pedablogical

I need to come up with a revised outline and schedule for the mysterious book that I never manage to get more than a few minutes to work on every 9 months. I dug out all the books and notes last week, from a bag that I carried to Virginia at Christmas. I didn’t pull them out in Virginia, and I hadn’t pulled them out here either.

So they’re pulled out, and I’ve read through them. The problem is that I’m stuck. I need to work on writing beliefs 5–11, and I’m totally unable to think of anything useful to say. Perhaps it’s partially that #5 seems to be a wider topic, but I’m not really sure. I have read and reread the text of #5, but I can’t come up with anything. It’s so bad that I’m wondering if I should dump the entire chapter. That’s annoying though given that I currently have 8 pages of single-spaced text that DO work.

I thought that I should try to freewrite, but that didn’t get me anywhere either. I don’t know how I’m going to get past this; and I feel like I have to figure out how to get past #5 if I’m going to come up with a schedule. :(

The evil #5 states, “Writing grows out of many different purposes,” and it explains that “Writing is not just one thing. It varies in form, structure, and production process according to its audience and purpose.” Now that should be easy as hell to come up with text on. My problem is that for all the others I have included either a personal anecdote about my writing experience or a story from my teaching, and I’ll be dashed if I can think of a good anecdote for #5. And I’ll be honest, as I cast forward and look at the rest of them, stories aren’t springing to mind there either.

Maybe it’s just been too long since I taught. Surely I have stories. They just don’t seem to be handy right now, and I haven’t got a clue how to summon them forth. :( Where are the dang things hiding, and what am I going to do with #5 until I figure it out?

I’ve been at work all weekend, trying to catch up/get ahead. I’m not working hard enough. Don’t ever seem to get enough done. I used to go to the office every weekend, and I guess I need to go back to that habit if I’m going to get everything done.

I need to try to get ahead because I’m going to Virginia for the 4th and won’t be back here at NCTE World until the 10th. I’m not even sure what all to haul with me to work on. I have begun the process of planning everything else though—which mainly means I’ve made a list. Okay, a bit more, I’ve figured out what book to listen to, and that brings us to the evil that is Audible.com.

Audible.com is a fine and inexpensive option for downloading audiobooks. It worked out to be cheaper than iTunes; but they made me mad yesterday and I’m not sure about forgiving them yet. I decided to look for a new Terry Pratchett book, but I didn’t really want to figure out the reading order and all that nonsense. And what wonder! Audible had Truckers, Diggers, and Wings (The Bromeliad Trilogy) as three separate downloads. Perfect! I already owned the book—I like to have the print book to refer to when I miss something or what to reread something. I thought I was set. I entered all my info to join and pay for an exciting Audible.com membership, and the site promptly told me that I was in the wrong geographical region to buy the books and dumped me out. Apparently, American are not allowed to buy audiobooks of The Bromeliad Trilogy. :(

The only reason that I’m still speaking to Audible.com is that they didn’t charge me for that little exchange. If I had paid AND been told that I couldn’t get those books which look perfectly available when you do a search on their site, someone would have been getting quite an inbox-load of invective on Monday morning.

Unfortunately, that meant that I still had to figure out the reading order and whatnot to find a Pratchett book for the trip. So I googled about, remembered that the L-Space Web had been recommended to me once before, and found there the Discworld Reading Order Guides. After looking up blurbs on the various books labeled as Starter Novels, as well as any others that caught my fancy.

I like the character Death, and seriously considered going with Mort or Thief of Time. But the plots of neither caught my interest.

I ended up going with the first three witches books (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, and Witches Abroad). I’ve done Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, which show up at the end of the witches line on the chart, and also The Amazing Maurice, which the chart claims has “minor plot links” (though I don’t know what they’d be). I liked Granny Weatherwax in what I’ve read, so I decided to gamble on her rather than Death. I won’t get through all three of them on the trip, but it’s a good 10–11 hours, and the book claim to be 8, 10.5, and 8.5 hours each.

Okay, so that’s more than I need, but things should be done in threes. Besides, I’ve already started listening to Equal Rites, though I don’t have the print copy yet, so I don’t really know how far along I am. The books have a different narrator from the Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, so I’m still trying to get used to her. I think I prefer Stephen Briggs’ Granny Weatherwax to Ms. Imrie’s; and I have no idea who is doing the Death voice on this recording, but it just feels wrong, perhaps because it’s such an interruption from Imrie’s voices.

So the books are generally out of the way for the trip (if you will count that I’ve ordered the paperbacks and just have to put them in the car when they arrive Wednesday). Now I just need to do everything else for the Vue’s first road trip.

Virginia Tech student charged in planting of explosive device – Roanoke.com: “They found an explosive device containing gunpowder and ball bearings, police said. No one was injured, and the device was rendered safe by the state police bomb squad.”

“rendered safe” = they blew it up

Because you may not have seen enough pictures of my car yet, here are pics that show the cross-bars I got added to the roof rack and the side and back
window deflectors that were added. You’ll especially love the first one, from the
inside of the car that proves these are quality Saturn parts :)

Also two random flowers blooming in my yard because I was out there anyway and they
were pretty.

I seem to be not going anything that I should be doing. I should probably be in bed, for instance. But instead, I’m sitting here looking for solutions that don’t seem to be online. I do have a PDF index building in the background, which is my excuse for not being gone yet.

Of course, that’s not all.

I should have loaded my stuff into the new car, but it’s still sitting in boxes in the garage. I can’t figure out the right place to put anything. And some things don’t seem like they can go in the new car. Others, well, I’m trying to decide if they SHOULD be in the car. So I’m not doing anything.

And I’m supposed to be writing a journal for something, but I can’t make myself start. I just put it off indefinitely. It’s just too impossible anyway, and I don’t want to write what other people want.

I should be repairing all the damage the Microsoft caused with their latest IE patches; but I don’t feel like figuring out the shockwave scripts.

I should be loading the dishwasher and tidying the kitchen. I never seem to get things where they belong.

I should be cleaning up the mess of boxes and nonsense sitting around; but everything feels so scattered about and beyond me.

I should be doing so many things.
I can’t seem to do any of them.
Maybe I just want things I can’t ever have.
I know some things are impossible
But that doesn’t make me stop wanting them
Or tell me how to deal with not having them.
So instead I do nothing.
And hope that maybe things will change.

eSchool News online – Bias-busting tech keeps kids focused—”A handheld computer with software that randomly selects students’ names is an effective tool for making sure students pay attention and do their homework, an education researcher has found. Originally intended to increase class participation and eliminate any bias in how teachers call on students for discussion, the solution also was found to increase students’ attentiveness and boost their chances of success.”