. I posted that question about computer teaching space names on TechRhet, thinking that since Lakoff is talking about the process of naming perhaps that would be the thing that would tie the elephants to the laptops. I've been compiling the names in a spreadsheet, and the answers are, indeed, interesting. Still, I don't think that I have seen the fundamentally important difference in language use that fits Lakoff's discussion of language. Sigh.
So I decided to reread my notes from the last CCCC session that I attended: M.20: Info-Ecology, Info-Architecture: Growing and Designing Rhetoric for Critical Technography. That was about an hour and a half ago, and as I read my notes I had this sudden realization. I had -one of those moments-. An epiphany? I don't know what to call it. I don't have them often, and the most vivid one came when I was studying for my master's exam and suddenly realized how everything related to everything else. At that moment, I knew that I understood and that no further amount of studying would make any difference. You could have given me any 4 texts to relate, and I would have been able to do it.
That's that it felt like. Suddenly, I thought that I saw how everything connected and made sense—technology, architecture/ecology, elephants. My notes aren't all that complete however; so I used the lazy researcher's friend. Either I completely understand, or I am totally lost.
| |
A |
B |
| M.20 session |
information ecology, loss of agency
organic human interaction with technologies
Dickie: "we need a citizenry that understands the best way to live" |
information architecture, control of agency
human control of interaction with technologies |
| wikipedia |
Quotes
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_ecology:
"Information ecology" often is used as metaphor,
viewing the informational space as an ecosystem.
describe and analyze information
systems from a perspective that considers the distribution and abundance
of organisms,
their relationships with each other, and how they influence and are influenced
by their environment.
|
Quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture:
The practice of structuring information (knowledge or data)
for purpose
In the context of web design (or design for related media) Information Architecture is defined by the Information Architecture Institute as
- The structural design of shared information environments.
- The art and science of organizing and labeling web sites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability.
- An emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
designing the architecture around the needs and capabilities of the intended
user audience.
|
| Lakoff's explanation of national politics via the family metaphor |
nurturing parent
". . . children are born good and can be made better. The world can be
made a better place, and our job is to work on that. The parents' job
is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers
of others." (12)
Values in "a community as in a family": freedom; opportunity;
prosperity;, fairness; open, two-way communication; community-building,
service to the community, and cooperation in a community; trust; and
honesty. (13)
Types of progressives. #3 of 6, "Environmentalists think in terms
of sustainability of the earth, the sacredness of the earth, and the
protection of native peoples." (14). |
strict father
"Children [citizens] are born bad, in the sense that they want to do what
feels good, not what is right. Therefore, they have to be made good." (7)
"the strict father [government] is a moral authority who knows right from
wrong" (7).
Government takes the role of the father, knowing right from wrong, and making
decisions that reward those who are self-reliant, those "whose prosperity reveals
their discipline and hence their capacity for morality" (9). |
| Cindy's Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century |
Technological literacy "refers to the complex set of socially
and culturally situated values, practices, and skills involved in operating
linguistically within the context of electronic environments, including
reading, writing, and communicating. The transformed term, critical
technological literacy, suggests a reflective awareness of these social
and cultural phenomena." (148)
|
"The prevailing cultural
understanding of the term as simple competence with computers" (xx).
|
| K12 literacy education |
whole language instruction
"instructional philosophy which focuses on reading as an activity
best taught in a broader context of meaning. Rather than focusing on reading
as a mechanical skill, it is taught as an ongoing part of every student's
existing language and life experience. Building on language skills each
student already possesses, reading and writing are seen as a part of a
broader 'whole language' spectrum." |
phonics, NCLB, standards, testing, "scientifically-based" reading
instruction, direct instruction
picture the guided reading instruction shown in the clips where GWB is
observing a classroom read "The
Pet Goat" while the planes fly into the
WTC.
|
| tengrrl's musing |
organic, holistic |
structured, determined |
Um, that's more than enough for now. I started trying to get this explained hours
ago. It's 2 am now. But I do have to summarize somehow. I'm not trying to set
up a Good/Bad dichotomy here, especially not as it might apply to the CCCC session
on info ecologies versus info architecture. I'm trying to look at the way that
metaphors and language fall out in these discussions and to think about how the
metaphors that are chosen influence the ways that instruction and learning is
(or is not) sustained. I'm still not at all sure how that works. It's just that
I think I finally figured out how everything parallels the dichotomy that Lakoff
set forth.
I think, also, that we are close to the dangers of technological thinking
that Heidegger explains—totally via Cindy's explanation: "When humans have
a technological understanding of the world, we see technology in a very narrow
way: as a tool for solving problems, as a means to an end" (140). "As humans
adopt this 'instrumental' understanding of technology, we also begin to think
that all problems can be solved with technology and that the newest technology
is all we need to master the natural environment as well" (141). And finally,
"This way of 'enframing' the world (20) becomes dangerous when it limits
our repertoire of response to a 'single way' (32) and when our other ways of
understanding the world atrophy and disappear" (141). I think, and I really
emphasize think there, that that Heidegger might well fall into the B
column, the strict father view, with its singular focus on good and scientifically-determined
ways of doing things, without attention to other existing ways. i think...
I no longer know where any of this is going. I'm not sure how it relates in any
way to my
original C&W abstract. Hell, I'm not even sure if it makes any sense
to anyone other than me. On that one level, as I typed hours ago, it feels like
I suddenly know how everything relates to everything else. On the other, I'm
not at all sure what it means or if it's even right. It's 2:21 now. Perhaps it's
time to sleep on it.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Secrets
Sometimes, I honestly think these [ one and two] stupid postcards are me. Damn you PostSecret.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Movies: <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i>
Movies: Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Miles, am I going crazy? Don't spare me. I've got to know.
No, you're not. Even these days, it isn't as easy to go crazy as you might think. But you don't have to be losing your mind to need psychiatric help.
—Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Republic Pictures
changelog @ tengrrl.com: For Web: Scrapbooking meets blogging - Lifehacker
Friday, April 21, 2006
For Web: Scrapbooking meets blogging - Lifehacker
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Do you ever sit down to write something and find that you can't figure out anything to say that even begins to sound useful? I have been trying to write this entry for over an hour. I deleted it twice. This is at least the third try, and yet I still can't seem to figure out what I mean to say. I only know that I want to say something. Sure I could report the events of the day. I did this and that, and I didn't have the energy to do these other things.
It's almost as if my head is empty of anything other than flat statements that just seem incredibly stupid. I write them and then I delete them. It doesn't actually accomplish much in the way to writing.
I don't know why I feel compelled to write an entry right now anyway. That is a lot of the problem I am sure. I'm not even sure what I want to write about; yet I need to write something. I have things that I need to say, but somehow I can't say them or I'm not allowed to say them. I have to keep quiet. And as a result, somehow I'm stuck. Would it help if I said everything? Not really. It would only make things worse I expect.
I'm just stuck in the same little pattern. Over and over. Get up tired, go dressed, go to work, work and work and work, drive home, turn on the basement light because I need to deal with the laundry, walk up the steps into the kitchen, realize I'm too tired to clean or cook, sit in front of the computer unable to write, realize I don't really have anyone to talk to anyway, walk out to the kitchen, prepare junk to eat because I'm too tired to invest in cooking, look down the open basement door and feel guilty about the laundry, look at the kitchen and feel guilty about the dirty dishes, go back to the computer, eat and feel guilty and sick because I'm eating bad food, search the Web for diet options, stare at the computer some more, realize I'm too tired to do anything like exercise and too overwhelmed to eat the right things, randomly search around for things that I don't find, stare at the computer some more, eventually give up and go to bed, sleep restlessly, turn off the alarm clock three times because I'm too tired, start over.
Stuck. Stuck and overwhelmed by the inertia it would take to fix any of it. So I just sit here. Wishing and feeling guilty.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
In a spot of boredom, I was playing with camera settings, and figured out how to do close-ups. They appear to be more fuzzy than the already fuzzy regular versions, but I was entertained by the ability nonetheless.
The silly camera has face tracking, and I didn't realize that it was keeping me from doing close-ups and whatnot till about 15 minutes ago.
None of this is helping me solve my problems, and I think the only reason that I am posting this picture is really that it's so close that you can't really tell the details of my portly reality.
Someone said today that from the back, my hair looked like it should be in a shampoo commercial. Why can't I be a Barbie everywhere damn it?
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, April 17, 2006
Today was another day. I still don't know what I'm going to do about Lubbock, but I do know that I need to figure it out. I just feel so brainless. I want all the wrong things, and they're not even things that I have a chance of getting; but I guess that isn't really getting us anywhere.
I thought about trying to guess out what my requirements were for Lubbock. Maybe that would be more helpful than that list of to-do's that I created.
- must have a/c or will die
- need to have cold water and/or the CF diet soda (ice chest? frig? something)
- must have a bed that I can pile up properly so that I don't cough all night
I guess those are the most important things really. The rest is mostly things that I would like. The sticking points are money and location. The dorm is probably closer to the folks I would want to see, and it's cheaper. But the dorm is least likely to fit those three needs. I don't know what to do. I know that I will need more hotel rooms, since it's a 2-day drive each way. I know that it's pricey when you add up all the money. And I left out the privacy issues. Communal showers are not my thing. Really they're fairly impossible for me given how much I hate myself.
Everything that I really need points to the hotel. The things that I want point to the dorm. Hell.
I should just give up. I'm useless at conferences anyway. stupid me.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Another weekend passes. I've done some more reading of Norma Fox Mazer's What I Believe; but I still haven't quite finished it yet. I actually started it weeks ago, but put it down because it was depressing. It still is, so I'm not sure why I chose past tense there. It has no connection to what I normally read. No computer or technology connection. I had Lisa get it from the library for me because it looked like it might help with the "This I believe" sort of lesson plan that we need for the site. I knew back then that it didn't fit; but I hate to not finish a book unless there's a really very good reason.
Maybe it was the style that kept me reading the book. The School Library Journal review on Amazon does compare it Sonya Sones's What My Mother Doesn't Know (2001) and Margaret Peterson Haddix's Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey (1996), both of which I have read; so maybe it's not that strange that I'm reading it. But I wonder how much of it was the content and emotion. The protagonist, Vicki, struggles to deal with the fallout of her father's lost job and his depression, the family's related move into a small apartment, and their ongoing financial issues.
I'm not sure why I've given to read of folks with depression and other woes. Misery loves company I guess. Sometimes I wonder if there are any truly real books though. There must always be some knowledge born of the woe, some lesson learned in the process of facing so many challenges. Reality, however, can often be cruel and mean for no reason whatsoever and with no related lessons other than that the world is a harsh place. So I'm sure that no matter what the many challenges that the protagonist faces in What I Believe, things will turn out. They always turn out it seems, even when real life rarely does.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Thursday, April 13, 2006
This morning felt like a summer morning in Houghton. Almost chilly, but clearly going to get warmer. Things chirping and blooming. Lawn mowers whirring.
Can you be homesick for some place you didn't live?
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Shoulds Continued
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
So I realized that there were several things that I left out. For Lubbock, I need to know distances as well, walking distances. My messy body complicates everything.
And I'm supposed to be writing up all the blog drafts that I've saved over the last ten days or so. Lots of clippings and whatnot that I need to comment on, or have written partial comments on. I really need to get that finished before they're all irrelevant.
There's a ton of reading that I need to do as well.
Maybe that's it. It takes care of the things that I knew were missing anyway.
I continued work on a blogging overview that I'm doing for a couple of lesson plans.
My eating is all mixed up. I can't seem to find the right combination of things to eat. That pizza last night tore through my system, and then today, I stupidly ate lettuce. I seem to eat far too much of just about everything that I can eat, perhaps because at least it doesn't make me sick. My system is just a mess, and I'm puzzled. Maybe it's the soda. I have slid back into the habit of drinking soda. Maybe that's the beginning of the problem. I'm a little lost to be honest. I half think I'm going to have to reset by eating cheerios again, and then slowly add things. And the other half of me says to just eat everything and deal with the consequences when they come. Not really the best way to deal with reality. I'm just too disorganized it seems.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Shoulds
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
There comes a point where doing everything is just too blooming overwhelming. There's so much that you should be doing that you can't even figure out what all it is that you are so anxious about not getting done. So in this confused mood, I decided to go about making a list of it all. Not the work minutia. That stuff has its own special list in a circa notebook. Just some of the rest of it.
- figure out Lubbock
- research the details on the dorm—there seems to be no Internet access. Presumably there is a phone; so in theory there would be dial-up. Can I survive dial-up? Is there A/C? You don't want to see me w/o A/C. Is there an elevator? With my back and knees, there's no way I can drag things up the stairs. What would I do about cold water/soda? Is an ice chest a realistic option? Any details on the, um, facilities? I have privacy issues.
- research the details on the hotel(s), which generally amounts to many of the same questions, highlighted by the key question: Can I possibly afford this? Is all the fun stuff going to happen in the dorm, like ISU? Thus is the hotel going to be the unhip place to be?
- research the driving details—how long does this drive take again? Can I manage the vast emptiness by myself?
- work magic with my check books to try to figure out money issues.
- figure out when exactly I am going to create my presentation. And can I possibily sound intelligent? I haven't written anything but lesson plans in a very long time.
- work on my little mac (and pray) so that I can write during sessions if I do end up in Lubbock.
- write that book manuscript before I am beaten and fired.
- clean the filth that is my kitchen.
- clean up the basement.
- create two Flash interactives.
- deal with the mounds of laundry that need to be put away.
- bury the mounds of clothes that don't fit.
- figure out my eating, because right now I am a whale.
- find some way to make this burping, acid, bloaty horror stop.
- make a sign that says, 'no matter how tempting, never eat pizza or tomato sauce of any kind again.' I don't know what I was thinking, but the horror of the pizza I ate tonight wasn't worth it. Why couldn't I be ill when I eat all the wrong things so that I could turn into a Barbie?
- schedule a hair cut.
- write some EconEdLink lesson plans to pay for all this nonsense.
- get some lawn work taken care of, because it's an unpolished jungle out there.
- clean out the garage, which is also an unpolished disaster. Be sure to put new plastic on those windows too.
- figure out how to pay to get the stuff that needs painted on this house all painted.
- figure out why I'm not getting any of this stuff done.
:( One day maybe I'll have my act together. Instead, I can't seem to do anything but be overwhelmed by it all. I'm sure that i've left out dozens of things too :( I'm such a nonsensical disaster.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: For Mac: iAlertU - Lifehacker
Monday, April 10, 2006
For Mac: iAlertU - Lifehacker
Download of the Day: iAlertU - Lifehacker—for that one day when I finally manage to purchase a new Mac.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Work: Laziness
Saturday, April 08, 2006
It has been another exciting day of laziness and inactivity. I fiddled about online, but haven't really accomplished anything. I didn't even get the dishwasher loaded. I have watched a number of TiVoed movies, but nothing remarkable.
There is so much that I should be doing, but I'm not moving it appears. Partially, I just don't seem able to concentrate enough. My brain is just mushy. You'd think that I oculd wander beyond the main rooms, but I don't. I didn't even gather up the energy to go out on the front porch for the mail. I should start the laundry or do the dishes or something worthwhile. I can't even figure out what to write anymore.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Movies: <i>Gertrud</i>
|
|
“I believe in the pleasure of the flesh and the irreparable loneliness of the soul.”
—Gertrud (1965)
Palladium Films
|
changelog @ tengrrl.com: For Windows: Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks
Friday, April 07, 2006
For Windows: Useful Windows XP DOS Commands & Tricks
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Work: It's Raining
Thursday, April 06, 2006
It has been a day of rain. Almost all day long, it's been raining and raining, sometimes with thunder and lightning. On the radio this morning, the meteorologist joked, "You've heard that April showers bring May flowers? Today there will be enough rain that you could float the Mayflower." Ahh, the witty stylings of NPR.
Other than the rain, the day went fairly well. I had an update with Sharon, and got several things taken care of. I created a list of things that I needed her to help me with, and the meeting seemed like it had a structure, rather than me randomly fiddling around with my notebook. It may be a change worth keeping, especially now that Sharon is so much busier.
She and I went out to lunch at Chili's after the meeting, and naturally we continued talking about the various things that needed taken care of. After, I pulled some information from the ReadWriteThink database for her. We need to start gathering stats and details for end of the quarter and end of the year reports. I typed up feedback on the MarcoGram newsletters that MarcoPolo puts out. They're considering redesign options, so it was our chance to look through the recent issues and think of things that might help teachers. I also mocked up a search page for staff to use on the site. We're having some difficulty finding things on the site now that so much content is online.
This evening, I've mostly fiddled about. I did some work fixing Firefox extensions that were misbehaving. Also tried to research options for Computers and Writing in Lubbock. So little final information is online though that I feel like I'm guessing.
Everything feels very complicated in my life. Do I go to Lubbock? It will take at least 8 days of travel, half of it spent driving. The dorms are very cheap, but don't have Internet access as far as I can tell. The hotel looks like $85/night w/o taxes, but has free wireless. Then there's my need to sleep propped up with a bunch of pillows to keep from having acid reflux problems. And my addiction to cold water and caffeine-free soda. I'm a horribly annoying burden on humanity. Far too needy, and Lord knows I don't need to go to another conference where I spend so much time in my room alone. Will I know how to do this conference? I don't seem to know how to do CCCC anymore. I haven't been to C&W since Purdue. Surely I can remember. Of course, I wasn't perfect in West Lafayette either.
I so need a plan to my life.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Work: At Home
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
After a bout of horrible intestinal problems from 2 to 3:30 AM and again this morning after I ate something, I decided that NCTE could survive without me. I've spent the day bonding with my heating pad and occasionally checking e-mail. Rice with chicken broth has been the meal of choice.
I've been working this evening on a Writer's blog lesson plan—your basic writer's log done as blog entries. It was that or a Cliff Notes lesson plan that I was going to tie to the relevant List of Ten. Writer's blogs seemed easier, although I'm not sure yet what the interactive piece will be. Back to writing . . .
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Work: In the Dark
Monday, April 03, 2006
Okay, yes, I frequently retreat to the darkness of my bedroom; but that didn't mean that I wanted to go 15 hours without electricity. And, yes, tornados freak me out; but that didn't mean that I wanted to sleep through the tornado warning last night that sent all my colleagues to their basements and bathtubs. Somehow, last night, despite sirens and cell phone messages, I slept through the two tornado warnings and hurricane-strength straight-line winds that wreaked havoc through Champaign. I still don't know why my weather radio didn't go off. And I didn't know what was really happening until 8 this morning. I went to bed for a nap at 6 or so last night. When I woke up at 9:30, it was all over. I just didn't know any of it had happened. I came out to the living room to watch tv and fiddle about. Within about 5 minutes, the cable went out. I noticed big trucks down the street, and didn't think anything of it. I turned on a tivoed movie. Ten minutes later the power went out. It didn't come back till 12:45 today. Fortunately I have a gas stove and hot water heater. Otherwise, I would have lost my mind fully. Instead, I didn't even find out about the tornado warnings till I flipped open my cell phone at 11:15 and saw the text messages. When I go to hide in the dark, this isn't quite what I had in mind.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Daily Nonsense
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Clearly I am insane. I have things to write and do. It's 3 in the morning, and I am not in bed. No. I am searching for an infomercial to watch. Not just any infomercial either. I have gotten it into my mind, in some masochistic move, to find an infomercial about fat people. I've slept too much today really, or at least during all the wrong hours. And even though I did accomplish some things today (hello bottom of the kitchen sink. I wondered what you looked like), I feel like a waste. I just have been doing everything wrong. I can't seem to follow the rules like everyone else. I can't do what I'm supposed to do. Even though I punish myself unendingly and cry every day, I don't do anything I'm supposed to. I don't do anything that normal people would do. Even when someone tells me what s/he wants, I don't do it. I just persist in the wrong. And now I'm awake at 3 am, listening to "Dirty Little Secret" and thinking of all the ways that I am one and all my secrets and stupidity and insanity. Such an unending waste I am. It's no wonder things turn out as they do. What else could I ever expect when I look like this and act even stupider? Moron me. /me stabs her eyes out so she doesn't have to look in the mirror anymore. Dagger eyes, cutting everything, even when they're closed. Never do it right. Even though I see everyone else do it right. I can't get over the wrongs and failures. I can't get past everything, and the only option is to disappear into sleep. But it's 3 am, and I'm awake, with my mind racing on the wrongs. Stupid. Maybe tomorrow I can write all the real entries, deal with all the drafts of my life that never get finished. Meanwhile. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Posted Friday, 24-Aug-2007 17:09:18 PDT
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