The Best Laid Plans...

...often go completely haywire.

Instead of updating my 52 in 52 list (the plan), I ended up running around after popped surge protectors, turning off computers, and writing emails to explain all the 'out of order' signs (the haywire). {pun intended}

On Saturday, I experienced a melted battery pack in an emergency light fixture at IfA.

I was beginning to worry that I might be turning into some kind of walking electrical disruption field, but have instead decided to blame it on all the rain we've been having lately....

Friday Night

The plan:
Pizza whilst watching Pride and Prejudice, possibly followed by some light reading or, if they were willing, some playtime with the babies.

The reality:
Nearly burnt pizza and a right hand scribbling furiously from the moment I got home. I had to eat with my left hand and try not to spill sauce on the notebook.

The culprit:
An idea tossed at me by P. At first, I could only think of what arcane form of punishment I would inflict on her, but since it's flowing very well, I may postpone the torture sessions...

1990-something

I've been working on consolidating the Astronomy and Physics guides and updating the design to conform to the new, snazzier style of the Counseling Psychology and Education guides.

So, I started reviewing the encyclopedias and dictionaries we have. Have we purchased any new ones since the guides were last updated? (Yes) Are there any newer editions for some of our older volumes? (Yes) Are there any older volumes that don't have newer editions that should be removed from the guide? (Yes)

And that's when I realized I require a radical shift in my thinking and the criteria I'm using because 1997 was 9 years ago.

The 90s just don't seem like they happened that long ago. Intellectually I know that 1990 was 16 years ago, but emotionally the thought that I could have a teenager just does not compute.

Along these same lines, I'm having a lot of difficulty accepting that I will turn 37 this year. I haven't had issues with my age before, but suddenly it doesn't seem like I can really be as old as the calendar says I am...

Uh-oh

I just realized that it's time to go home and I haven't posted anything yet today.

Today was kind of crappy, especially after the highs of yesterday. Not totally crappy, 'cause some good things happened, but I still wish I could have stayed home with my cats.

Which is where I'm headed right now. Will try for a more interesting post tomorrow...

Nailed

As you may remember, I was disappointed by my in-class writing last week. I was resigned to sucking it up and moving on. I’ll do better the next go-round!

So to say that today’s class was shocking would be a massive understatement. Not only was my writing good enough to have “nailed it” (that’s a direct quote from the instructor) and earn FULL points, but I was also asked to share it with the class by reading it aloud :-o !

Now, I made sure to point out that I do have a bit of an advantage over my classmates in that I already have a Bachelor’s in English (albeit from 1991) but I stressed that more importantly, to be able to write well, one must not only write a lot and write on a regular basis, but one must also read a lot. One student pointed out that I had used some words he wasn’t familiar with and I shared that I still keep a vocabulary notebook and subscribe to a Word of the Day.

And then I did a well-received Connections presentation, showing parallels between Eumenides by Aeschylus, Path of the Fury by David Weber, and The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman.

Needless to say, I’m flying pretty high right now. And not nearly as worried about next week’s midterm now.

Now if only I could write something decent for the second script....

Lousy Timing

Why do the ideas wait until I decide to go to bed?

Why is it that I can sit for hours reading, researching, thinking, writing and having nothing to show for it and finally be so tired that I call it a night, and ONLY THEN will the ideas start to flow so quickly that I can barely (and sometimes not at all) scribble them down.

And then there’s such a sense of loss for the ones I couldn’t pen in time. Was there a real gem in there that I’ve now lost forever, or was it just so-so, and it’s okay that it’s now gone?

And even if I do get all the ideas down, there’s the agony of trying to decipher my handwriting, which is not good even on my best days and deteriorates rapidly the longer and faster I write.

Anyway, I’ve got a presentation in my English class tomorrow, and the ideas were for that and I think they’re good ones, so I’m grateful they showed up, but two hours earlier would have been nicer...

White Trash With Money

Toby Keith has released the first single from his next album, and while Get Drunk and Be Somebody doesn't have as tight a grip on me as Honkytonk U did last year, any new Toby Keith material is reason to celebrate in my book.

And celebrate I shall, because the new album, White Trash With Money, is set to be released on April 11, just in time....

Graffiti Blues

I finally got around to replacing Jade, my 6-year old PDA that died last year.

{Yes, I named my handheld. I've named her successor, my laptop, and my car. Get over it.}

During the past 6 years, I've gotten fairly proficient at Graffiti, the writing software that Palm uses to input data. It's got some quirks, but then, so do I :) Most of the time, I'm able to input what I meant the first time and be pretty quick about it, too. I even occasionally find myself writing Graffiti characters when using pen and paper. Habits can be a terrible thing...

But when I got the new unit I discovered that Palm has changed to Graffiti 2 and it's making me crazy… um, you know, crazier than usual.

While the original Graffiti uses only one stroke per character, some of the G2 characters use 2 strokes. But the one stroke character will show on the screen first, and if you complete the second stroke quickly enough, it will change to the 2-stroke character. Too slow? Backstroke over that character and try again, loser.

As if that isn't frustrating enough, some of the strokes I'm used to are now assigned to a different character, e.g., the stroke I'm used to for the letter 'k' now produces an ampersand. I am not amused.

I've been doing a little investigating to see if I can somehow program it to use the original Graffiti instead, but I haven't had any luck yet. So now it looks like to be able to write how I want on my handheld, I will have to pay for a new software program.

Has anyone else had this problem? More importantly, has anyone else been able to fix it without forking over any more dough?

Lost Brothers?

I've recently gotten hooked on watching videos courtesy of Yahoo! -- no, really, I'm getting work done, too -- and was reminded again of how much Jon Bon Jovi, Viggo Mortensen, Kevin Sorbo, and Kevin Kay look alike.

Some of you won't know the last name, but ya just gotta trust me, he belongs on the list.

I've thought for a long time that the two Kevins looked alike and maybe the rest is just that thanx to S. I get to see a lot of photos of Viggo, but when I was watching some of the newer Bon Jovi videos yesterday, the thought smacked me again.

Anyone want to tell me I'm crazy?

Anyone want to back me up?

Dreams

The experts say –

Digression: Any time you read “The experts say” make sure you ask ‘Which experts? From where? How long have they been studying this? From where did they get their funding?’ All good questions that I’m not going to document for this post – I’ve done some reading on the subject, you can do your own research if you’re really interested. End of digression.

– that humans dream every night. I’ll take their word for it (for now), but if I am dreaming every single night, I certainly don’t remember most of my dreams.

I used to have recurring dreams (no, not about guys or sex, darn it!) but, although I can still remember a few of them, I haven’t actually dreamed (dreamt?) them in many years.

I still have anxiety dreams. I used to have them at the beginning of every semester. The most recent one was just before my presentation at the Hawaii Library Association’s Annual Conference in November 2005 (which actually went very well).

My dreams usually make no sense. The “experts” say dreams are a way for the mind to ponder daytime problems and suggest solutions. Well, if my mind is coming up with solutions while I sleep, it’s not sharing them once I wake up.

In my dreams, places are not identifiable, they change suddenly and randomly, people morph into other people, a person will be an amalgamation of two or more people – confusing stuff like that. So, except for the anxiety dreams – I grok those – I’ve managed to convince myself that my dreams usually don’t mean anything.

Until I have one that might.

What do I do then?

Do I try to struggle with deciphering the meaning? Or do I get a drink of water and go back to sleep?

Last night I had a dream that really shook me. I tried to tell myself that it couldn’t possibly mean what it seemed to mean. When that didn’t work, I started a dream journal (my mind, wisely, made me make no promises on how long I will keep it going).

I was worried that thinking about it and writing it out might wake me up too much and I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, but it worked out okay. I had another dream, but it didn’t make as much of an impact as the first, so I didn’t remember it for long or record it.

But that first one is still front-and-center this morning and I have a feeling it’s going to stick with me for a long time....

English Class

We had our first in-class writing in my English 303 class today. We knew it was going to be something about comparing / contrasting characters. And I could have sworn that last week the instructor said we could use our books and notes. So I worried about it a little, but not too much.

Until the assignment was handed out and she said NO books or notes.

PANIC!!!!!!!!

Suddenly, I couldn't remember anything: titles of plays, names of characters, plots, actions, consequences...

Fortunately, it's the first major assignment and I've got plenty of time to do well on everything else...

But it's still disappointing....

Fair Warning

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I found myself having a little discussion with, well, myself:

"You need to write everyday."

Yeah, I know. I try, but...

"Okay, you need a different kind of goal, so let's say that you have to post to your blog everyday."

I don't have access to the Internet everyday.

"Fine, but every day that you do, agreed?"

What if I can't think of anything to write?

"Then write that."

I agreed, mostly so my brain would shut up and I could go to sleep. So here's fair warning that even tho' I'll be posting more often, I (we) don't guarantee that it will be interesting. But it will be fulfilling a goal, so please bear with me.

At least I don't have to worry about staying on topic, since this blog doesn't really have one :)-

Brokeback Mountain?

So, two colleagues and I were talking about movies and I mentioned Brokeback Mountain. Which, of course, led to the inevitable "The gay cowboy movie?"

But then the conversation took a more unconventional turn...

Colleague 1: "What's Brokeback mean?"
Me: "It's just the name of the mountain."
Colleague 2: "So, it's not a broke back from the mounting?"

It took a few minutes, but I finally got my breath back and picked myself up off the floor before they had to call the ambulance....

Surreal

As I pulled into the driveway last night, the radio was playing Toby Keith's 'Big Blue Note'.

As I pulled out of the driveway today, the radio was playing Toby Keith's 'Big Blue Note'.

Cute but also Sad

This is a very cute idea -- leave it to the Japanese! -- but also a sad commentary on modern humanity that the last sentence needs to be stated. At least they didn't put in a disclaimer that the elderly-care robots "were not capable of doing everything human nurses can do."

Black Holes

I was doing some collection development research and used "black hole" as a keyword search in our catalog and retrieved four* hits:


State-building: governance and world order in the 21st century

Black hole at the center of our galaxy

Simply Einstein: relativity demystified

Black hole tariffs and endogenous policy theory: political economy in general equilibrium


I'm trying to decide if I should read anything into the fact that the titles are evenly divided between scientific theory and political titles concerned with ideas like 'Weak states and the black hole of public administration'....


*For those worried about the state of our collection, "black holes" (plural) as a keyword search retrieves 33 hits.

Finally!

We started writing it in the late summer / early fall of 2003. I don't think we'll ever actually be done writing it -- I see us as two little old ladies in our rocking chairs:

Puanani: "I was re-reading the script and got to thinking..."
Amy: "What? Come closer so I can whack you with my cane!"

Of course, the next day it would be me with an idea and Puanani ready to beat me, because this script is in our genetic code now and just WILL NOT LET GO!

Anyway, the hard work and determination has finally paid off, because someone in LA has read it and deemed it worthy -- we're Semi-Finalists! And thanks to Puanani's last name, we're first on the list!

Keep your fingers crossed that it keeps making the cut -- that hope may be the only thing that will keep us sane... well, as sane as we can be....

Happy New Year

I had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did, too. I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2006.

Silence

One of the voices that makes me weak has fallen silent.


"I have never doubted that the dream was real, my love; I will never forget. I hope you will save a dance for me."

Winter

Winter has arrived in Hilo.

How can I tell, you ask?

When I leave the air-conditioned Library at 9 pm, it's colder outside than indoors.

Yes, this just started happening this week -- I love living in Hawaii :}