For the record, I'm at Dreamwidth now. I'm not ready to delete this, but it's not my home anymore.

7.5. User who posted comments in Blog and User keeping such a Blog shall be jointly and severally liable in respect of such comments.


Because I don't like it. Shifting to Dreamwidth is looking better every day . . . (I am there. Sort-of. I have an account under this username. Just, inertia, and people here who haven't gone there.)

My to-do list is looking very strange.

-Mrs. Crane's Party
-Shrike and Amity have lunch
-Safe necromancy for aliens
-The Mrs. Schultz
-Dafydd comes back
-Zombie cemetery
-The friends the Selenda
-Shrike and Carrie find stuff out (but not too much)
-Reviews

With an addendum:
N.B.
-Mention Park in More Confusion About Witchburning
-The class the Selenda the Ethics
-Fur paint at Party

There are also sideways arrows pointing at the calendar:
<-Zombies
<-Lecture of Shadowing

And our whiteboard reads:
Faerie in a pickle jar
has done so for months.

Me: Isaac, do you care about the aloe in the bathroom?

Isaac: The what?

Me: The aloe.

Isaac: There's aloe in the bathroom?

Me: The plant.

Isaac: Oh. No.

I kept track of all (? close, anyway, if we don't count picture books read to small children) the books I read in 2013, so I thought I might as well post it. Approximately but not entirely in order by date read; re-reads/re-listens underlined.

( Behind the cut.Collapse )

Some of them were really good, some merely so-so. I had thoughts of posting comments with some of them, but I don't seem to feel like it and it would mess up the table formatting, so ask if you have questions, I guess.

Edit: Okay, the version with the table is too long for lj, so you're getting the text-dump unformatted version.

One of the interesting things about having a public professional blog is the ability/responsibility to screen posts. On the one hand, a part of me says, "The internet should be FREE!" but a wiser and more cynical part of me knows what the unmediated internet can look like, and feels that curation and moderation is entirely appropriate, particularly on the blog that represents me to the world. Being a sensible sort, I listen to that part of myself, and keep the first post screening up.

( Of course, this then introduces the question of what to unscreen and what not to unscreen.Collapse )

So this seems a good year to do NaNoWriMo, what with the currently unemployed, particularly since NaNo is a good way to get myself writing when I'm not writing enough, which I'm not. Only thing is, I've been fairly busy recently, and it's four days until November and I don't know what I want tow write for NaNo. vorindi suggests that I work on the Ridiculous project we've been neglecting, but that doesn't feel sufficiently flexible or frivolous to suit my current mood. I have a couple of half-started scribbles, but for various reasons don't feel like working on any of them.

So I'm asking you, if you're still there: what should I write this November? I'll take suggestions of plot, genre, conflict, setting, character(s), general idea, situations, that weird dream you had about the rescue nuns, striking images (I've never worked from images, but I'm told that people do), whatever you've got. I think I'm feeling more silly than serious, though I'll take serious suggestions, too, and I won't write anything I have to research too heavily, because research and nano-style are kind of antithetical.

Even if you don't have ideas, you could just wander in and say hi, so that I know that there are people still reading here, and that I'm not just tossing words into the wind when I post here.

So, I'm on vacation right now. I am still checking work email about once a day, though, because there was some stuff relating to the yearbook, and so it doesn't pile up too much, and in case there is anything really important that I can deal with remotely. Or things that aren't *that* important, but should be dealt with anyway. Such as this.

I got an email two days ago:

hey miss Miriam this is -Name Redacted- what is everything that is supposed to be in the business plan (sic)

The business plan being a project that was assigned six months ago that was supposed to be REALLY REALLY due July 25th, the last day of fake makeup school before summer recess. I (and other people) have been in contact with Name Redacted, and he knew that this was a graduation requirement and that he needed to finish it and that I wanted it before the 25th so that I could edit it and he could correct it and give me a final version by the end of the day on the 25th. (Or perhaps sometime last week, if he was really late with it.) Furthermore, I don't HAVE a copy of the business plan handout with me: the paper copies are in my office, and the electronic copies are on the share drive, which I can only access from the school network. And while I could take a pretty good stab at listing all the things that are supposed to be there, I'd want to have the paper to refer to before giving a student an Official Pronouncement (and this is not a student whose behavior makes anyone feel inclined to give him extra slack), and also I don't trust him not to cut any corner he can, and while he can still cut corners on the handout, at least they're nicely delineated corners that will take a bit more effort to cut.

So I sent him a reply:

Everything that's in the handouts I gave about it. If you no longer have your handout, ask Ms. -Boss- for one. You can tell her that they're with my lesson plans.

Ms. Miriam

ok but all i need is stuff like a letter stating my business plan and the plans that i will take to make it happen right?

No, student, no. You need a business plan, with all the information that entails. Like is spelled out for you, step-by-step, specifically designed to make it as easy as possible to include all the information you need, in the template/worksheet handout.

It's not a letter. It's a specific document providing all the information that is asked for in the handout.

Ms. Miriam

Mind you, this whole exchange happened within the space of two hours. Which I think is pretty good for a random email sent to me WHILE I AM ON VACATION.

I just found this email, which was sent at 1am this morning:

ok i have to turn it in tomorrow and i don't have the time to come up there and get can you just tell me ms. Miriam and i can get it done

Upon reflection, I strongly suspect that "tomorrow" means today. (And, y'know, I would feel a lot more inclined to put effort into this, like maybe trawling through my work email to see if I can find a copy of the handout in question, if he'd showed ANY interest in getting this done during the last two weeks of sort-of-actual school, when everyone and her mother was getting on his case about finishing all this stuff. Or even if he'd managed to pay any attention to it last week. This student needs to learn to deal with the fact that deadlines are deadlines and you need to meet them. And by this point, I'm not feeling very sympathetic. And I don't have the information he wants.)

No, I can't. I told you that I needed it by three Thursdays ago. If coming to school was not convenient for you, you should have made sure at that point in time that you had all the information you needed.

I'm not in Pennsylvania right now, and I do not currently have a handout with me.

Ms. Miriam

I CCed my boss on that one. I'm pretty sure she'll back me up.

Dear Internet,

If you commission a knitted object -- that is, if you ask a knitter to make you a thing -- the knitter will often expect that you at least pay for any yarn or trimmings s/he does not already own. In the knitting community, this is not considered selling your work; it's just covering the cost of materials. Occasionally there are exceptions to this if the knitter likes you a lot, or if the thing is for a Big Occasion present, but don't assume that it's an exception unless it's been made clear that both labor and materials are part of the gift. If, when talking about possible materials, price is one of the considerations, that's almost certainly because the knitter thinks that you're paying for it.

Me


(I probably would not have taken on this project if I'd realized that it included a $25 investment, but at this point, I just want her to take the blanket and be happy with it, and for this not to be awkward anymore. I certainly don't want the blanket back. What am I going to do with a large and somewhat boring baby blanket?)

Well, things to make EXTRA CLEAR next time. I guess it just didn't occur to me that someone wouldn't expect to pay for materials when she requested the object.

. . . and this is why I often avoid working on commission; it just seems to get complicated. And part of why I laugh so hard when people tell me I could sell my knitting.

What world-broadening experiences did you have in college?

And/or:
Who or what in college took you outside of your comfort zone?