|
|
Sunday, September 20th, 2009
| |
9:50 pm - Birthday!
|
I turn 30 this year. I'm quite looking forward to it, actually. I like being a grown up. I've accomplished quite a bit, personally and professionally. And the stuff I haven't done yet? It'll come. Ask me about my gray hairs sometime. I'll happily show them to you.
But 30 is a big number and it needs to be marked somehow. I have, essentially, two options.
1. Go away for the weekend and celebrate. This would most likely be a just me and Jimmy thing, as my birthday is sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We can't go far, because time off me that time of year is tricky. We could probably do a short trip to the mountains though and snuggle up in front of a fireplace.
2. Stay home and throw a party. This lets our friends join us, which is important to me, possibly family, though I try to keep those two groups separate.
I cannot decide between these two options.
current mood:  hungry
|
|
(6 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, August 9th, 2009
| |
8:38 pm - Vacation? It is over.
|
I go back for pre-planning tomorrow morning. Oh joy. My schedule, if nothing has changed since the last time I talked to the counseling department is two sections of US History and two sections of Georgia History. My electives will be Study Skills and Food Appreciation. And I'm getting an all boy homeroom to make up for the creeping horror that was the all girl homeroom last year. I will probably not get all girls like that again for a half decade or so. Thank god. I have never seen so much crying and carrying on, not even on the internet.
I get a different classroom next year, because one of my co workers left for another school and I requested his room. His room has a projector built into the ceiling, which means I'll never need to wrestle with the stupid project on a cart and all its damn cords ever again. Supposedly, we are buying three interactive white boards this year, and the middle school board will be installed in my room, since I'm the most likely to use it. I'm not getting too excited until I actually see it installed though. Enrollment is perilously low this year, especially compared to last year. They may be intending to purchase them, but the funds might not be available.
Speaking of which, low enrollment might cause this entire schedule to disappear. I expect to have something completely different in my hands by Friday. Hopefully it will not be because they have decided to lay off someone. Don't worry, if lay offs occur, my job is safe. I coach and I'm the Head of my department. They might make it so I'm the entire department by myself, but I wouldn't go away unless something catastrophic happens.
It's difficult to believe sometimes this is going to be my fifth year teaching. I'm considered a veteran now.
current mood:  contemplative
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, August 7th, 2009
| |
12:10 pm - The real reason I resigned at Dragonmount
|
Apparently there is some rule I didn't know about regarding the birthplaces of Amyrlins. 
So now that this is settled, everyone can stop speculating.
current mood:  silly
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
| |
10:43 am - FAQ Attack
|
So one of my projects right now is updating the infamous WoT FAQ, making me the latest in a long line of FAQueens in the WoT fandom. Since I'm getting lots of mail, etc. about it, I thought I'd write about my process and my schedule for the FAQ.
(The FAQ, for those of you that have never encountered it, is a summary of discussion from the now defunct rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan newsgroup. Back before there was really a web, this was the hub of WoT fandom. I could never figure out how to use newsgroups, so I was never involved there. When the community died off, the FAQ stopped being maintained. Leigh Butler, the last FAQueen, has moved on to bigger and cooler things and gave ownership of the FAQ to Jason at Dragonmount. )
When I first seriously started talking about retirement from active duty at Dragonmount, Jason and I agreed that I needed a new project to fill my time with, both to stay connected to the community and to keep me busy and out of my replacement's hair. The FAQ is one of those projects. (I have a few others, but nothing I'm going to discuss here.) I like working on the FAQ for a variety of reasons. It gives me an excuse to look deeply at the series again, something that in the past I've affected to be embarrassed about, it puts me in contact with a different set of people than I'd been working with before and I like meeting new and different people, and it's completely different from any of the other projects I've done for the fandom. I like the variety and the new challenges.
So what is working on the FAQ like? So far, very pleasant. I've collected a small group of hardcore WoT freaks who enjoy theorizing and started a discussion group with them. Some of them are people i know already either from conventions, or Dragonmount. Others are people from different communities that I'd heard of and wanted an excuse to talk to. Each week, I throw out a couple topics from the existing FAQ to them and ask what they think. Some questions were settled in the most recently published book. Some things weren't. And we haven't even gotten to the new questions yet.
I am working on it section by section. Yesterday, I started rewriting the "Administrivia" section, since I can do that with just some research on my own. The discussion group is currently chewing over the "Dark" section, of everything we know is for certain connected to the Shadow. I probably will not write all the articles myself. In fact, I'm fairly certain I can't do justice to Asmodean.
The goal is to have it online and ready for public consumption by Oct. 1st, which seems a very reasonable goal, given the amount of material that actually needs updating. I will eventually be opening up the discussion group to anyone interested in participating. You can look for an announcement of it on Dragonmount.
Tech wise, this version is going to be database driven. I've settled on Drupal as my engine of choice. It will still look and feel much like the original FAQ, with the same barebones, no frills, 1996 era design. You'll just be able to search it and I won't have to write HTML, which would prevent me from getting it done in a timely manner. I go back and forth on whether there will still be a downloadable version. Since I'm writing everything in Word right now, it wouldn't be any trouble to simply save it as a PDF and make it available, so the answer is probably "yes". Since it will be database driven now, there will be no more mirrors of the FAQ scattered around the web. They are not necessary in this era of cheap bandwith anyways.
Feel free to ask me any time how it's going and let me know if you'd like to be involved. If you're coming in here from Twitter, or somewhere else, my email address is jennifer@dragonmount.com
current mood:  cheerful
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
| |
10:53 pm - TGS Plot Survey!!!
|
Alright, so one of the events we're doing at DragonCon this year requires us to calculate the odds of certain things, some serious, some silly. It seems the easiest way for us to do this is by crowdsourcing, i.e., letting you guys decide. So if you wouldn't mind, take a few minutes and fill out this quick survey. It's only twenty questions and it'll help me out alot. Thanks!
http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=8kxo40fx6ncy45a622562
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Monday, July 13th, 2009
| |
8:50 pm - Failed Cracked article
|
|
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
| |
2:36 pm - Stupidly busy this week.
|
Since I find myself using Facebook more and more for the little updates about my life, and Google Reader for the sharing of wacky links, my LJ has been pretty quiet. Oh ell.
If anyone hasn't noticed yet, my "W" isn't working consistently anymore. I'm trying to catch them, but some slip past me. Oh well.
Anyways, the only thing I want to mention here is that my big project this summer is cleaning out one of the spare bedrooms upstairs. The two extra rooms up there are known as "the blue room" and "the white room". Guess what colors they are painted?
The white room has been needing a good reorganization for quite ahile now. That's where I've been storing convention materials, plus my old science ed materials. But we need to actually set that room up as another guest bedroom, so I've been working on gutting it. The people at Goodwill must LOVE us right now. They've gotten several bags of old clothes already, and I'm packing up boxes of odds and ends for them this week. There's also a big pile of stuff that I plan to give away to other teachers at TCS. The new science teacher is a first year teacher, so I know she has very little right now.
But I've set myself a goal of being able to at least have a bed in there by the end of this week, we'll see if I make it.
current mood:  busy
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, June 15th, 2009
| |
11:44 pm - Northside Food
|
After taking some time off from regular updates to work on JordanCon, I'm updating Northside Food again. No restaurant reviews right now, as we're trying to cut back on going out. But lots of my own cooking and commentary on food, plus my endearingly clumsy photography.
Enjoy.
http://northsidefood.blogspot.com/
current mood: awake
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
| |
3:15 pm - Subtext! Yay!
|
|
| Sunday, June 7th, 2009
| |
8:38 pm - Notes on Hypericon 5/ DeepSouthCon 47
|
I attended my first Hypericon this weekend, which was also hosting the 46th DeepSouthCon, which is a roaming con that can be located anywhere in the south east. We went there, both to promote JordanCon, to network with other convention organizers and also because this is our idea of a romantic weekend getaway. A few thoughts, in no particular order:
-I thought the program was very well organized, but do not understand why the convention schedule was published as a second document.
-There was some incredible creativity when it came to space. This is a hotel that I would not have attempted to hold a convention of this size in. But incredibly, they managed a Dealers Hall, Art Show, Con Suite and several tracks. They did this by renting regular hotel rooms, and emptying them of furniture, then setting up card tables and folding chairs and then doing panels and games in them. Seriously. Someone showed me the "princess and the pea" room, with all the mattresses stacked up. It gave me some ideas on how we might be able to do an open gaming track in 2010, without significantly impacting our budget.
-I love how they put all the party rooms on the same floor. I spent most of Friday and Saturday evenings wandering up and down the eighth floor, getting my cup refilled and having great conversations.
-I did not love that the hotel assigned us to the eighth floor for a room. Saturday night we were sandwiched between the FenCon bidding party and something that had a dog. It could be worse though. I could have been next to Aradani Studio's dance party. Oh, and a word of advice, if they ever decide to court time travelers again, do not drink the Xerpes punch. It causes abductions and missing time.
-At the Raleigh Nasfic bid party on Friday, I was in the room about five minutes, before I was invited to be a presenter at the 2010 Nasfic, should it come to pass. And then I was invited to present at LibertyCon. And then I got into a conversation about which Star Trek tattoo would be most appropriate for a biker bar and someone spilled beer in my shoes.
-I got some good ideas on what we would need to do for JordanCon to be considered seriously to host a DeepSouthCon. We already have a large enough membership base (Hypericon had about 300 people attending) and we're already working on diversifying our programming abit. To be considered, we'd need to have an Art Show, a Con Suite and a more structured costume contest. These are all things we've already identified as areas for future growth. So if we decide to make a bid for DeepSouthCon in a few years, I think we could make a strong case for it. It probably won't add to our bottom line at all, but there's a strong prestige factor. We'll have to consider it later.
-Somehow, I ended up talking to Filk track director from DragonCon at the FenCon party without either of us knowing who the other person was. Then he said something about "I've never read those Wheel of Time books, but I was so impressed with the amount of programming they could come up with". And he took a Mistborn book and he likes it.
I had a very good time and I'd like to go again, but I think I'm going to push for ConCarolinas in Charlotte next year instead. I mean, I am now a member of the Southern Fandom Confederacy (and the lady who serves as Treasurer for that group is totally volunteering to man registration for us in 2010). I have responsibilities. =)
current mood:  geeky
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, June 1st, 2009
| |
2:36 pm - Hee!
|
|
| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
| |
12:10 pm - I totally win at teaching
|
Today's last day of classes before summer vacation, right? What better way to fill our time than with a crazy, overblown project? We made music videos.
Yes. Music videos.
It's actually easy for middle school students. It's a Powerpoint slide show that runs automatically, set to music. The kids intercut the narrative slides with pictures, and they got use all those crazy animations they love to use. I, unfortunately, cannot upload these anywhere, because their names are on them, but I assure you, they are quite impressive for middle schoolers in general, much less the special needs population I teach. One of the videos, about 9/11, gave me goosebumps. And I actually enjoyed listening to a Linkin Park song today.
This was kind of the project from hell. We had trouble getting into the lab, because of the seniors writing papers last week. The power went out on us during a storm. All the mice inexplicably decided to stop working. But they totally persevered and kept at it.
I am totally planning to do this again next fall. I will have all of these kids again for Georgia Studies, so I anticipate it going much smoother, with hopefully fewer technical glitches.
current mood: accomplished
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Saturday, May 9th, 2009
| |
1:40 pm - For the five or six of you that haven't heard yet...
|
I'm retiring at Dragonmount. I'm resigning my position as both WT Org Leader and Community Admin. It's time to let someone else do the heavy lifting for awhile.
You can my announcement of it here http://forums.dragonmount.com/index.php/topic,42909.0.html
I'm ready to go. The biggest emotion I feel towards DM right now is exhaustion. I'm just tired. Working there doesn't energize me anymore. There's no one event or person or problem that makes me feel this way. I know people will try to play connect the dots and either pass blame or credit (depending on your opinion of me). Don't. If there was one thing wearing me out, I could keep going. But it's everything. I'm the only long term staff member (including Jason) that has never taken an extended sabbatical. After 11 years, I'm past due.
So what does retirement look like for me? I've got my conventions to work on. JordanCon especially consumes a good deal of time. I'm going to be working on updating the WoT FAQ for New Spring and Knife of Dreams, hopefully before the Gathering Storm is released. I've got a few other things going on as well. I want to keep my food blog updated and I'm planning to participate in an Amber play by post RPG. I've got a writing project for Cracked that's been on hold since December that I'd like to eventually complete.
Family/ career-wise, I'm going to be working more. We've decided that to preserve Jimmy's sanity, we need to get him out of his current job. So we plan to spend the next year or so saving up money so he can quit his job, assuming he doesn't find a new one. So I'm teaching summer school and I'm planning to coach again for the salary supplements. We're looking around at other ways we can cut back, which is surprisingly difficult, as we already live pretty frugally (mainly due to my desire for a smaller carbon footprint). I'm pushing back getting my Masters for another year (I don't really need it yet) and we're delaying the babymaking yet again, since my insurance isn't covering the diagnostics. I'm suppose to get new insurance in August, so hopefully we can get that going again.
current mood:  sleepy
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, April 20th, 2009
| |
10:51 am - I have dreamed a dream...and now that dream is gone from me...
|
I spent a good chunk of time this morning, just sitting in one of the green chairs in the upstairs living room, looking out my window. After the last few weeks, and then the last few days, it feels surreal to be done. I still do not believe what we did.
It was wonderful to see Harriet so happy. Everyone was charmed by her. More than one person commented that she's like their favorite aunt now. Brandon is a writing machine. I would love to see what he's like when he's not relentlessly focused on getting a book out. And I am totally making his radio call sign next year "Fugitive Duckling". Wilson and his family were incredibly gracious and polite. Tom Doherty is absolutely wonderful. I was even impressed by Larry from Red Eagle. He struck me as being sincerely interested in creating a good adaption of the series, one that would please the fans. He even sat through all the theory discussion panels all weekend, and plans to come back next year.
I think my favorite moment was someone asking me if I was "The Jennifer" at the Saturday night ball. My family came up for Saturday afternoon. My dad said he was proud of me. And I got to wear Robert Jordan's hat, which was pretty bad ass.
current mood: contemplative
|
|
(8 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, April 13th, 2009
| |
7:01 pm - Guess how my day went?
|
First, a tree fell! Not even three feet from a classroom full of students! In the brand new building we just opened in January! And it knocked the power out!
So we spent second period in the dark! And then another tree fell! And it blocked the driveway! And it came very close to the classroom next to mine! In fact, that entire class saw it come down! Did you know many of our students have anxiety disorders?
So we decided "Screw it". And moved the middle school, which is obviously cursed, up to the high school cafeteria, which also doubles as a tornado shelter. We set up board games and puzzles, and put on a movie. We did this for three class periods. The power came on just in time for a late lunch. I wanted to make the principal order us all pizza. After all, we'd all been VERY good. =)
And I just deleted an entire paragraph about a student issue that I'm dealing with, because I like my job and I'd like to keep it.
Jimmy made me a plate of rice and stir fried veggies. This is the highlight of my day.
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, April 12th, 2009
| |
10:03 pm - Five more days...
|
Program is at the printer.
Badges are printed and awaiting assembly on the coffee table.
Guest schedules are complete.
Bills are paid for.
Verbal agreement with 2010 hotel is made.
I think I'm pretty much on top of things. The nerves are starting up though.
I need more staff next year.
Anything that isn't JordanCon or teaching, isn't getting so much as a look this week.
current mood:  indescribable
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, April 10th, 2009
| |
9:23 am - "Don't stop believing..."
|
|
| Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
| |
6:30 pm - Alright, alright....
|
|
| |
5:07 pm - Yes!
|
|
| |
1:09 pm - Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like...
|
|
|
|
|
|
