Glaedig jul, all. It's Christmas morning, and I'm up way too early, woken by my new gas company with an automated message welcoming me as a customer. Sure, great message, but 8:08 a.m. on Christmas? Sounds like somebody didn't think things through.
Back up. A lot's happened since my last official update. A lot of that material I had to keep under my hat until it was all said and done, but most of that necessity's past now as well. And then I started lacking time. But now, with a few hours on my hands until the household rouses: well, update time it is. Helps that Dad reminded me to update last night, of course.
So! Since last we heard from our insipid adventurer . . . ahem. I mean.
Start over. I obviously need some tea or coffee or something. But I'm also not going to risk waking Dad or our guest further than I've risked it already. So this may be rambly. Fair warning.
In any case. I got a new job and am in the process of relocating to Chicago. Right now I'm between the two jobs, but the timing's right. The break between semesters always gives people a fresh start and is an ideal time to start (it's when I started with Penn State Admissions as well, I might mention). Great opportunity, great staff to be working with: I feel like I'll mesh there well. Plus the upgrade in terms of title and pay, of course. Never hurt anyone, and is especially welcome given the current state of the economy.
And it's all been remarkably smooth. The biggest hiccup has been underestimating how much stuff I've got to move. But even that isn't a huge deal. Everything else has been going remarkably well: found someone to take over my old place almost immediately, found a great new place with the help of a very old friend and his partner in crime, got moved despite extreme temperatures and getting the truck stuck in the snow on my old street (virtually inevitable, I might add, due to snow conditions and the way my old street's not level and the street parking is never plowed), had some lovely long-haul help and company from my neighbor-turned-friend, ran out of a bunch of things at exactly the right time, was immensely surprised and thankful that all my close old local friends showed up and pitched in to get me out of my old place (some I knew I could count on--thank you, other J--but others I simply didn't expect to see) and then had a great traditional meal and hang-out at old haunts with them, wrapped the photoshoots I intended to before leaving the area of a few DJs from my old company (though I still have to edit and post more shots from both shoots), wrapped up work best I could in the time I had; just generally, all's working out well.
I'm too Danish (read: cynical/pragmatic, depending on who you ask) to say everything's coming up roses, but for the upheaval I'm undertaking currently, the smoothness is astonishing. And I also have to thank family and friends for bearing with me during this time: people have been thankfully understanding when it comes to me being out of contact and/or rushed, etc.
Though I will admit that some of the time-out just now is half-obligation, half-vacation/break. G.S., the aforementioned neighbor-turned-friend, is with me on this move/holiday trip from Pennsylvania, and some time is being spent exploring my neighborhood, local cuisine, plus Chicago tourist attractions for his sake. Not that I don't enjoy them too. We hit the Shedd Aquarium for a quick stop, but still need to get to the Sears Tower and Art Institute, if nothing else. Oh! and Chinatown.
Christmas Eve went pretty swimmingly, and today should be an adventure. Guests in the holiday family craziness is always a bit of a wild card scenario, but all involved are easygoing enough that everything should be fine.
Looking ahead, the new job starts January 5th, and I have plenty to keep me occupied until then. The touristy stuff, setting up the new apartment, getting G.S. back to Pennsylvania and picking up the rest of my belongings, wrapping up accounts and such in PA, cleaning up the old apartment and handing over my lease, etc.
I hear people up and about, and I think that covers the state of things, so it looks like it's time to sign off and get moving. I would also note that I suspect my usual year-in-review will be significantly delayed due to all this. So: best wishes for the new year, kids.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Friday, November 07, 2008
trips and new developments
Again with the whole been 'too busy living life to blog about it' thing.
Took three trips in two weeks a bit ago. Missouri for a conference (excellent conference, by the way), the usual Palmyra run plus some shopping, and then Philly for some usability studies for work, which went pretty well.
In Philly, went out to dinner with the Director of Admissions of one of our campuses there and his family. He lives in Center City, in what's nicknamed the "Gayborhood," which is an amazing part of Philly.
I'd never really been to Philly proper: before only once, on an in-and-out run to a Garbage concert, which doesn't really count. But this time, I was able to take my time and look around. It's really gorgeous in some areas: very European, very historic.
I took a ton of pictures, one entire memory card full of pictures from Eastern State Penitentiary: a former state prison, since abandoned, but more recently reclaimed and stabilized as a preserved ruin. Amazing material. Slowly going through those photos now. Here are the sets thus far from Eastern State Penitentiary, Penn State Abington (the aforementioned campus), and around Philadelphia.
But all those trips in succession ended up making me way too crammed--ran myself a bit into the ground. Especially with Halloween right on their heels, which involved three get-togethers over the weekend, plus oatmeal-raisin cookie making with my neighbor. Thank goodness one of my costumes was multiple-use-friendly, or one of the three would have been out of luck.
Been hanging out quite a bit with my neighbor, a grad in the film department. We've never yet run out of things to talk about. My Netflix list of DVDs to watch is growing faster than I can keep up with it.
Got officially hooked on Fringe thanks to Hulu. Who needs cable TV? Everything I watch is online these days.
More trips to come. Next week's another Palmyra run, then Chicago/Wisconsin. Connecting up with a bunch of old friends and family, among other things.
Have another sinus infection. And strangely enough, as I was picking up my antibiotics, the pharmacist stopped me to ask about my last name. His is the same, and it's an unusual spelling. We started talking about our Danish relatives. And we might be related somehow. The immigration stories are the same--Ellis Island to Wisconsin--and the changed spelling too. The first name of his father wasn't familiar to me, and the initial was wrong (that side of my family has consistent initials), but it might've been a different branch.
I gave him my email address: he'll email me to get the link to the Geni family tree I've been working on. Which I'm going to add to once I pick up the more complete paper version that my uncle has.
Serendipity, you know? Odd little coincidences that seem to have been happening a lot lately. It's a pretty neat feeling. And there may be more to come.
Took three trips in two weeks a bit ago. Missouri for a conference (excellent conference, by the way), the usual Palmyra run plus some shopping, and then Philly for some usability studies for work, which went pretty well.
In Philly, went out to dinner with the Director of Admissions of one of our campuses there and his family. He lives in Center City, in what's nicknamed the "Gayborhood," which is an amazing part of Philly.
I'd never really been to Philly proper: before only once, on an in-and-out run to a Garbage concert, which doesn't really count. But this time, I was able to take my time and look around. It's really gorgeous in some areas: very European, very historic.
I took a ton of pictures, one entire memory card full of pictures from Eastern State Penitentiary: a former state prison, since abandoned, but more recently reclaimed and stabilized as a preserved ruin. Amazing material. Slowly going through those photos now. Here are the sets thus far from Eastern State Penitentiary, Penn State Abington (the aforementioned campus), and around Philadelphia.
But all those trips in succession ended up making me way too crammed--ran myself a bit into the ground. Especially with Halloween right on their heels, which involved three get-togethers over the weekend, plus oatmeal-raisin cookie making with my neighbor. Thank goodness one of my costumes was multiple-use-friendly, or one of the three would have been out of luck.
Been hanging out quite a bit with my neighbor, a grad in the film department. We've never yet run out of things to talk about. My Netflix list of DVDs to watch is growing faster than I can keep up with it.
Got officially hooked on Fringe thanks to Hulu. Who needs cable TV? Everything I watch is online these days.
More trips to come. Next week's another Palmyra run, then Chicago/Wisconsin. Connecting up with a bunch of old friends and family, among other things.
Have another sinus infection. And strangely enough, as I was picking up my antibiotics, the pharmacist stopped me to ask about my last name. His is the same, and it's an unusual spelling. We started talking about our Danish relatives. And we might be related somehow. The immigration stories are the same--Ellis Island to Wisconsin--and the changed spelling too. The first name of his father wasn't familiar to me, and the initial was wrong (that side of my family has consistent initials), but it might've been a different branch.
I gave him my email address: he'll email me to get the link to the Geni family tree I've been working on. Which I'm going to add to once I pick up the more complete paper version that my uncle has.
Serendipity, you know? Odd little coincidences that seem to have been happening a lot lately. It's a pretty neat feeling. And there may be more to come.
Monday, September 15, 2008
this night.
I live in a ghost town. This is temporary. It's the night tonight: Bellefonte will resurrect itself by morning.
It's a charmed night, in a not-so-charming way.
Let me preface this. This story needs a context.
Let me also state for the record that it's been a weird, weird, weird, weird night. The style of this post will probably reflect that.
I started out today unable to turn over and go back to sleep, despite having granted myself permission to sleep in. Eight hours after I went to sleep, almost on the dot. It's been this way for awhile. Can't get more than eight. Often get less, but that's due to my weekday alarm.
So today, unlike most, I was horribly unable to focus. I had a to-do list as long as my leg, but managed to get all of one thing on it done, and that not even properly so.
As interruptus, in the present there's something in here with me that's whistling, and I don't know what it is. I'm strangely not unnerved by this. The rest of the night has reassured me that nothing else out of the ordinary can happen.
And this won't be all of it. As another interruptus, something in the sink shifted: knife sliding off a plate and clinking against the aluminum sink wall, I imagine, but again, strangely not startling to me.
If this shifting of scene seems like a dream, you're with me. Yes. Stay with me.
I have the day off tomorrow, giving me leeway to get this all down. Thankfully. I'd hate to lose it. Despite being weird, weird, weird, this ending is strange and beautiful. I love it. I want to go outside and drink it. And bottle some to save for later.
Back to this afternoon. No focus, constant interruptions (don't apologize, dear other J--I was thankful for yours, short as they were), frustration of each and every thing I started or wished to have started. I got some photos uploaded and laundry started. That's about the limit of my productivity.
Wait. Untrue. I did take care of L's kitties, last-minute. And a guest cat, who was a real handful. But! that was my limit.
And it was this way--knowing I was wasting time, but unable to do anything about it--until I had to leave for the club job.
Or thought I did. I ended up on the road early and got there a good twenty minutes before I needed to be. And realized this nearing town, but it wasn't worth the time to turn back.
I knew this. I knew this, I knew this. And this entire night, almost everything was full of this crystal awareness of the situation, but complete giving-over of myself to it, unable to struggle against its tides. And it was frustrating to watch, but impossible to fight.
So I got into town. My usual lot was full. I moved to the next-handiest street and parked comfortably. I got out to greet the night air, oppressive with humidity and frustrated potential. I shook my head even then, with the premonition of the weird wyrd ahead. (That may sound redundant, but it's not. Trust.)
I spent the twenty or so picking up some coffee for my late evening, sitting down with it on a big leather couch there, taking the time to squeeze in some reading. Reading was a perfect task for today, but I hadn't managed to tear myself away from trying to get things done, despite the futility.
And the realization of the futility. That's what kills me. The awareness tonight. I knew it all. I just couldn't do anything about it.
[For those who understand the reference, this night is so House of Leaves, minus the terror. There's no fear here, only mazes and knowing and realizations.]
{And maybe I should blame my perfume. Wearing Lune Noire on a full moon, the brightest I've seen in months, perhaps was not the best of plans. But it did start before that, this day.}
So it was that I was ducking in and out between the humidity of outside to air conditioning in my car to humid to coffee shop AC to outside oppression to coolness of the club when empty. And my allergies had been set off by L's cats.
And as soon as I arrived, total tragedy. We couldn't get the Steelers game on any of the monitors, no matter how many of us tried. Manager of the club? No luck. And this was tragic to the folks who needed (needed!) to see it (mostly staff).
The club opened with the majority of the monitors black, and us still struggling to fix the issue. Nothing I did had any effect. I tried every trick I had. All had turned against me.
Eventually, my manager (of our company, not the club's staff) managed to get it worked out, by manually switching every monitor in the place, almost. And this a temporary fix.
Tonight was the first night I'd worked after the recent change-over to being smoke-free. And I was asked to remind folks, and I did. And next had an assistant manager of the club rush over to add an addendum: folks could only smoke out the front of the club, not the back. They'd be locked out. Again, announced.
From the previous week, we'd had some issues with two of the speakers on the dancefloor, so we had turned down the highs in such a fashion that we were having trouble hearing the microphone inside the booth, so I stepped outside it to make the announcement. My co-pilot stayed in the booth.
Later, he stepped out for a cigarette. It was only after he'd made it out of eyeshot (and let's not even talk about earshot) that I realized he'd headed to the back, not having heard my announcement (though I had mentioned the fact to him).
I ran out to prop the door for him. He rushed to join me at the door, thinking something was wrong. I kicked the prop down and he misunderstood me. And then couldn't hear me due to the exhaust fans. And so forth.
The whole night, I'd been feeling strange. Off. I kept stretching, trying to work out odd sensations in my limbs and joints. Wondering if my co-pilot would take the movements amiss. Never occurred to me to address them with him.
We've had an odd relationship, he and I. On-again, off-again friendship-slash-something-else. Undefined, of course. But there's static there somewhere. Nothing enough to put a finger on, mind. We discussed it once, both at the time not entirely ourselves, and managed to leave the conversation entirely in the same place we'd started it, other than the fact that it occurred, and fallen back to amicability as a default, no deeper on any level. Which is fine, and may not change. Also fine. Though change would likely also be fine. I'm too flexible for my own good sometimes.
I've been having several online conversations in the past few days. One handles on masculinity and what it means, calling to mind my old Men's Studies class and conversations for that class with my father. The other about images of me online and my resistance to them, calling to mind my divorce and the aftermath of that initial split, as well as a ton of self-esteem garbage. Both had turned terribly unpleasant for me, and distasteful, though only in the very last exchange before I'd gone to work.
While at the club, I received the most recent responses from both. One was entirely more open than I'd expected of a response, which made me smile as I was perusing it on my iPhone during the breakdown of a song. And the other--the other was magic. The person I'm chatting with about it is a terrible, wonderful person for sending me the exact right response to my concerns. Exact. I love her and hate her for it, because she's going to get exactly what she wanted, and I know I'm being manipulated, but damn is she good at it. And I can't not respect that. And I almost resent it. But it is beautiful in its execution.
beautiful.
And I know me. And I know I wasn't shuttering my face, my response. I had no reason to, there. And I know he probably saw me bite my lip, smile in that bemused half-way that I have when I'm being viciously charmed, turn my head to consider, and put down my phone. And stare at it. And pick it up. And read her message again. And smile and bite my lip again. And put the phone down. And look at it. And try to open my book. And shut it. And distract myself with the music change and changing the video and lights. And stare unseeing at the dancefloor. And look at the phone again.
Or he may have missed it. Also fine.
But I wonder what he thought if he caught it. Though not enough to ask.
So stretching. Simple standing yoga poses. And then he complained of a headache. And joint pain. Which, along with the minor power flickers (and worry about more major outages, of course) and reminder of the arms of Ike passing through with wind and stormage and pressure changes, finally brought me to what today's whole problem may have been.
Major storm front. Full moon. Winds. Celestials whirling.
I had my answer. My two and two finally didn't add up to 3.78 billion. They became four and an eighth, roundabout. Not too badly off.
And because I have tomorrow off, and the buses don't run on Sundays and he didn't have his usual ride and doesn't drive himself, I drove him home. With a pause outside my car so he could have a cigarette.
And we talked about the moon. His experience seeing it rise brilliant over the ocean in the northeast, my experience seeing it rise huge over the desert in the southwest. Lying under it, thinking it was pre-dawn and wondering why my camp-mates weren't stirring. Watching it rise, taking up a good eighth of the horizon, every pockmark on its surface etched as if in crystal. Like the bowl on the dining room table at home that my grandmother had brought over from Denmark. The bowl round, its surface grooved.
I didn't draw that comparison then. I'm glad I didn't: he might've thought me entirely moon-mad.
And maybe I am. It'll be short-lived. It's just the night tonight.
So I drove him home, and we made plans that I half-expect to fall through just like so many other times we've tried to make plans. Something comes up, and it ends up just as well for both of us in the end. No skin off anyone's nose. And really, I'm pretty ligeglad (literally "like glad" in Danish--ambivalence in the way people abuse it in English, basically) about it each time. Which may say something. May not.
And then I drove home, leaving him to corral the trash that had been blown halfway down their yard.
I'd seen debris on the road as we drove, mostly branches and bunches of leaves. Saw more as I headed to the bypass towards Bellefonte. But upon arriving in Bellefonte, I saw things were much worse there.
Two intersections with lights out and police actually directing traffic with lights like those landing guys at airports. A truck in the middle of the second intersection, headlights beaming into my eyes, as they tried to fix things. Propped-up stop signs by other lights-out intersections. A bewildering sense of things-not-right-here. But also an innate reassurance that all will be right by morning.
My car, gliding through downtown Bellefonte like the only thing alive, like some dark ghost, saw no other movement than those men. Even the trees were silent. No waving in the breeze. Just their detritus on the ground. Unanswering.
What happened here? I wondered, but knew the answer. Darkened windows yawned at me from every building surrounding me, and I was reminded of my visit to New Orleans after Katrina. The ghost-town suburbs we slid through to catch my early-morning flight home. Desolate due to low population, doubly so due to the hour, and then the mist rising from the low-lying areas. Which was everywhere, there.
The space was potential, but also ghostly. I waited for the rise of the supernatural.
And so it was on my way home tonight. But I turned onto my street and found, to my surprise, that my side of the street had power. The other side had none.
I parked, got out, gathered my things, locked my doors. Turned to face the lit side of the street. And turned my back to it to face the unlit houses, to drink in the moonlight for a moment. The oppressive humidity had broken, granting us the clear night sky, the crickets and night-insects of a dying summer. I listened, and felt the night connect to me. Then I trudged inside to survey the damage.
I found my usually-touchy stove clock un-reset, not flashing, and had a hope for my computer, which I'd foolishly left on. I found that it, though, had restarted. And worse, my keyboard was disabled. I restarted properly, super-sensitive for any bad signs, and checked and re-checked that it was on a surge protector. Yes. No problem. Should be unharmed, right?
And interruptus: my computer, as I'm typing this into my blog platform, informs me I have an IP conflict with another computer. There should be nothing else on this network: I'm password-protected and don't broadcast my network name, at the very least. But there it is. Might be my iPhone. I'll investigate later: it seems to not be doing me harm.
So I restarted, and was concerned by my boot time, and I started to remember all I'd done, created, saved but not backed up since my last big back-up project. Half of my Hawaii photo originals could go poof, I realized. But I was being over-sensitive. It was fine, and all was in order when it restarted.
And that leads us to--well, right about now.
And a way-fuller understanding of this evening of mine than you probably wanted. And it's tl;dr to most of you, I'm sure.
Mercury retro? Full moon antics? Storm blowing through, causing associated discomfort? A combination? That's where I've settled. I'm going to sleep now, and I'll drift off half-wishing the universe into righting itself by the time I wake, and half-hoping some of the disjointed madness can stay with me, so I can keep this out-of-time-and-reality pseudo-madness in a back pocket, to pull out when my life gets too normal.
And leave you wishing you'd had a taste of your own tonight. Perhaps.
It's a charmed night, in a not-so-charming way.
Let me preface this. This story needs a context.
Let me also state for the record that it's been a weird, weird, weird, weird night. The style of this post will probably reflect that.
I started out today unable to turn over and go back to sleep, despite having granted myself permission to sleep in. Eight hours after I went to sleep, almost on the dot. It's been this way for awhile. Can't get more than eight. Often get less, but that's due to my weekday alarm.
So today, unlike most, I was horribly unable to focus. I had a to-do list as long as my leg, but managed to get all of one thing on it done, and that not even properly so.
As interruptus, in the present there's something in here with me that's whistling, and I don't know what it is. I'm strangely not unnerved by this. The rest of the night has reassured me that nothing else out of the ordinary can happen.
And this won't be all of it. As another interruptus, something in the sink shifted: knife sliding off a plate and clinking against the aluminum sink wall, I imagine, but again, strangely not startling to me.
If this shifting of scene seems like a dream, you're with me. Yes. Stay with me.
I have the day off tomorrow, giving me leeway to get this all down. Thankfully. I'd hate to lose it. Despite being weird, weird, weird, this ending is strange and beautiful. I love it. I want to go outside and drink it. And bottle some to save for later.
Back to this afternoon. No focus, constant interruptions (don't apologize, dear other J--I was thankful for yours, short as they were), frustration of each and every thing I started or wished to have started. I got some photos uploaded and laundry started. That's about the limit of my productivity.
Wait. Untrue. I did take care of L's kitties, last-minute. And a guest cat, who was a real handful. But! that was my limit.
And it was this way--knowing I was wasting time, but unable to do anything about it--until I had to leave for the club job.
Or thought I did. I ended up on the road early and got there a good twenty minutes before I needed to be. And realized this nearing town, but it wasn't worth the time to turn back.
I knew this. I knew this, I knew this. And this entire night, almost everything was full of this crystal awareness of the situation, but complete giving-over of myself to it, unable to struggle against its tides. And it was frustrating to watch, but impossible to fight.
So I got into town. My usual lot was full. I moved to the next-handiest street and parked comfortably. I got out to greet the night air, oppressive with humidity and frustrated potential. I shook my head even then, with the premonition of the weird wyrd ahead. (That may sound redundant, but it's not. Trust.)
I spent the twenty or so picking up some coffee for my late evening, sitting down with it on a big leather couch there, taking the time to squeeze in some reading. Reading was a perfect task for today, but I hadn't managed to tear myself away from trying to get things done, despite the futility.
And the realization of the futility. That's what kills me. The awareness tonight. I knew it all. I just couldn't do anything about it.
[For those who understand the reference, this night is so House of Leaves, minus the terror. There's no fear here, only mazes and knowing and realizations.]
{And maybe I should blame my perfume. Wearing Lune Noire on a full moon, the brightest I've seen in months, perhaps was not the best of plans. But it did start before that, this day.}
So it was that I was ducking in and out between the humidity of outside to air conditioning in my car to humid to coffee shop AC to outside oppression to coolness of the club when empty. And my allergies had been set off by L's cats.
And as soon as I arrived, total tragedy. We couldn't get the Steelers game on any of the monitors, no matter how many of us tried. Manager of the club? No luck. And this was tragic to the folks who needed (needed!) to see it (mostly staff).
The club opened with the majority of the monitors black, and us still struggling to fix the issue. Nothing I did had any effect. I tried every trick I had. All had turned against me.
Eventually, my manager (of our company, not the club's staff) managed to get it worked out, by manually switching every monitor in the place, almost. And this a temporary fix.
Tonight was the first night I'd worked after the recent change-over to being smoke-free. And I was asked to remind folks, and I did. And next had an assistant manager of the club rush over to add an addendum: folks could only smoke out the front of the club, not the back. They'd be locked out. Again, announced.
From the previous week, we'd had some issues with two of the speakers on the dancefloor, so we had turned down the highs in such a fashion that we were having trouble hearing the microphone inside the booth, so I stepped outside it to make the announcement. My co-pilot stayed in the booth.
Later, he stepped out for a cigarette. It was only after he'd made it out of eyeshot (and let's not even talk about earshot) that I realized he'd headed to the back, not having heard my announcement (though I had mentioned the fact to him).
I ran out to prop the door for him. He rushed to join me at the door, thinking something was wrong. I kicked the prop down and he misunderstood me. And then couldn't hear me due to the exhaust fans. And so forth.
The whole night, I'd been feeling strange. Off. I kept stretching, trying to work out odd sensations in my limbs and joints. Wondering if my co-pilot would take the movements amiss. Never occurred to me to address them with him.
We've had an odd relationship, he and I. On-again, off-again friendship-slash-something-else. Undefined, of course. But there's static there somewhere. Nothing enough to put a finger on, mind. We discussed it once, both at the time not entirely ourselves, and managed to leave the conversation entirely in the same place we'd started it, other than the fact that it occurred, and fallen back to amicability as a default, no deeper on any level. Which is fine, and may not change. Also fine. Though change would likely also be fine. I'm too flexible for my own good sometimes.
I've been having several online conversations in the past few days. One handles on masculinity and what it means, calling to mind my old Men's Studies class and conversations for that class with my father. The other about images of me online and my resistance to them, calling to mind my divorce and the aftermath of that initial split, as well as a ton of self-esteem garbage. Both had turned terribly unpleasant for me, and distasteful, though only in the very last exchange before I'd gone to work.
While at the club, I received the most recent responses from both. One was entirely more open than I'd expected of a response, which made me smile as I was perusing it on my iPhone during the breakdown of a song. And the other--the other was magic. The person I'm chatting with about it is a terrible, wonderful person for sending me the exact right response to my concerns. Exact. I love her and hate her for it, because she's going to get exactly what she wanted, and I know I'm being manipulated, but damn is she good at it. And I can't not respect that. And I almost resent it. But it is beautiful in its execution.
beautiful.
And I know me. And I know I wasn't shuttering my face, my response. I had no reason to, there. And I know he probably saw me bite my lip, smile in that bemused half-way that I have when I'm being viciously charmed, turn my head to consider, and put down my phone. And stare at it. And pick it up. And read her message again. And smile and bite my lip again. And put the phone down. And look at it. And try to open my book. And shut it. And distract myself with the music change and changing the video and lights. And stare unseeing at the dancefloor. And look at the phone again.
Or he may have missed it. Also fine.
But I wonder what he thought if he caught it. Though not enough to ask.
So stretching. Simple standing yoga poses. And then he complained of a headache. And joint pain. Which, along with the minor power flickers (and worry about more major outages, of course) and reminder of the arms of Ike passing through with wind and stormage and pressure changes, finally brought me to what today's whole problem may have been.
Major storm front. Full moon. Winds. Celestials whirling.
I had my answer. My two and two finally didn't add up to 3.78 billion. They became four and an eighth, roundabout. Not too badly off.
And because I have tomorrow off, and the buses don't run on Sundays and he didn't have his usual ride and doesn't drive himself, I drove him home. With a pause outside my car so he could have a cigarette.
And we talked about the moon. His experience seeing it rise brilliant over the ocean in the northeast, my experience seeing it rise huge over the desert in the southwest. Lying under it, thinking it was pre-dawn and wondering why my camp-mates weren't stirring. Watching it rise, taking up a good eighth of the horizon, every pockmark on its surface etched as if in crystal. Like the bowl on the dining room table at home that my grandmother had brought over from Denmark. The bowl round, its surface grooved.
I didn't draw that comparison then. I'm glad I didn't: he might've thought me entirely moon-mad.
And maybe I am. It'll be short-lived. It's just the night tonight.
So I drove him home, and we made plans that I half-expect to fall through just like so many other times we've tried to make plans. Something comes up, and it ends up just as well for both of us in the end. No skin off anyone's nose. And really, I'm pretty ligeglad (literally "like glad" in Danish--ambivalence in the way people abuse it in English, basically) about it each time. Which may say something. May not.
And then I drove home, leaving him to corral the trash that had been blown halfway down their yard.
I'd seen debris on the road as we drove, mostly branches and bunches of leaves. Saw more as I headed to the bypass towards Bellefonte. But upon arriving in Bellefonte, I saw things were much worse there.
Two intersections with lights out and police actually directing traffic with lights like those landing guys at airports. A truck in the middle of the second intersection, headlights beaming into my eyes, as they tried to fix things. Propped-up stop signs by other lights-out intersections. A bewildering sense of things-not-right-here. But also an innate reassurance that all will be right by morning.
My car, gliding through downtown Bellefonte like the only thing alive, like some dark ghost, saw no other movement than those men. Even the trees were silent. No waving in the breeze. Just their detritus on the ground. Unanswering.
What happened here? I wondered, but knew the answer. Darkened windows yawned at me from every building surrounding me, and I was reminded of my visit to New Orleans after Katrina. The ghost-town suburbs we slid through to catch my early-morning flight home. Desolate due to low population, doubly so due to the hour, and then the mist rising from the low-lying areas. Which was everywhere, there.
The space was potential, but also ghostly. I waited for the rise of the supernatural.
And so it was on my way home tonight. But I turned onto my street and found, to my surprise, that my side of the street had power. The other side had none.
I parked, got out, gathered my things, locked my doors. Turned to face the lit side of the street. And turned my back to it to face the unlit houses, to drink in the moonlight for a moment. The oppressive humidity had broken, granting us the clear night sky, the crickets and night-insects of a dying summer. I listened, and felt the night connect to me. Then I trudged inside to survey the damage.
I found my usually-touchy stove clock un-reset, not flashing, and had a hope for my computer, which I'd foolishly left on. I found that it, though, had restarted. And worse, my keyboard was disabled. I restarted properly, super-sensitive for any bad signs, and checked and re-checked that it was on a surge protector. Yes. No problem. Should be unharmed, right?
And interruptus: my computer, as I'm typing this into my blog platform, informs me I have an IP conflict with another computer. There should be nothing else on this network: I'm password-protected and don't broadcast my network name, at the very least. But there it is. Might be my iPhone. I'll investigate later: it seems to not be doing me harm.
So I restarted, and was concerned by my boot time, and I started to remember all I'd done, created, saved but not backed up since my last big back-up project. Half of my Hawaii photo originals could go poof, I realized. But I was being over-sensitive. It was fine, and all was in order when it restarted.
And that leads us to--well, right about now.
And a way-fuller understanding of this evening of mine than you probably wanted. And it's tl;dr to most of you, I'm sure.
Mercury retro? Full moon antics? Storm blowing through, causing associated discomfort? A combination? That's where I've settled. I'm going to sleep now, and I'll drift off half-wishing the universe into righting itself by the time I wake, and half-hoping some of the disjointed madness can stay with me, so I can keep this out-of-time-and-reality pseudo-madness in a back pocket, to pull out when my life gets too normal.
And leave you wishing you'd had a taste of your own tonight. Perhaps.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
supervision
Let me just say that after the past few days I've had, I'm thanking every little star in my sky that I have a supervisor who isn't afraid to help me prioritize.
These days, I've got a ton of conflicting priorities and people on all sides are demanding my time and attention. Some are sending multiple emails (though understandably, since I'm about to declare email bankruptcy), as well as copying in my old supervisor, weirdly enough. But when I'm entirely overloaded, it's an immense relief to be able to say "no" and refer them to someone farther up the chain than I am. Especially when that someone else can easily say that I've got more important tasks than theirs.
Being able to work down my list with someone who can make the call and take the heat that might follow is exactly what I need when I'm overwhelmed. I'd say it about halves my stress level, though that might be an exaggeration.
At the very least, it takes me out of the "I'll never get this all done" mindset. Instead, it provides a path to how it might all get done.
I once had a supervisor who refused to prioritize my duties, tasks and projects. Even when I asked, the supervisor in question refused. And nothing drove me battier.
And I was less productive for it. I ended up switching between things, trying to do them all semi-evenly until one of them or another became an emergency. And that was no help at all. My stress level was immense.
Having learned from that, I try to make priorities quite clear to the folks who report to me. I realize not everyone works in the same fashion, nor does prioritization lower everyone else's stress level the way it does mine, but it's been my best tool to make things clear.
And it works on my end, at least. I get things when I need them, and no one in my charge complains they don't know what to work on next. I just hope it helps them with their stress level as well.
These days, I've got a ton of conflicting priorities and people on all sides are demanding my time and attention. Some are sending multiple emails (though understandably, since I'm about to declare email bankruptcy), as well as copying in my old supervisor, weirdly enough. But when I'm entirely overloaded, it's an immense relief to be able to say "no" and refer them to someone farther up the chain than I am. Especially when that someone else can easily say that I've got more important tasks than theirs.
Being able to work down my list with someone who can make the call and take the heat that might follow is exactly what I need when I'm overwhelmed. I'd say it about halves my stress level, though that might be an exaggeration.
At the very least, it takes me out of the "I'll never get this all done" mindset. Instead, it provides a path to how it might all get done.
I once had a supervisor who refused to prioritize my duties, tasks and projects. Even when I asked, the supervisor in question refused. And nothing drove me battier.
And I was less productive for it. I ended up switching between things, trying to do them all semi-evenly until one of them or another became an emergency. And that was no help at all. My stress level was immense.
Having learned from that, I try to make priorities quite clear to the folks who report to me. I realize not everyone works in the same fashion, nor does prioritization lower everyone else's stress level the way it does mine, but it's been my best tool to make things clear.
And it works on my end, at least. I get things when I need them, and no one in my charge complains they don't know what to work on next. I just hope it helps them with their stress level as well.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Dreaming work
I woke this morning after dreaming about how to implement a really useful, effective way to use Twitter for the Admissions Office. Thankfully, I didn't lose all the details upon waking, which sometimes happens to me with dreams interrupted by an alarm.
But I did think, upon waking, that the dream was a really bad sign. A really good sign too, but also a really bad sign.
It told me I don't have enough waking time to process this sort of thing.
I suspect either tomorrow or the next day I'm going to have to tell my boss that I've reached critical mass. That I have too many tasks and need help. It's swallow my pride time and I hate that.
He's just back from vacation and the approximately minute-and-a-half I had with him today was not the time to address this, but it does need to happen soon.
The firefighting I've been doing has shoved the less pressing things to a back shelf, and if we want to keep them alive, I've got to lean on others.
I hate that. I've always been a bit of an overachiever, and not always good at delegation: I've always subscribed to the "to get things done right, do it yourself" school of thought. But I'm learning. Sometimes the hard way.
In the process, though, I'm learning that people like to be challenged. When I hand over non-drudge work, work that requires critical thought and judgment, they appreciate it. Most of them realize that means I trust them.
And that trust is, sometimes, hard to come by. Hate to admit it, but it's true. But I've got to learn better. Hopefully other folks will help me out by doing well with the projects I hand over.
But I did think, upon waking, that the dream was a really bad sign. A really good sign too, but also a really bad sign.
It told me I don't have enough waking time to process this sort of thing.
I suspect either tomorrow or the next day I'm going to have to tell my boss that I've reached critical mass. That I have too many tasks and need help. It's swallow my pride time and I hate that.
He's just back from vacation and the approximately minute-and-a-half I had with him today was not the time to address this, but it does need to happen soon.
The firefighting I've been doing has shoved the less pressing things to a back shelf, and if we want to keep them alive, I've got to lean on others.
I hate that. I've always been a bit of an overachiever, and not always good at delegation: I've always subscribed to the "to get things done right, do it yourself" school of thought. But I'm learning. Sometimes the hard way.
In the process, though, I'm learning that people like to be challenged. When I hand over non-drudge work, work that requires critical thought and judgment, they appreciate it. Most of them realize that means I trust them.
And that trust is, sometimes, hard to come by. Hate to admit it, but it's true. But I've got to learn better. Hopefully other folks will help me out by doing well with the projects I hand over.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Cross-platform documentation
Fair warning: there may be no blog post tomorrow. I'll be at Hersheypark and I suspect we'll be there late. I'll try to make it up over the weekend.
We have a new writer/editor on board as of yesterday. Desperately needed, I might add. I've already passed her two tasks that I really needed an editor's eye on, and she already caught a typo I missed (I did write it and hadn't proofed it yet--nor had I put it up yet, but that's beside the point).
I'd love to tell the story and link it, but it's not ready for public viewing just yet. I'll give some background instead.
In a cost-saving/environmentalist attempt to be more efficient, our office is going to stop sending a letter reminding students who apply that we're missing information from them like standardized test scores and their high school transcript. Instead, we'll be directing them to their online account with us, where they can view their regularly-updated status and see exactly what we're missing at the time.
In the past, this letter and the transcript or scores often crossed in the mail, prompting anxious calls. At the same time, I expect we'll get "I didn't know I had to check that" calls from now on, even though we've made every effort to point them to the resource, and we know that most students are using it. Obsessively, even.
So there's rewriting of current material to be done. We have to catch everywhere we might mention that letter.
Even though the process of halting this letter started almost last year at this time, it was only today that we made the decision to stop the letter entirely. Starting tomorrow.
So there was, of course, a bit of a scramble to make sure we'd killed it everywhere we needed to. Most of it was double-checking on things I'd changed six months ago and forgotten about for certain, but it was a scramble nonetheless. I checked the last place I needed to at about 5:10 this afternoon.
In the process, a few things were proven to me.
I had considered asking the new writer/editor to help me locate the letter references, but quickly dismissed that as folly. She would have no idea where to start other than a search engine.
If I hadn't been in the office today, this might have been a problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I really do think that I'm the only one in the office that knows all the content on our site backwards and forwards. And given that memory isn't always my strong suit (I digitize most of it to give me more processing room), that resource needs to reside somewhere else too.
Basically, I'd argue that for a large site containing lots of procedures, you need documentation for where things that may need to be changed reside. And it has to cross platforms.
We've yanked a lot of references in my time with Admissions:
Now that I've been there long enough and I know all of our materials, I can name most of the spots all the above used to appear: which brochures (viewbook, fact brochure), presentations (prospect, out-of-state, SASD), letters (AU001--the missing information letter; a host of others not worth mentioning), pages on our site (news/html/newsat.htm, from our old site--and I'm sure you can recognize the archaic structure there), the application for admission, and a ton of standard email we send out as reminders.
It's the pieces I don't touch regularly that have gotten missed. I found an email from what used to be a separate team in the office that still has both the rush score and transcript mention that was sent out as recently as last January. And, I suspect, more recently than that still, but have yet to have proof.
Our office is, unfortunately, a bit of a Kraken: multi-armed and sprawling. Such is the nature of a large office with independent functions, much less a large university or a multi-campus institution like ours. We can occasionally collect all our arms, but most of the time a tentacle does get loose. They're squirmy little buggers.
And no, I'm not going to make the Cthulhu comparison some of you might be expecting.
But back to my point.
Not everyone in the organization is going to be an expert. You'll always have new staff. Help with managing sites, processes, etc is always welcome. Documentation may be key to keep all your miscellaneous bits in line.
Everything is Miscellaneous, and it doesn't always flock as neatly as Weinberger demonstrates. Learn to manage your organization's information, both for the benefit of your own memory and sanity, and to help the new folks on your team.
We have a new writer/editor on board as of yesterday. Desperately needed, I might add. I've already passed her two tasks that I really needed an editor's eye on, and she already caught a typo I missed (I did write it and hadn't proofed it yet--nor had I put it up yet, but that's beside the point).
I'd love to tell the story and link it, but it's not ready for public viewing just yet. I'll give some background instead.
In a cost-saving/environmentalist attempt to be more efficient, our office is going to stop sending a letter reminding students who apply that we're missing information from them like standardized test scores and their high school transcript. Instead, we'll be directing them to their online account with us, where they can view their regularly-updated status and see exactly what we're missing at the time.
In the past, this letter and the transcript or scores often crossed in the mail, prompting anxious calls. At the same time, I expect we'll get "I didn't know I had to check that" calls from now on, even though we've made every effort to point them to the resource, and we know that most students are using it. Obsessively, even.
So there's rewriting of current material to be done. We have to catch everywhere we might mention that letter.
Even though the process of halting this letter started almost last year at this time, it was only today that we made the decision to stop the letter entirely. Starting tomorrow.
So there was, of course, a bit of a scramble to make sure we'd killed it everywhere we needed to. Most of it was double-checking on things I'd changed six months ago and forgotten about for certain, but it was a scramble nonetheless. I checked the last place I needed to at about 5:10 this afternoon.
In the process, a few things were proven to me.
I had considered asking the new writer/editor to help me locate the letter references, but quickly dismissed that as folly. She would have no idea where to start other than a search engine.
If I hadn't been in the office today, this might have been a problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I really do think that I'm the only one in the office that knows all the content on our site backwards and forwards. And given that memory isn't always my strong suit (I digitize most of it to give me more processing room), that resource needs to reside somewhere else too.
Basically, I'd argue that for a large site containing lots of procedures, you need documentation for where things that may need to be changed reside. And it has to cross platforms.
We've yanked a lot of references in my time with Admissions:
- SAT I became just SAT.
- We used to recommend against the rush option for their scores--strangely enough, there was a time this came to us via paper, whereas the normal scores came electronically and were loaded faster.
- We used to take scores as official if they were printed on a high school transcript. No longer.
Now that I've been there long enough and I know all of our materials, I can name most of the spots all the above used to appear: which brochures (viewbook, fact brochure), presentations (prospect, out-of-state, SASD), letters (AU001--the missing information letter; a host of others not worth mentioning), pages on our site (news/html/newsat.htm, from our old site--and I'm sure you can recognize the archaic structure there), the application for admission, and a ton of standard email we send out as reminders.
It's the pieces I don't touch regularly that have gotten missed. I found an email from what used to be a separate team in the office that still has both the rush score and transcript mention that was sent out as recently as last January. And, I suspect, more recently than that still, but have yet to have proof.
Our office is, unfortunately, a bit of a Kraken: multi-armed and sprawling. Such is the nature of a large office with independent functions, much less a large university or a multi-campus institution like ours. We can occasionally collect all our arms, but most of the time a tentacle does get loose. They're squirmy little buggers.
And no, I'm not going to make the Cthulhu comparison some of you might be expecting.
But back to my point.
Not everyone in the organization is going to be an expert. You'll always have new staff. Help with managing sites, processes, etc is always welcome. Documentation may be key to keep all your miscellaneous bits in line.
Everything is Miscellaneous, and it doesn't always flock as neatly as Weinberger demonstrates. Learn to manage your organization's information, both for the benefit of your own memory and sanity, and to help the new folks on your team.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Process: one/day
Following Cole's lead, a little reflection about the One Post a Day project.
I agree with him in that it helps focus a concept to the point of sharing succinctly, but the down side I'd share is that I certainly have less time.
In fact, today's the first night in a week that I haven't had obligations other than this post. Well, I do, but they're not as pressing/scheduled as the others have been. Haven't even touched WoW in that time, in fact.
And I also suspect that quality suffers.
From memory, my blog output has generally been best when it's one or two a week. That gives me some time to percolate on a subject rather than just tossing it out there for the sake of having something up for the day.
And in fact, after the obligation of one-a-day is over, I suspect I'll take a hiatus to get things back to normal, and then try to go back to a schedule of that sort.
One a week is manageable. One a day is pressure, and it's not a good kind of pressure considering everything else I've got going on. But I've made it this far, so I'll (be trying to) finish out the month.
I agree with him in that it helps focus a concept to the point of sharing succinctly, but the down side I'd share is that I certainly have less time.
In fact, today's the first night in a week that I haven't had obligations other than this post. Well, I do, but they're not as pressing/scheduled as the others have been. Haven't even touched WoW in that time, in fact.
And I also suspect that quality suffers.
From memory, my blog output has generally been best when it's one or two a week. That gives me some time to percolate on a subject rather than just tossing it out there for the sake of having something up for the day.
And in fact, after the obligation of one-a-day is over, I suspect I'll take a hiatus to get things back to normal, and then try to go back to a schedule of that sort.
One a week is manageable. One a day is pressure, and it's not a good kind of pressure considering everything else I've got going on. But I've made it this far, so I'll (be trying to) finish out the month.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Information online
At a recent meeting, I and a bunch of our decision-makers were trying to make changes to how we use some of our brochures. Costs are rising, both in terms of printing a piece and the cost of postage to distribute them, and budgets are being cut back, so it was time to take that hard look.
And I finally heard one of the sentences I've been waiting for out of our Executive Director's mouth:
"People are looking for this information online."
. . .
Thank you. And darn right they are.
Even putting aside the fact that we created this piece because the colleges stopped printing their own pieces with similar information, there's the doubles and triples that students get of the same brochure, not knowing it's in their folder already or that there's one in the mail to them, etc.
And besides which, they're getting the information the way they want to already. The related pages in question on our site are our most popular pages. We know people are accessing this information there. Even our Knowledge Base entries show it's the most popular question people have in mind when they get to our site.
So I presented a mock-up of a new landing page for the subject in question. I poured all the information we had about the subject onto a page and then faithfully trimmed it by half. I did not go the half again that Steve Krug recommends because--frankly--this was just a mock-up. I didn't have the go-ahead to spend more time on it, really.
And the first response? "Awfully cluttered," and "wordy," to quote the two folks in question. Absolutely right, and I'll admit it. I could certainly spend more time and cut it back more.
And thank you for recognizing what people want on the web: clarity and simplicity.
Be succinct. That's my best web writing tip.
This is, however, super difficult to do when you're dealing with a multi-campus system that's truly (more or less) integrated in terms of curriculum and admissions. With 12 academic colleges at this campus and another 6 throughout the rest of the other 19 campuses scattered across the commonwealth. And especially when multiple campuses offer majors that have the same name, but are different programs with different curricula and options.
Not an easy task. But one I have to tackle.
But tomorrow. I almost missed today's post-per-day due to midnight hitting, and that just won't do, now will it?
And I finally heard one of the sentences I've been waiting for out of our Executive Director's mouth:
"People are looking for this information online."
. . .
Thank you. And darn right they are.
Even putting aside the fact that we created this piece because the colleges stopped printing their own pieces with similar information, there's the doubles and triples that students get of the same brochure, not knowing it's in their folder already or that there's one in the mail to them, etc.
And besides which, they're getting the information the way they want to already. The related pages in question on our site are our most popular pages. We know people are accessing this information there. Even our Knowledge Base entries show it's the most popular question people have in mind when they get to our site.
So I presented a mock-up of a new landing page for the subject in question. I poured all the information we had about the subject onto a page and then faithfully trimmed it by half. I did not go the half again that Steve Krug recommends because--frankly--this was just a mock-up. I didn't have the go-ahead to spend more time on it, really.
And the first response? "Awfully cluttered," and "wordy," to quote the two folks in question. Absolutely right, and I'll admit it. I could certainly spend more time and cut it back more.
And thank you for recognizing what people want on the web: clarity and simplicity.
Be succinct. That's my best web writing tip.
This is, however, super difficult to do when you're dealing with a multi-campus system that's truly (more or less) integrated in terms of curriculum and admissions. With 12 academic colleges at this campus and another 6 throughout the rest of the other 19 campuses scattered across the commonwealth. And especially when multiple campuses offer majors that have the same name, but are different programs with different curricula and options.
Not an easy task. But one I have to tackle.
But tomorrow. I almost missed today's post-per-day due to midnight hitting, and that just won't do, now will it?
Monday, August 18, 2008
On the light side
Lest you think it's always like last Friday:
Everyone needs some levity in their lives. Especially so after a tough day at work, I'd say. Or a Monday. Or a Tuesday. You get the idea.
To that end, I'd like to share some of the sources of such that I turn to:
Everyone needs some levity in their lives. Especially so after a tough day at work, I'd say. Or a Monday. Or a Tuesday. You get the idea.
To that end, I'd like to share some of the sources of such that I turn to:
- Tales from Redesignland - for work-related woes, comic style
- I Can Has Cheezburger - cats with captions
- Indexed - humorous Venn diagrams
- Apostophe Abuse - for the grammarian in me
- Week in Pictures - Reginald Golding's intermittent work. ;)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Fires vs. meetings
My day in brief:
No way I can answer all the email I got today, nor catch up on what I got previously and haven't gotten to/resolved yet.
While today was mostly an exception, this sort of thing happens all the time, to one extent or another. And it's frustrating.
And I know it's not just me. Other people have similar workloads.
At some point, I'm going to have to call an embargo on meetings, or
declare email bankruptcy, or not be on IM, or close and lock my door. Or all of the above. Something. Because otherwise, I can't actually put into action the things I'm in those meetings for.
We're down two content people in my office now, so that could be aggravating the problem. But man. Rough Friday.
The web obviously needs some man-hours, and not just in my office. If there are any web folks out there at Penn State twiddling their thumbs (not that I think there are), drop me a line. I sure could use the help.
- Meetings 8:00 to 12:30, some of which were interrupted by three different people looking for me, all leaving tasks for me behind them.
- Brief hour at my desk for email/IM and lunch.
- Interview for a programmer position open from 1:30 to 2:30,
- half-hour of post-interview review, then
- a good hour of fire-putting-out on our online application for admission--with no resolution.
- Back to email/tasks left behind.
No way I can answer all the email I got today, nor catch up on what I got previously and haven't gotten to/resolved yet.
While today was mostly an exception, this sort of thing happens all the time, to one extent or another. And it's frustrating.
And I know it's not just me. Other people have similar workloads.
At some point, I'm going to have to call an embargo on meetings, or
declare email bankruptcy, or not be on IM, or close and lock my door. Or all of the above. Something. Because otherwise, I can't actually put into action the things I'm in those meetings for.
We're down two content people in my office now, so that could be aggravating the problem. But man. Rough Friday.
The web obviously needs some man-hours, and not just in my office. If there are any web folks out there at Penn State twiddling their thumbs (not that I think there are), drop me a line. I sure could use the help.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Social bookmarking/the problem with marketing
Social bookmarking has caught my attention again. I've had one account or another for years and years, but in the last year or so I've really latched onto it.
In part, I think it has at least a little to do with my iPhone. Before this, I've (generally speaking) had two computers in use at any one time. One for work and one at home. And the work bookmarks went on the work laptop, and the personal bookmarks went on my home computer.
When I started emailing myself links to my work email address from my home computer rather than hauling out my work laptop, though: that's when I knew I was in trouble.
And then the iPhone came along. And believe it or not, it's my main mobile device. When I stopped in on the Learning Design Summer Camp, all I brought was my iPhone. No laptop. And I did fine interacting with the Live Question Tool, and backchanneling via Twitter, and all that.
But to really get the most out of whenever I was websurfing on my iPhone, I needed to be able to access my bookmarks. And putting them "in the cloud" on a social network (so to speak) has done that.
Someone a few weeks ago told me that you can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they bookmark. I'd give that more credence than judging by their shoes--though I don't know a lot about shoes past what's comfortable and looks decent.
My top tags in delicious (name change from the original del.icio.us, so named because a friend of the founder compared finding good links to eating cherries) on my professional account are as follows: socialmedia, reachingstudents, marketing, web2.0, admissions, socialnetworking, usability, content, culture, webdesign.
That's telling. Though I rather dislike that marketing shows up there: I've always resisted that label.
I'm the one usually telling my boss or my equal on the print side (who's a marketer) that we shouldn't do that when he suggests a scheme that smells suspiciously of spamming. We didn't even have an unsubscribe on the marketing email going out of our office until I got there, and our security policies were (emphasis there on the past tense) not very strong on a few points.
Is it that I'm more ethical than my marketing colleague? Possible. I do know that I'm closer to the age of the students we're trying to talk with, and way more tech-savvy than he is. And social media-minded, for that matter.
It's more that I, like many of a similar age and younger, have been totally suspicious of marketing for as long as I've been aware of it. "All Marketers are Liars" is more than a book title to me.
In this vein, social bookmarking has become really valuable to me. I'll more often trust--or at least follow--a link passed to me by a friend or colleague than one being advertised.
So in short, those are the two big draws for me. Social bookmarking is:
In part, I think it has at least a little to do with my iPhone. Before this, I've (generally speaking) had two computers in use at any one time. One for work and one at home. And the work bookmarks went on the work laptop, and the personal bookmarks went on my home computer.
When I started emailing myself links to my work email address from my home computer rather than hauling out my work laptop, though: that's when I knew I was in trouble.
And then the iPhone came along. And believe it or not, it's my main mobile device. When I stopped in on the Learning Design Summer Camp, all I brought was my iPhone. No laptop. And I did fine interacting with the Live Question Tool, and backchanneling via Twitter, and all that.
But to really get the most out of whenever I was websurfing on my iPhone, I needed to be able to access my bookmarks. And putting them "in the cloud" on a social network (so to speak) has done that.
Someone a few weeks ago told me that you can tell a lot about someone by looking at what they bookmark. I'd give that more credence than judging by their shoes--though I don't know a lot about shoes past what's comfortable and looks decent.
My top tags in delicious (name change from the original del.icio.us, so named because a friend of the founder compared finding good links to eating cherries) on my professional account are as follows: socialmedia, reachingstudents, marketing, web2.0, admissions, socialnetworking, usability, content, culture, webdesign.
That's telling. Though I rather dislike that marketing shows up there: I've always resisted that label.
I'm the one usually telling my boss or my equal on the print side (who's a marketer) that we shouldn't do that when he suggests a scheme that smells suspiciously of spamming. We didn't even have an unsubscribe on the marketing email going out of our office until I got there, and our security policies were (emphasis there on the past tense) not very strong on a few points.
Is it that I'm more ethical than my marketing colleague? Possible. I do know that I'm closer to the age of the students we're trying to talk with, and way more tech-savvy than he is. And social media-minded, for that matter.
It's more that I, like many of a similar age and younger, have been totally suspicious of marketing for as long as I've been aware of it. "All Marketers are Liars" is more than a book title to me.
In this vein, social bookmarking has become really valuable to me. I'll more often trust--or at least follow--a link passed to me by a friend or colleague than one being advertised.
So in short, those are the two big draws for me. Social bookmarking is:
- in the cloud
- with my community
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
rural/urban: an unusual request
So this afternoon, an unusual request sent me down a rabbit hole.
A colleague over in ITS asked me what seemed on the surface a relatively simple question: how many students that enroll come from rural environments within Pennsylvania?
During the course of the conversation, I expanded that to include those who visit our website but might not end up enrolling who were from Pennsylvania, since a lot of Penn State's services also assist those outside of the officially-affiliated Penn State community. Not to mention that was an easier number to come by, relatively speaking.
To that end, I went to our web analytics and expanded to look over the course of a year. Just on the high end of traffic, it was pretty easy to see the major population centers in the commonwealth. Likewise, by going to the low end of traffic, you could see the less densely populated areas, though this was less accurate. But here we run into the problem that folks from rural environments may not be online, and thus not even making it onto this count.
So what about our enrollment numbers? There's no checkmark (rural/urban) for us to bounce against, thus the Penn State Fact Book doesn't list it, nor have we ever run these numbers before. After talking to one of my data-minded colleagues, our best solution was to tap into our sociology folks at the university for a list of "rural" zip codes: once we had that, from there we could run these numbers with some degree of accuracy. Problem is, even a ballpark was tough to come by until we had some definitions like this.
Simple question, yes? Not so very.
A colleague over in ITS asked me what seemed on the surface a relatively simple question: how many students that enroll come from rural environments within Pennsylvania?
During the course of the conversation, I expanded that to include those who visit our website but might not end up enrolling who were from Pennsylvania, since a lot of Penn State's services also assist those outside of the officially-affiliated Penn State community. Not to mention that was an easier number to come by, relatively speaking.
To that end, I went to our web analytics and expanded to look over the course of a year. Just on the high end of traffic, it was pretty easy to see the major population centers in the commonwealth. Likewise, by going to the low end of traffic, you could see the less densely populated areas, though this was less accurate. But here we run into the problem that folks from rural environments may not be online, and thus not even making it onto this count.
So what about our enrollment numbers? There's no checkmark (rural/urban) for us to bounce against, thus the Penn State Fact Book doesn't list it, nor have we ever run these numbers before. After talking to one of my data-minded colleagues, our best solution was to tap into our sociology folks at the university for a list of "rural" zip codes: once we had that, from there we could run these numbers with some degree of accuracy. Problem is, even a ballpark was tough to come by until we had some definitions like this.
Simple question, yes? Not so very.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Exercising your knowledge base
Prompted by an excellent post by Shelby Thayer, as well as a meeting today with IntelliResponse, our knowledge base provider, I'd like to dig into what you can find out from and how you can fine-tune a knowledge base.
I personally find it fun and entertaining to track our top ten over time and see how things shift. Yes, I'm a strange bird. I know this and embrace it. But watching "how do I apply" crawl up over inquiries for our academic calendar shows the shift in the year again: that shift in what students and parents are thinking about. Likewise, inquiries for campus tours.
And I was thrilled to see "is Penn State a multicampus system" actually gain enough traction to make it to one of our top tens (the one that people actually type in, rather than browsing the provided questions). Thrilled. Essentially, that means that the message that Penn State is not one place has gotten out there.
But I found, when I looked farther, that "2+2" goes unanswered if someone enters it. Likewise, "campus offer." And these oversights (my own fault, mostly) are pretty egregious.
Now, those not familiar with the Penn State system might say "huh?" But both those questions should likely point to the "is Penn State a multicampus system" answer, or one like it. (2+2 is what we call our system of two years at a smaller campus, followed by two years at a larger one to finish an undergraduate degree; campus offer is an offer of admission to one of our campuses.)
As much help as we've gotten from IntelliReponse (and we've gotten a ton: they've been great), you really need someone who knows the institution and office in question pretty much inside and out to evaluate your answers on a regular basis. I've found miscategorized questions, questions that don't get answered, and quite a few that are really just garbage--often someone with a juvenile sense of humor trying to see what they can get the system to answer to pretty ridiculous questions.
The miscategorized and unanswered worry me the most. That said, we're almost at a 90% response rate, and haven't been up and running too terribly long, so I'm not losing sleep over it. Yet.
I've seen as many misspellings as I think might exist for "Schreyer" (referring to our Honors College), including "shriars," "shryer," and "scyers" (virtually never capitalized, I might add), as well as referral to the aforementioned as "honros colelge." I also know the Penn State system is confusing, but I really wish we could get enough info out there that people wouldn't be so bewildered as to ask "what college is the university campus on?"
I'm also sincerely hoping that "convicted of a felony" does not become a common question to turn up.
Examples aside, paying attention to these and getting them categorized appropriately not only helps your numbers, it helps your community, and that has real results when it comes to customer service. I've found that it's not just prospective students and parents using our knowledge base: it's also Penn State staff and faculty, some of them internal to admissions.
And people are using it all hours of the day, from all around the world. So rather than staying up until it's business hours on our side of the world, a student from Thailand or China can get the answer they need right then. Likewise those that are in our time zone and don't want to pick up the phone or write an email. Not to mention those right at any one of our Penn State campuses.
So in the end, to serve your customer, you have to find out what they want or need and try to deliver it to them in the way that's easiest for them to use, not the easiest for you to manage, although the two often intersect. Keep in touch with your community and serve them well, and you'll find the benefit is enormous.
I personally find it fun and entertaining to track our top ten over time and see how things shift. Yes, I'm a strange bird. I know this and embrace it. But watching "how do I apply" crawl up over inquiries for our academic calendar shows the shift in the year again: that shift in what students and parents are thinking about. Likewise, inquiries for campus tours.
And I was thrilled to see "is Penn State a multicampus system" actually gain enough traction to make it to one of our top tens (the one that people actually type in, rather than browsing the provided questions). Thrilled. Essentially, that means that the message that Penn State is not one place has gotten out there.
But I found, when I looked farther, that "2+2" goes unanswered if someone enters it. Likewise, "campus offer." And these oversights (my own fault, mostly) are pretty egregious.
Now, those not familiar with the Penn State system might say "huh?" But both those questions should likely point to the "is Penn State a multicampus system" answer, or one like it. (2+2 is what we call our system of two years at a smaller campus, followed by two years at a larger one to finish an undergraduate degree; campus offer is an offer of admission to one of our campuses.)
As much help as we've gotten from IntelliReponse (and we've gotten a ton: they've been great), you really need someone who knows the institution and office in question pretty much inside and out to evaluate your answers on a regular basis. I've found miscategorized questions, questions that don't get answered, and quite a few that are really just garbage--often someone with a juvenile sense of humor trying to see what they can get the system to answer to pretty ridiculous questions.
The miscategorized and unanswered worry me the most. That said, we're almost at a 90% response rate, and haven't been up and running too terribly long, so I'm not losing sleep over it. Yet.
I've seen as many misspellings as I think might exist for "Schreyer" (referring to our Honors College), including "shriars," "shryer," and "scyers" (virtually never capitalized, I might add), as well as referral to the aforementioned as "honros colelge." I also know the Penn State system is confusing, but I really wish we could get enough info out there that people wouldn't be so bewildered as to ask "what college is the university campus on?"
I'm also sincerely hoping that "convicted of a felony" does not become a common question to turn up.
Examples aside, paying attention to these and getting them categorized appropriately not only helps your numbers, it helps your community, and that has real results when it comes to customer service. I've found that it's not just prospective students and parents using our knowledge base: it's also Penn State staff and faculty, some of them internal to admissions.
And people are using it all hours of the day, from all around the world. So rather than staying up until it's business hours on our side of the world, a student from Thailand or China can get the answer they need right then. Likewise those that are in our time zone and don't want to pick up the phone or write an email. Not to mention those right at any one of our Penn State campuses.
So in the end, to serve your customer, you have to find out what they want or need and try to deliver it to them in the way that's easiest for them to use, not the easiest for you to manage, although the two often intersect. Keep in touch with your community and serve them well, and you'll find the benefit is enormous.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Committees, usefulness thereof
This post started after reading this blurb questioning the need for committees. And I have to say I agree.
My office excels at bringing together committees, or working groups, or what-have-you. In practice, though, the most effective use of everyone's time that I've seen has been in bringing together the two or three people who will actually do the work for the project and having them keep up with each other.
In a lot of cases, this could be done online. Twitter could be used for up-to-the-minute updates. Or, of course, you could use a more normal project management package. A few of us used Backpack pretty extensively for awhile. The subject experts should only be pulled in as consultants to make a good project run.
But the point of committees in our office (often), unfortunately, and I see the need for it, is generally for buy-in. To keep people aware of how the project is coming.
And I really feel it's a waste sometimes. But there's a huge culture change that would need to take place to make it all work without them.
Has anyone else actually been in a place that has managed that change? Any tips you can share?
My office excels at bringing together committees, or working groups, or what-have-you. In practice, though, the most effective use of everyone's time that I've seen has been in bringing together the two or three people who will actually do the work for the project and having them keep up with each other.
In a lot of cases, this could be done online. Twitter could be used for up-to-the-minute updates. Or, of course, you could use a more normal project management package. A few of us used Backpack pretty extensively for awhile. The subject experts should only be pulled in as consultants to make a good project run.
But the point of committees in our office (often), unfortunately, and I see the need for it, is generally for buy-in. To keep people aware of how the project is coming.
And I really feel it's a waste sometimes. But there's a huge culture change that would need to take place to make it all work without them.
Has anyone else actually been in a place that has managed that change? Any tips you can share?
Friday, August 08, 2008
One-upsmanship (internet culture)
We're creating our own language here at Penn State.
Then again, people in groups together for any significant period of time do. Does anybody outside of Penn State understand the significance of "BS Breakfast"? Probably not: they'd take it for what it sounds like. Which was, of course, the intent. (BS here stands for "brainstorming," for those not in the know.)
"Language" may be an overstatement, but it's at least a code. You're "in" if you know what we're talking about.
I'm part of a lot of these communities with their own codes: Penn State TLT groupie (joke!) is just one of them. And acronyms are just part of these codes.
One community with a ton of community-made acronyms that I'm part of is BPAL enthusiasts (keep in mind, with the following links, that their aesthetic is quite dark--don't be shocked). Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a Los Angeles-based outfit that creates perfume oils, and it has its own parlance. GC (general catalog), LE (limited edition), CD (Carnaval Diabolique) and the like are pretty common to see in discussions on the topic, as is BPTP (Black Phoenix Trading Post, their sister company, which produces all their non-perfume oil goods).
Other communities of a sort are more based on quotes or references. The video Shannon posted yesterday contains a bunch of these. Whether or not you notice them depends on where you spend your time online. One of the first clips is a re-creation of the Numa Numa guy. There's also "first!" (warning: expletives, immaturity), commonly seen in comments. See also: Internet Commenter Business Meeting (same warning applies, only way more so. plus offensiveness. plus . . . oh, nevermind--it's from College Humor, so you should expect as much), which is basically what would happen if a meeting was run like virtually any popular open forum online.
And, of course, if you haven't yet been hit by a Rick Roll, you haven't been online long enough, and you certainly haven't been taking a look all the way through my links. But that may be just as well, really.
Internet Memes (warning: too many warnings than I can list) attempts to collate all these references. It doesn't hit all of them, but it hits the highlights quite well.
And there's certainly some mocking of that communal language of references. An editorial in the New York Times today, Lord of the Memes, tells us that to be on the cutting edge, we need to be "not only an early adopter, but an early discarder." We should go through these products, services and references before anyone else and then get sick of them and dismiss them with disdain should anyone else bring them up. The article ends with "remember, cultural epochs come and go, but one-upsmanship is forever."
I didn't discover that editorial on my own. In a rare reverse-crossover reference--real life to online rather than the other way around--someone told me about it at lunch and I looked at it on my iPhone when the conversation waned. There's some irony there, believe me.
But this is connectivity. Or the cost of connectivity. Or the advantage of connectivity.
The point is, that too is part of your cultural education. So choose your influences wisely--they will become your references, and part of your language. Maybe I should be a bit more selective in mine. ;)
Then again, people in groups together for any significant period of time do. Does anybody outside of Penn State understand the significance of "BS Breakfast"? Probably not: they'd take it for what it sounds like. Which was, of course, the intent. (BS here stands for "brainstorming," for those not in the know.)
"Language" may be an overstatement, but it's at least a code. You're "in" if you know what we're talking about.
I'm part of a lot of these communities with their own codes: Penn State TLT groupie (joke!) is just one of them. And acronyms are just part of these codes.
One community with a ton of community-made acronyms that I'm part of is BPAL enthusiasts (keep in mind, with the following links, that their aesthetic is quite dark--don't be shocked). Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a Los Angeles-based outfit that creates perfume oils, and it has its own parlance. GC (general catalog), LE (limited edition), CD (Carnaval Diabolique) and the like are pretty common to see in discussions on the topic, as is BPTP (Black Phoenix Trading Post, their sister company, which produces all their non-perfume oil goods).
Other communities of a sort are more based on quotes or references. The video Shannon posted yesterday contains a bunch of these. Whether or not you notice them depends on where you spend your time online. One of the first clips is a re-creation of the Numa Numa guy. There's also "first!" (warning: expletives, immaturity), commonly seen in comments. See also: Internet Commenter Business Meeting (same warning applies, only way more so. plus offensiveness. plus . . . oh, nevermind--it's from College Humor, so you should expect as much), which is basically what would happen if a meeting was run like virtually any popular open forum online.
And, of course, if you haven't yet been hit by a Rick Roll, you haven't been online long enough, and you certainly haven't been taking a look all the way through my links. But that may be just as well, really.
Internet Memes (warning: too many warnings than I can list) attempts to collate all these references. It doesn't hit all of them, but it hits the highlights quite well.
And there's certainly some mocking of that communal language of references. An editorial in the New York Times today, Lord of the Memes, tells us that to be on the cutting edge, we need to be "not only an early adopter, but an early discarder." We should go through these products, services and references before anyone else and then get sick of them and dismiss them with disdain should anyone else bring them up. The article ends with "remember, cultural epochs come and go, but one-upsmanship is forever."
I didn't discover that editorial on my own. In a rare reverse-crossover reference--real life to online rather than the other way around--someone told me about it at lunch and I looked at it on my iPhone when the conversation waned. There's some irony there, believe me.
But this is connectivity. Or the cost of connectivity. Or the advantage of connectivity.
The point is, that too is part of your cultural education. So choose your influences wisely--they will become your references, and part of your language. Maybe I should be a bit more selective in mine. ;)
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Serendipity and complications
Amit Gupta wrote about social serendipity today, and it feels like we've got a landslide of that going on here at Penn State, though much closer to home than his examples (he's the guy behind Photojojo, for those not familiar).
As my follow list on Twitter grows, I'm finding more and more amazing, knowledgeable people out there who "get it," in the words of one of those folks, who it just so happens I got to meet for lunch today.
And the give-and-take of that community, online and off, has been amazing. You end up tapping into the collective knowledge of a ton of experts, as long as you're willing to wait for an answer.
This has happened to me before, in other forums and communities, but this is as close to home as it's come. And while it's really cool to have connections wherever you might need them--an online shout-out for info about Buffalo a couple months ago turned up online friends that I didn't know were out there, for example--having them right in your backyard is amazing.
I mean, hey. Impromptu lunches are a possibility, even.
But it does cost attention. Design for Emotion and Flow describes this really well in the second paragraph of the article. The rest is no less important, but it's unrelated to my point here.
There's a point of balance that I think most of us are still trying to find in this newfound community:
Some of this, no one has talked about at much length. But I'm feeling it out there. And it's something we all have to work through. Personally, I worked out some of this by dividing my Twitter presence into personal and professional. Folks I meet at conferences may get one or the other depending on the context.
Some folks have made parts of this problem quite plain: Shannon posted two videos to explain why she might "unfollow" someone on Twitter. Other bits of this are way more unspoken.
It's exciting to me that these new modes of being create new problems, bizarrely enough. It means we're progressing, expanding. Perhaps not in a geologic time sense, but significant nonetheless.
I'm looking forward to solving these problems for myself and seeing what they mean on the grander scale, especially as re-localization becomes a trend.
As my follow list on Twitter grows, I'm finding more and more amazing, knowledgeable people out there who "get it," in the words of one of those folks, who it just so happens I got to meet for lunch today.
And the give-and-take of that community, online and off, has been amazing. You end up tapping into the collective knowledge of a ton of experts, as long as you're willing to wait for an answer.
This has happened to me before, in other forums and communities, but this is as close to home as it's come. And while it's really cool to have connections wherever you might need them--an online shout-out for info about Buffalo a couple months ago turned up online friends that I didn't know were out there, for example--having them right in your backyard is amazing.
I mean, hey. Impromptu lunches are a possibility, even.
But it does cost attention. Design for Emotion and Flow describes this really well in the second paragraph of the article. The rest is no less important, but it's unrelated to my point here.
There's a point of balance that I think most of us are still trying to find in this newfound community:
- how to give and take equally to one's network;
- how to enjoy oneself and others evenly;
- how to find a sympathetic ear to vent without alienating others;
- where "no invitation [is] required" and crashing the party;
- expansion of connections and input overload;
- "value" of contribution and "just being yourself."
Some of this, no one has talked about at much length. But I'm feeling it out there. And it's something we all have to work through. Personally, I worked out some of this by dividing my Twitter presence into personal and professional. Folks I meet at conferences may get one or the other depending on the context.
Some folks have made parts of this problem quite plain: Shannon posted two videos to explain why she might "unfollow" someone on Twitter. Other bits of this are way more unspoken.
It's exciting to me that these new modes of being create new problems, bizarrely enough. It means we're progressing, expanding. Perhaps not in a geologic time sense, but significant nonetheless.
I'm looking forward to solving these problems for myself and seeing what they mean on the grander scale, especially as re-localization becomes a trend.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Usability in admissions
So as of yesterday, I've been approved to move forward with some usability testing on our online application for admission. As an excellent bonus, I'll be allowed to waive the application fee of the students who help us by letting them observe them.
Our Directors Planning Team, which collectively makes most of the important decisions in the office (which I'm a member of), was somewhat characteristically interested in the details. Who are we testing? Just students who visit? Out-of-state students? Students in the different regions of Pennsylvania? Those who visit our Community Recruitment Centers? I took it a step farther to make it clear that breadth isn't necessarily our aim considering our resources for the project--as of yet, I have no further funding approved--by suggesting transfers and international students. Further than that, we should look at adult students. But if I intend to test 5 - 10 students, there's no way we'll hit all these populations. How do we balance my funding, resources, support, and time? Not to mention equipment and travel, possibly?
The easy answer is: we don't. Keeping it simple and keeping it close to home (so to speak) keeps it feasible. And we'll get plenty of useful feedback just with that, potentially more than we can change in the time we have. If I get the funding and time I need, though, the equation changes completely.
This morning (during the Spend a Summer Day admissions presentation, I'll admit, with the caveat that I've seen it five times now) I started mulling over my own questions about the project, which in some ways I find more important. What should we ask on a pre- or post-survey? Do we really strip this down to make it fast and easy and not have either? Do I want to publish/speak on this topic and thus slow us down with the IRB process? (No, probably not. What we do now falls under process-improvement and hasn't required one thus far.)
Should I contact my Usability Engineering instructor from last semester and see if he knows a student who might be interested in helping with this very important research? Do we want to try to include someone with accessibility issues to make the point that we need to work on that end of things? (One rule of usability testing is not to go in with an agenda, so I probably shouldn't pursue this.)
The questions go on and on.
In the end, we'll probably end up on the end of a stripped-down version, because doing that way gets it done. Getting ambitious may mean it doesn't happen, and I'd hate for that to occur. We need to know what real students do rather than continuing to make suppositions.
Our Directors Planning Team, which collectively makes most of the important decisions in the office (which I'm a member of), was somewhat characteristically interested in the details. Who are we testing? Just students who visit? Out-of-state students? Students in the different regions of Pennsylvania? Those who visit our Community Recruitment Centers? I took it a step farther to make it clear that breadth isn't necessarily our aim considering our resources for the project--as of yet, I have no further funding approved--by suggesting transfers and international students. Further than that, we should look at adult students. But if I intend to test 5 - 10 students, there's no way we'll hit all these populations. How do we balance my funding, resources, support, and time? Not to mention equipment and travel, possibly?
The easy answer is: we don't. Keeping it simple and keeping it close to home (so to speak) keeps it feasible. And we'll get plenty of useful feedback just with that, potentially more than we can change in the time we have. If I get the funding and time I need, though, the equation changes completely.
This morning (during the Spend a Summer Day admissions presentation, I'll admit, with the caveat that I've seen it five times now) I started mulling over my own questions about the project, which in some ways I find more important. What should we ask on a pre- or post-survey? Do we really strip this down to make it fast and easy and not have either? Do I want to publish/speak on this topic and thus slow us down with the IRB process? (No, probably not. What we do now falls under process-improvement and hasn't required one thus far.)
Should I contact my Usability Engineering instructor from last semester and see if he knows a student who might be interested in helping with this very important research? Do we want to try to include someone with accessibility issues to make the point that we need to work on that end of things? (One rule of usability testing is not to go in with an agenda, so I probably shouldn't pursue this.)
The questions go on and on.
In the end, we'll probably end up on the end of a stripped-down version, because doing that way gets it done. Getting ambitious may mean it doesn't happen, and I'd hate for that to occur. We need to know what real students do rather than continuing to make suppositions.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Facebook and recruiting, initial thoughts
Wish I had more time to address this today, but this one will have to be quick. Keep in mind most of this is supposition.
Sometime during their search, I bet students looking at colleges and universities are likely to tap into Facebook. While this is still theory, it's supported by others such as James Howell, in his entry a few days ago.
Unfortunately, right now I don't expect that Penn State Admissions will be headed in that direction just yet, despite the presentation I made this past spring at our Penn State Admissions conference. The basic gist of that presentation was a suggestion to use Facebook Pages rather than Groups or Profiles for an "official" presence there. The "fan of" dynamic is just easier to deal with. That aside.
So for those students who choose to take a quick peek via Facebook into the ins and outs of a university, they'll probably breeze through the groups, maybe take a look at some interesting people.
If I were to give some advice to that student, it would be: don't judge us by a quick run-through, by our more popular groups, or even by our more active students on Facebook, necessarily. Take a moment to search for faculty. Look through staff like advisers, if you can find them. Look through the clubs and organizations with an official presence there. And better yet, contact people. Ask the question you've been wanting to of that student leader, that professor whose department you're interested in, especially if they've been active recently.
The head of the Undergraduate Writing Center, Jon Olson, resisted getting onto Facebook for years. The peer tutors he works with created a "Get Jon Olson on Facebook" (or some such title) group. He finally relented recently and has been posting enthusiastically since: status, photos, even video.
It's a hurdle for faculty sometimes, but I think most of them find that it's super easy (and maybe even fun). But it does present some interesting quandaries: do I provide advising for the student that contacts me on Facebook, or do I refer her/him to email? That sort of thing. And while they all make their own decisions on that end, I would hope they would at least answer you. So reach out.
Social networks are for interacting, after all.
Sometime during their search, I bet students looking at colleges and universities are likely to tap into Facebook. While this is still theory, it's supported by others such as James Howell, in his entry a few days ago.
Unfortunately, right now I don't expect that Penn State Admissions will be headed in that direction just yet, despite the presentation I made this past spring at our Penn State Admissions conference. The basic gist of that presentation was a suggestion to use Facebook Pages rather than Groups or Profiles for an "official" presence there. The "fan of" dynamic is just easier to deal with. That aside.
So for those students who choose to take a quick peek via Facebook into the ins and outs of a university, they'll probably breeze through the groups, maybe take a look at some interesting people.
If I were to give some advice to that student, it would be: don't judge us by a quick run-through, by our more popular groups, or even by our more active students on Facebook, necessarily. Take a moment to search for faculty. Look through staff like advisers, if you can find them. Look through the clubs and organizations with an official presence there. And better yet, contact people. Ask the question you've been wanting to of that student leader, that professor whose department you're interested in, especially if they've been active recently.
The head of the Undergraduate Writing Center, Jon Olson, resisted getting onto Facebook for years. The peer tutors he works with created a "Get Jon Olson on Facebook" (or some such title) group. He finally relented recently and has been posting enthusiastically since: status, photos, even video.
It's a hurdle for faculty sometimes, but I think most of them find that it's super easy (and maybe even fun). But it does present some interesting quandaries: do I provide advising for the student that contacts me on Facebook, or do I refer her/him to email? That sort of thing. And while they all make their own decisions on that end, I would hope they would at least answer you. So reach out.
Social networks are for interacting, after all.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Geology and tech: the end is the beginning is the end
I think I prefaced over this last weekend that I wasn't going to have a theme with this entry in mind.
I started college as a geology major. Somewhat obviously, I didn't stick with it, but it's still a great interest of mine.
Some of you know and some of you don't that I have an MFA in Creative Writing. So a lot of my so-called "personal" reading is actually keeping up on that end of things for me.
And to combine both interests, I recently read Threshold, by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It's very much in a genre I used to write--a pseudo-magical realism, if magical realism in literature could be divorced from its Latin American roots (which it can't be, really). It starts out gritty, modern, and then wanders gently into science, myth, urban legend, and a particular superstitious nature you find in the south.
But my main point in addressing the experience of reading this book was the following passage, voiced by our narrator, Chance, who was in college as a geology major at the time:
I'm learning to read in a larger sense than I've ever read so far. And to some extent this was an evolution: I did, after all, start on email quite awhile ago, then moved to forums, then Livejournal, then Blogger, then Facebook/MySpace, then Twitter, and Google Reader and the big feeds (Slashdot, BoingBoing, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, etc) got stuck in there somewhere too (and I may be skipping steps, of course: on the multimedia end, Flickr and YouTube are two examples, but I'm talking about text here, in the main).
But in terms of an educated and informed community that I can have face-to-face contact with and shares my academic/work interests, this is a first (which might be, I might add, because my college/grad work had little to do with technology). Not just casual friends giving updates on their lives, but I get a touch of friendliness and personality alongside the theory.
So I get these fantastic ideas as well as the context surrounding them: the problems that were faced to prompt them to come up with these ideas. It's good stuff.
But larger than that, and for a longer period of time, I've been learning to read people and their interaction with technology; learning to read the evolution of society due to technology's influence; learning to read how technology is changing our minds and changing our spaces.
I'm reading the future. I've already learned to read the past.
So between geology and tech, I feel like I've got the span of things.1 And while this current tech iteration is more minute than an atom in a drop in a bucket in terms of geologic time, it's monumental for us living in it.
And I get to read it. And better yet, write some of it.
[1]Oroboros.
I started college as a geology major. Somewhat obviously, I didn't stick with it, but it's still a great interest of mine.
Some of you know and some of you don't that I have an MFA in Creative Writing. So a lot of my so-called "personal" reading is actually keeping up on that end of things for me.
And to combine both interests, I recently read Threshold, by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It's very much in a genre I used to write--a pseudo-magical realism, if magical realism in literature could be divorced from its Latin American roots (which it can't be, really). It starts out gritty, modern, and then wanders gently into science, myth, urban legend, and a particular superstitious nature you find in the south.
But my main point in addressing the experience of reading this book was the following passage, voiced by our narrator, Chance, who was in college as a geology major at the time:
It's this urge that drives me, strangely enough, in my current work as well."Can you think of anything else I could do with my life that could ever possibly be half this splendid, half this important? I'm learning to read, Deke, and not just the handful of things men have been around long enough to write down. The history of the whole damned planet is written in rocks, just lying there waiting for us to learn how to read the words." - p. 177
I'm learning to read in a larger sense than I've ever read so far. And to some extent this was an evolution: I did, after all, start on email quite awhile ago, then moved to forums, then Livejournal, then Blogger, then Facebook/MySpace, then Twitter, and Google Reader and the big feeds (Slashdot, BoingBoing, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, etc) got stuck in there somewhere too (and I may be skipping steps, of course: on the multimedia end, Flickr and YouTube are two examples, but I'm talking about text here, in the main).
But in terms of an educated and informed community that I can have face-to-face contact with and shares my academic/work interests, this is a first (which might be, I might add, because my college/grad work had little to do with technology). Not just casual friends giving updates on their lives, but I get a touch of friendliness and personality alongside the theory.
So I get these fantastic ideas as well as the context surrounding them: the problems that were faced to prompt them to come up with these ideas. It's good stuff.
But larger than that, and for a longer period of time, I've been learning to read people and their interaction with technology; learning to read the evolution of society due to technology's influence; learning to read how technology is changing our minds and changing our spaces.
I'm reading the future. I've already learned to read the past.
So between geology and tech, I feel like I've got the span of things.1 And while this current tech iteration is more minute than an atom in a drop in a bucket in terms of geologic time, it's monumental for us living in it.
And I get to read it. And better yet, write some of it.
[1]Oroboros.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Spend a Summer Day notes
Writing my first post-a-day blog post in August on my iPhone during gaps in a Spend a Summer Day.
SASD, as we know it and love it for short, is a day-long open house event held at all Penn State campuses. At Penn State University Park, due simply to demand, it's held on six days: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday spanning two weeks, usually bridging July and August.
August 1st, incidentally, is also the day our new application for admission goes live. Given that and the fact that EVERYONE in the office helps during SASD (our Executive Director was running between the HUB and Schwab Auditorium on Monday trying to fix a problem), to say this time of year is stressful is an understatment.
I've been staffing our table at the information fair during the event pretty regularly so far, and I've noted a difference in style between me and some of my colleagues. Some colleagues push our brochures, despite all the information in a few of them being available online.
If I can make a generalization, these tend to be the older admissions folks who are more used to using the brochures. Others offer options: you could grab this AP brochure to see what credit you'd get for what score on which test, or you can look it up on our website. (for my own commentary, why waste the paper and cost us the money for four scores they could easily look up?)
I've also found that when I offer my AIM handle to students I'm talking to, they get super-enthusiastic. And even their parents start telling me I'm the last word in customer service: above and beyond and all that.
So while this doesn't affect the larger conversation of the newest modes of electronic communication, it does tell me that some folks are picking them up no problem (students, to generalize), some folks are slowly picking them up or recognizing their value (parents), and some folks will print out webpages if the brochure is discontinued (the non-technologically-savvy).
But the thing is, we have to serve them all. Penn State is committed to serving the Commonwealth, and any one of the above could either become a student here or at least interface with the University in some way.
So how do we serve all, even those not comfortable with technology?
I think the idea of engaging the early adopters is a good one (apologies that I don't remember who suggested it right now), and certainly paves the way to spreading the word in a grassroots fashion.
Something else I'd like to explore further, perhaps in a later post, is how technology can help us realize cost savings and green initiatives without leaving anyone behind, especially considering the widespread nature of Penn State's mission.
SASD, as we know it and love it for short, is a day-long open house event held at all Penn State campuses. At Penn State University Park, due simply to demand, it's held on six days: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday spanning two weeks, usually bridging July and August.
August 1st, incidentally, is also the day our new application for admission goes live. Given that and the fact that EVERYONE in the office helps during SASD (our Executive Director was running between the HUB and Schwab Auditorium on Monday trying to fix a problem), to say this time of year is stressful is an understatment.
I've been staffing our table at the information fair during the event pretty regularly so far, and I've noted a difference in style between me and some of my colleagues. Some colleagues push our brochures, despite all the information in a few of them being available online.
If I can make a generalization, these tend to be the older admissions folks who are more used to using the brochures. Others offer options: you could grab this AP brochure to see what credit you'd get for what score on which test, or you can look it up on our website. (for my own commentary, why waste the paper and cost us the money for four scores they could easily look up?)
I've also found that when I offer my AIM handle to students I'm talking to, they get super-enthusiastic. And even their parents start telling me I'm the last word in customer service: above and beyond and all that.
So while this doesn't affect the larger conversation of the newest modes of electronic communication, it does tell me that some folks are picking them up no problem (students, to generalize), some folks are slowly picking them up or recognizing their value (parents), and some folks will print out webpages if the brochure is discontinued (the non-technologically-savvy).
But the thing is, we have to serve them all. Penn State is committed to serving the Commonwealth, and any one of the above could either become a student here or at least interface with the University in some way.
So how do we serve all, even those not comfortable with technology?
I think the idea of engaging the early adopters is a good one (apologies that I don't remember who suggested it right now), and certainly paves the way to spreading the word in a grassroots fashion.
Something else I'd like to explore further, perhaps in a later post, is how technology can help us realize cost savings and green initiatives without leaving anyone behind, especially considering the widespread nature of Penn State's mission.
Meta on the level.
You may have cycled back here to find a flood of new posts. More than usual, anyway.
Most of it is explained here, but the gist of it is that a colleague put us up to the challenge of writing a post per weekday in August and I'm giving it a whirl.
I set up Ubiquitous Connectivity to be the primary place those posts will go, but I also decided to copy/paste them over here.
So yes, these are very much theory/work-related, but I figured the folks over here would appreciate them, so I'll save you the trouble of checking both blogs.
Most of it is explained here, but the gist of it is that a colleague put us up to the challenge of writing a post per weekday in August and I'm giving it a whirl.
I set up Ubiquitous Connectivity to be the primary place those posts will go, but I also decided to copy/paste them over here.
So yes, these are very much theory/work-related, but I figured the folks over here would appreciate them, so I'll save you the trouble of checking both blogs.
August challenge
Taking up Cole's challenge of a post a day for August, according to the rules outlined there. Me and Daniel and Shannon so far, as far as I've seen.
Love to say more on the matter, but I've got a meeting in a second here. One thing to share before I go: I'm reading Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations and also was fed a video of Shirky talking about his book by someone in my network (the section about flash mobs is especially engaging: "nothing says dictatorship like arresting people eating ice cream," for example).
And the commentary I'd like to add is that this is, to some extent, what we're doing. Someone has an idea, puts the call out there to see if anyone's interested, and people throw their hats into the ring, cooperatively arranging taxonomies (er, folksonomies, really) to tag and aggregate content, resulting in a pool of information and new ideas being created.
It's what I've seen in action growing slowly over a year, accelerated by the TLT Symposium and Twitter, sparked further by TweetMeets and BS Breakfasts and Bookclub, and burst into full flame (as far as I can tell) in Learning Design Summer Camp here at Penn State. And I'm convinced that this is the way to do it.
But it's happening this way (or similarly, at least) elsewhere: EduWeb happened recently, and people were Tweeting and videostreaming (alternate) and liveblogging sessions, and it was almost as good as being there, minus a significant amount of in-person networking and fun. But it can be done. I've been caught up in this plus Jeffrey Veen's idea of an audience ombudsman for conferences and trying to figure out how this works in purely-online communities.
And it really goes back to the idea of an alpha user, I think. But the thing is that we've got a bunch of them here at Penn State.
More to develop on this idea. But it will have to hold: I've got a meeting for our campus tour podcast project coming up.
Love to say more on the matter, but I've got a meeting in a second here. One thing to share before I go: I'm reading Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations and also was fed a video of Shirky talking about his book by someone in my network (the section about flash mobs is especially engaging: "nothing says dictatorship like arresting people eating ice cream," for example).
And the commentary I'd like to add is that this is, to some extent, what we're doing. Someone has an idea, puts the call out there to see if anyone's interested, and people throw their hats into the ring, cooperatively arranging taxonomies (er, folksonomies, really) to tag and aggregate content, resulting in a pool of information and new ideas being created.
It's what I've seen in action growing slowly over a year, accelerated by the TLT Symposium and Twitter, sparked further by TweetMeets and BS Breakfasts and Bookclub, and burst into full flame (as far as I can tell) in Learning Design Summer Camp here at Penn State. And I'm convinced that this is the way to do it.
But it's happening this way (or similarly, at least) elsewhere: EduWeb happened recently, and people were Tweeting and videostreaming (alternate) and liveblogging sessions, and it was almost as good as being there, minus a significant amount of in-person networking and fun. But it can be done. I've been caught up in this plus Jeffrey Veen's idea of an audience ombudsman for conferences and trying to figure out how this works in purely-online communities.
And it really goes back to the idea of an alpha user, I think. But the thing is that we've got a bunch of them here at Penn State.
More to develop on this idea. But it will have to hold: I've got a meeting for our campus tour podcast project coming up.
Monday, July 07, 2008
4th fun
Though tentative plans made got shoved aside, the 4th was a remarkably fun time. We made giant bubbles, grilled veggies and tofu and chicken and burgers, hiked out to a field for the fireworks (a bit late, but hey), made up some new drinks with what we had on hand, tested new scents out (some of us, anyway: BPAL, of course), had our own little fireworks display and light show, and generally had a good day of it.
The next couple days were filled with the crunching of photos, yoga, and there was a game in there somewhere as well. Photos from the 4th here, and the Wisconsin visit here (Lady of the Lake tour alone here).
And I realized today I haven't touched WoW since, like, Thursday. Even to check the Auction House. Bit of a rarity, though no huge deal or anything. I'd say people are probably wondering where I am, but then again, I've been out a lot lately, though usually for trips or conferences. Which is mostly over for the season, I think. And now the press to Spend a Summer Day.
The continuing limbo . . . well, continues. Thus the name.
Got more RAM into my computer and it's behaving well, finally, which is a very good thing. Exciting times in the onthelevel household.
Arts Fest is this week. Took a couple days off for that, so I'll have at least two short weeks in a row. Going to do pirate day properly this year, sounds like. So that should be fun.
Recently re-read The Long Tail, now moving on to Everything is Miscellaneous. Just my professional reading list is out of control, let alone my personal. I should really tackle the ones I have out from the library before the ones I own, though. Tough to prioritize, though, due to things like the Brainstorming Bookclub getting shoved in there. Don't get me wrong: great idea and it'll be fantastic. But it does mess up the order of my list a bit.
Too much to do, too little time. But isn't that always the case?
The next couple days were filled with the crunching of photos, yoga, and there was a game in there somewhere as well. Photos from the 4th here, and the Wisconsin visit here (Lady of the Lake tour alone here).
And I realized today I haven't touched WoW since, like, Thursday. Even to check the Auction House. Bit of a rarity, though no huge deal or anything. I'd say people are probably wondering where I am, but then again, I've been out a lot lately, though usually for trips or conferences. Which is mostly over for the season, I think. And now the press to Spend a Summer Day.
The continuing limbo . . . well, continues. Thus the name.
Got more RAM into my computer and it's behaving well, finally, which is a very good thing. Exciting times in the onthelevel household.
Arts Fest is this week. Took a couple days off for that, so I'll have at least two short weeks in a row. Going to do pirate day properly this year, sounds like. So that should be fun.
Recently re-read The Long Tail, now moving on to Everything is Miscellaneous. Just my professional reading list is out of control, let alone my personal. I should really tackle the ones I have out from the library before the ones I own, though. Tough to prioritize, though, due to things like the Brainstorming Bookclub getting shoved in there. Don't get me wrong: great idea and it'll be fantastic. But it does mess up the order of my list a bit.
Too much to do, too little time. But isn't that always the case?
Sunday, June 22, 2008
conference season
Long time no update: apologies. We're well into conference season, which is always a whirlwind, plus I've had other trips here and there to throw into the mix as well. Oh, and moving.
As always, Twitter's the best way to keep track of me: check out the running commentary on the right.
So in advance of moving, I whipped back to Wisconsin for a brief visit. I have many photos, audio, and fond memories of that quick trip, as well as some fantastic curtains. Long story. I intend to get to crunching and uploading those photos soon, hopefully.
Then there was the moving, which went about as well as a move can. Surprisingly well. There was an issue with my bed and the size of our generously-lent van, but other than that, I really can't complain. And complaining's what I do best when it comes to moving. I kid. I do know how to go about it, after so many moves in my past and such, but it's never fun.
There was one quick symposium which opened the run of conferences: the TLT Symposium, which was simply amazing. The community really came together and evolved online for this one, which was a fantastic experience. I really can't say enough about how relationships were created and strengthened and we continued to help and inform each other even afterwards.
Memorial Day got stuck in here somewhere, during which I ran from one event to another (three in all) and got terribly sunburned. Good times, though.
We started conference season proper with the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Spring Conference, during which we traveled between Penn State DuBois and Penn State Altoona. Great to see both campuses. The one session I thought I was doing there turned into three--all went well enough, I think, and I hope I spread some of the social networking word in the original. I don't think it's news to any of them--at least I hope not--but I hope it provided some practical advice for starting/managing one.
A few weeks later was the Penn State Web Conference, which was potentially game-changing. More, perhaps, on that later. But there were excellent sessions by Steve Krug demonstrating the need for usability testing in our own backyard, by Mark Greenfield showing the hows and whys of social networking, and many others.
After that was a quick trip to Buffalo and one to the Hershey area. Both excellent visits. Yesterday was Dax's birthday party which, as always, was a trip and a half and left us all sleeping quite well. Dax likes to hold his birthday at a park, and there's always fun mucking about on the playground equipment, with gymnastics and jumping around and fake parkour and generally wearing ourselves out. Because that's what Daxes do, and we're obviously obliged to help on his birthday.
Today--in about an hour, in fact--I'm leaving for another conference, this one for all the admissions counselors and high school counselors that deal with the college search process in Pennsylvania. It'll be good to connect with folks I haven't seen in awhile--and heck, even those I haven't seen since our Spring Conference.
There's been talk about other trips: Hershey again for the usual monthly event, as well as other trips to visit the spa and Hersheypark. Possibly a visit to H. and K. in the fall, which is a longer endeavor. But I'm loath to schedule things right now: I'm experiencing a kind of limbo which I'll clarify later, but is making things difficult right now.
So that's the current state of things. More later.
As always, Twitter's the best way to keep track of me: check out the running commentary on the right.
So in advance of moving, I whipped back to Wisconsin for a brief visit. I have many photos, audio, and fond memories of that quick trip, as well as some fantastic curtains. Long story. I intend to get to crunching and uploading those photos soon, hopefully.
Then there was the moving, which went about as well as a move can. Surprisingly well. There was an issue with my bed and the size of our generously-lent van, but other than that, I really can't complain. And complaining's what I do best when it comes to moving. I kid. I do know how to go about it, after so many moves in my past and such, but it's never fun.
There was one quick symposium which opened the run of conferences: the TLT Symposium, which was simply amazing. The community really came together and evolved online for this one, which was a fantastic experience. I really can't say enough about how relationships were created and strengthened and we continued to help and inform each other even afterwards.
Memorial Day got stuck in here somewhere, during which I ran from one event to another (three in all) and got terribly sunburned. Good times, though.
We started conference season proper with the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Spring Conference, during which we traveled between Penn State DuBois and Penn State Altoona. Great to see both campuses. The one session I thought I was doing there turned into three--all went well enough, I think, and I hope I spread some of the social networking word in the original. I don't think it's news to any of them--at least I hope not--but I hope it provided some practical advice for starting/managing one.
A few weeks later was the Penn State Web Conference, which was potentially game-changing. More, perhaps, on that later. But there were excellent sessions by Steve Krug demonstrating the need for usability testing in our own backyard, by Mark Greenfield showing the hows and whys of social networking, and many others.
After that was a quick trip to Buffalo and one to the Hershey area. Both excellent visits. Yesterday was Dax's birthday party which, as always, was a trip and a half and left us all sleeping quite well. Dax likes to hold his birthday at a park, and there's always fun mucking about on the playground equipment, with gymnastics and jumping around and fake parkour and generally wearing ourselves out. Because that's what Daxes do, and we're obviously obliged to help on his birthday.
Today--in about an hour, in fact--I'm leaving for another conference, this one for all the admissions counselors and high school counselors that deal with the college search process in Pennsylvania. It'll be good to connect with folks I haven't seen in awhile--and heck, even those I haven't seen since our Spring Conference.
There's been talk about other trips: Hershey again for the usual monthly event, as well as other trips to visit the spa and Hersheypark. Possibly a visit to H. and K. in the fall, which is a longer endeavor. But I'm loath to schedule things right now: I'm experiencing a kind of limbo which I'll clarify later, but is making things difficult right now.
So that's the current state of things. More later.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
update for the update-impaired
Here's a bit more complete an update:
Health-wise, my allergist has figured out that I have what basically amounts to a chronic sinus infection. Three rounds of seriously stupid antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and expectorants and nasal sprays planned: if these don't work, they're talking surgery. In a lot of ways I don't expect them to, since the first one did not (though did improve matters for a time) and this round seems to be making things worse, not better. Tea with honey is my friend currently.
Work-wise, my patience is running on the thin side. Stress-wise, I'm rather through the roof, since I'm also taking a class this semester and it's consuming a large portion of the time I'd otherwise get to unwind during.
Personally, despite all this, I'm doing okay. I'm starting to make plans to move at the end of May, though whether that's local or away from the area is still up in the air. It's about time I had my own space. Part of what makes J such a great roommate is that we stay out of each other's way well, generally, but that has started to degrade over time and is no longer fully the case, enough so that I'm ready to be done. We're still good friends, nothing's changed on that end--it's just time.
To that end, I'm eyeing all my belongings, readying for a purge. Though there's a lot I don't want to lose, just put away so I don't have to move it two or three times, potentially (one or two local moves, then a longer one).
A lot of things are coming to a head in the next three months or less. I'm just hoping against hope that the timing all works out well.
Health-wise, my allergist has figured out that I have what basically amounts to a chronic sinus infection. Three rounds of seriously stupid antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and expectorants and nasal sprays planned: if these don't work, they're talking surgery. In a lot of ways I don't expect them to, since the first one did not (though did improve matters for a time) and this round seems to be making things worse, not better. Tea with honey is my friend currently.
Work-wise, my patience is running on the thin side. Stress-wise, I'm rather through the roof, since I'm also taking a class this semester and it's consuming a large portion of the time I'd otherwise get to unwind during.
Personally, despite all this, I'm doing okay. I'm starting to make plans to move at the end of May, though whether that's local or away from the area is still up in the air. It's about time I had my own space. Part of what makes J such a great roommate is that we stay out of each other's way well, generally, but that has started to degrade over time and is no longer fully the case, enough so that I'm ready to be done. We're still good friends, nothing's changed on that end--it's just time.
To that end, I'm eyeing all my belongings, readying for a purge. Though there's a lot I don't want to lose, just put away so I don't have to move it two or three times, potentially (one or two local moves, then a longer one).
A lot of things are coming to a head in the next three months or less. I'm just hoping against hope that the timing all works out well.
non-update update
I know, I know: I've been terrible about updating the blog part of this blog. Micro-blogging, though, I can manage pretty darn regularly: round-about once a day. Check the Twitter feed on the right of the blog (the original, not the LJ feed-type-thing) if you really want updates. Warning: they're really, really mundane most of the time.
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