Enemy of Entropy
School Happy
I finally got the grades from the first technical writing assignment I turned in last week, and the peer reviews I did on two of my classmates’ rough drafts. I got full points for all of them!
I was worried about one of the peer reviews, because the person chose to do a set of instructions for starting to cross-stitch. I know too much about that topic to evaluate it well from a beginner’s point of view, and that was the intended audience. I actually approached the professor with some questions, and wondered if I should swap reviews with someone new to stitching. Happily, the professor said I provided a balanced review that reflected my experiences as a former beginner and currently experienced stitcher, and that I was respectful throughout. I was trying very, very hard to avoid any hint of condescension, and it appears that it worked!
My topic was “Creating Your First Podcast,” and that received full points, too. It had to be done with a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level less than 8th grade, which was not easy. I got it down to 7th grade, and couldn’t go any lower. The professor said that was due to the technical terms I had to use, and was perfectly acceptable.
Semester Is Past the Half-way Point!
And so far, I’ve only lost one point in my Project Management class, none in the other class. That was due to a stupid mousing error – bad hands! Oh well, if that’s all my hands cost me this semester, I’ll be happy.
The career course required us to do “long-term career planning” this week. I don’t know how useful their idea of career planning is, to be honest, in today’s economy. There aren’t many people who can count on moving up steadily in one path, due to the fact that the economy changes so much more quickly than it did 30 to 50 years ago. Do I feel sanguine about making predictions as to where I’ll be, professionally, in 30 years? Um, no. For one thing, I’ll be 71 years old then! For another, I’ll be happy just to get back to work, period!
Today’s Thing-a-Day time was spent coloring. It was nice.
I have a happy Sambear dancing in front of me, because he just posted Chapter 17 of Heart of the Hunter. He already hit his word target for the novel, but happily, he isn’t stopping ’til the plot is wrapped up.
Still Thinging; Date Night
I am, in fact, still keeping up with Thing-a-Day! I need to go post over there, though. I do wish I could automatically cross-post, but if wishes were fishes and all that.
I stitched tonight while Sam and I gamed. I also wrote for a while, earlier. Sam and I have recently begun participating in a forum that does a great job of encouraging introspection, and being a safe place in which to express oneself. It’s a powerful thing, and I’m in awe of the people who created and run it.
Read on…
Sunday, T-a-Day3
I did more webifying today, and got all happy because I resolved a template problem. I don’t “know” php, as in I don’t write my own scripts. I’m learning more and more about it working with other people’s templates, and have gotten to where I can mix and match from different templates to get the effects I want. I also spent some time in mysql, trying to clean up some of this site’s tables to make it load faster.
I also read a little, and I’m really, really trying to finish the book I’m on before diving into the delicious stack of books my sweetie brought home from the library for me. I wrapped up the week’s class assignments, too. I wanted to stitch, but I was attacked by a rogue nap.
My project management teacher released the study guide for the final, which is 3-4 weeks away (you can do it any time during week 8, and we just finished week 4). Um, does anybody really study that far in advance? I’ve never been very disciplined about studying.
Sam is editing a chapter of Fledgling, which he re-recorded because he was displeased with the sound quality. He edited Square One earlier. Sorry, Hope, but I don’t think he got to record the latest chapter of Heart of the Hunter 
It’s still February, right? The temperature was way up in the 70s today! It’s back down to 50 now—outside. Inside, the temp is still too hot for sleeping comfortably. Pout.
Are there any WordPress geeks reading this? I could have sworn that I saw a plug-in that allowed commenters to send a private message to a blog’s owner, sort of like having comments screened in LJ except that the owner doesn’t ever (couldn’t, as I understand it) make the “whisper” public. I can’t find such a thing in the official plugin repository at WordPress.org, though. Anybody know of such a thing? I don’t want to use a comment form, because of security concerns.1
1 All the comment plugins and forms I’ve seen use the web host to send the message, instead of the sender’s outgoing mail server, making it harder to get anything done about inappropriate messages.
MomoCon?
Anybody going to MomoCon here in Atlanta? I’d never heard of it before today. It’s free, and may be in its second year (I’m not sure). It seems quite small, which could be nice. It’s local, which is a big plus for us. I’m unclear as to whether there’s any gaming happening or not, and there’s no mention of filking that I can see.
