tengrrl’s thoughts & news on teaching writing, literacy, and literature
December 31, 2003
you may have wondered. yes, it was the pandacam. i’ve spent the last two and a half months just staring at the pandacam, exploring the nuances of panda growth. such a cute baby panda. but now it’s time to consider getting back to the non-panda things in the world.
October 12, 2003
there’s something so wrong with my world. i found the pandacam while working on a ReadWriteThink lesson plan that focuses on zoo webcams. now i just want to watch and watch, waiting for the mama to come in the room. i watch for her to snuggle the baby in between her front legs and hold it close to her. the baby looks so alone when it’s there in the room alone. so small. the room so cold and huge. right now, the mama’s sitting up and holding the baby in her arms like a child. and i’m not sure if i’d rather be the baby or the mama. but when they’re together, i wish i could be there too.
i guess, like most things in my world though, if i were there she’d scratch me to death and stomp on the ragged bits that were left. that’s so my life.
October 9, 2003
bittersweet indescreet discretion obsession confession cessation intention.
no. it’s not that. no. not at all.
it’s only absent. the long quiet road. travel without. you will know.
October 9, 2003
what does it mean that my inbox has subject lines—today, teapots, and technotes? what does anything mean actually? maybe.
September 29, 2003
spent much of the day fixing broken links. marcopolo runs linkscan on readwritethink ever other monday, so every other monday, i get to fix two weeks of damage. we had a little extra damage today because of the changes at the ncte website. since nearly every url at ncte changed, nearly every link to ncte was broken at readwritethink.
i also finished proofreading a k–2 lesson on collaborative writing and a 3–5 lesson that uses comic strips to storyboard narrative writing.
i have been exceptionally boring otherwise. did some filing and such. procrastination really. i need to write another technote. i blame sauron.
September 28, 2003
there’s been a blithering blather of blog messages on my discussion lists today. must be something in the air to make everyone suddenly have questions. since i still hate the word blog though, i don’t have to participate in the conversation unless i want to. for now, i have a few other things to manage. mostly organizing financial stuff, but also exciting weekend stuff like the laundry.
it’s been a drizzly, chilly day today. i never did get outside for a walk, well not unless you count the trip to take the garbage can from the backyard to the curb. as exciting as that trip is, i don’t think it actually counts for anything on my weekly activity chart.
i meant to get more web pages converted, but it didn’t happen. oh well. i did get other stuff done that really needed doing a bit more. and it’s before midnight and i have the dishwasher going, my lunch packed, and Harry Potter I is almost done on the tv. i may actually get to bed before the single digits arrive!
September 27, 2003
the first time i saw paris….
ok, i’ve never actually seen paris. i’ve driven through paris, kentucky and paris, texas; but neither was particularly exciting.
i’ve been ignoring my webbage today, while reading up on the exciting world of financial management (which is a snobby way to say that i spent a couple hours reading quicken documentation so that i could figure out how to do what i wanted to do).
if only it were as easy to organize life as it is to lay out a web page. even if you allow for the nonsense of browsers and platforms, it’s still boatloads easier to smack a table on a page than to figure out how on earth to file your papers so that you can find them again, let alone how to enter all your bills so that they are actually paid when you actually have money in the bank. banks are picky about wanting you to have money when you send out checks.
but enough of that nonsense. i’m tired. my body is complaining about the 4 miles that i’ve walked today. it’s a lovely, crisp autumn night. i believe that my bed will be warm and snuggly. not as warm and snuggly as it could be if {fill in this blank with the name of an excellent hunk} were there to be my snugglupagus, but it will do. besides, it’s late. maybe he’s snuck in there when i wasn’t looking. he’s bound to be sleepy and ready for bed by now too.
September 26, 2003
i’ve managed to use the dreamweaver template that i created to convert the base pages for the site. none of the subpages, like the lists of ten themselves. and i skipped the travelogues, mainly cuz i’m not sure what to do with them. they’re more journal entries than anything else. i may just convert them into archives for the changelog. i could move over those and the older changelogs to create past entries that i just hardcode links for into the blogger template. lots of the other stuff is hardcoded, so why not that too?
not sure how much i’ll get done on all this during the weekend, but at least i have a plan. i have some other things to get to—like napping, sleeping, and resting.
September 26, 2003
it’s beginning to feel as if i spend as much time fighting with mac vs. windows issues as i do actually writing anything. font sizes may be working now. but really who knows? i’m in such a state of despair that the muse of discontent settled upon me with sad rhymings.
i am so hungry i could eat a squid
and jesus is getting jiggy with the mayo
my father says i’m a very bad kid
he’s just mad cuz i won’t obey — oh!
the wheels on the bus go round and round
but the monkey in the back is screaming
he’d really like to but he can’t sit down
cuz the fish sticks can’t stop dreaming
it is so sad that things are thus:
the man right there in the greasy pants
is most certainly not Locke’s Gus
yet singingly, he does the dance
i’m just a rhinestone cowboy
oh dear puddin’ come to me
you make this life a pure joy
for jesus, the mayo, and me
i pray this woe will lift soon. it’s all a matter of discombobularity however, and no one can really know what turn bob will take next.
September 25, 2003
so i think i’ve finally managed to get all the blogger doodahs to blog out onto the page in the right font face and size. you gotta really, really, really wanna make things consistent to stick with it long enough to get things right. it’s a shame how hard it is to make a consistently professional-looking page. i mean, think about it. it doesn’t matter what word processor you use. you can get a nice looking page with any of them. even allowing for differences in printers and the paper you put in them, you get something that looks nice.
we’re in a world where html wysiwyg is more like wysiwymgoagd (wysiwy might get on a good day). maybe you have to look at all of this as a product of the competition in the browser world. but frankly, i’d rather support a browser that played nicely with the rules. the bells and whistles don’t interest me.
of course, my preference doesn’t really matter. it’s all about what everyone else uses. a page has to work for whoever may come along and want to read it. it’s about the audience, not the author. and as long as people are blocked from making personal choices by administrators and IT folks, individual preferences are going to be limited.
maybe i’m overly pessimistic. ok, i am overly pessimistic. just ask anyone who knows me. the thing is on this issue, i’d really like to be more optimistic. when i came to blogger and started playing around with the pages, i really wanted to believe that the system could work for a variety of people (and therefore, a variety of browsers and platforms). that kind of optimism just gets anyone designing for the web into trouble though. it’s a sad reality of the way the computer world works right now.