Wednesday, November 30, 2005
  Holiday Cheer
Rudolph's on. That radio-whine noise of his nose woke me up from his nap. Turns out Tiff's a fan. A BIG fan. Now, before I get a massive list of comment's about what a Scrooge I am, let me assure you that I have no problem with the classic Rudolph movie. I just happen to be somewhat grouchy after Monday's all nighter and yesterday's lack of sleep. I'll probably be fit for human contact again by tomorrow.
So, yeah, Rudolph's on. The digital remastery looks good. There's texture now, and the sound is 100% better (that whine in stereo is scary). Way to go CBS. Or whoever did it.
Murray State's Hanging of the Green is a week from tomorrow. 1 week. There's 10 fake trees in the back of my shiny new red truck (THANK YOU GRANDDAD!!) just waiting for the event to roll around so we can put them up. There's a list of 30 groups that are gonna be hosting booths or sending decorations or both. The community is actually participating in a MSU event, which is always a plus. Even if no one comes, at least there'll be 100 or so people to keep eachother entertained.
So, what is Hanging of the Green? It's your typical Holiday festival. The student center on campus is covered in garland and greenery and wreaths and whatever else conveys particular winter festivities (we have Kwanzaa - can't spell it - and Hanukkah stuff blending right in... or something like that). I think it all went up the day after Thanksgiving. Anyway, Hanging of the Green is when the switch is thrown on the big 12 foot tree. The president typically does it, but since ESPN's going to be at our basketball game that night, and we couldn't reschedule, he'll be there.
So we're having our much-loved, soon-to-retire food services director do it instead. He's getting spoiled anyway.
This'll be the first time in quite-a-few years that the whole Christmas Market is brought back. I'm praying it goes well, because that'll mean a tradition reestablished. More importantly, it'll mean RCA established it. And RCA needs all the good name it can get.
That's life right now. Lots and lots of Christmas.
I love it.
Happy Holidays everyone.
 
Comments:
We had "Hanging of the Greens" at our church this past Sunday night. I never knew you were a scrooge. You always seemed to enjoy our Christmas festivities. So glas to hear that y'all call your tree a CHRISTMAS tree!
Hope to see you when we are down the week after Christmas.
Love you!
 
I am not a scrooge. At least, not completely. Finals (and all the stuff due before them) just make me very scrooge-like.
And the JA Christmas parties were the best :).
 
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Room and Board... $1,700
Tuition... $6,000
Books... $300
Waiting until the last night to write an 8 page research paper, then discovering that your primary source falsified the entire thing... priceless.

There's some things money can't buy.


Thank God for Caffiene.
 
Friday, November 11, 2005
  Dinner with the Ambassador
Ambassador Baki Ilkin was a much more personable speaker than we've had in a while. Dinner was nice. I stood around feeling socially awkward and talking to some of the TESOL faculty that were there. The Ambassador greeted me and asked about Nashville a little. I hope I did my city proud.
I don't think I had to work hard to make him like Murray State. He seemed ready to move here tomorrow if he could.
fun times in Murray.
 
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005
  87% (Dixie). Do you still use Confederate money?
fun quiz: http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/yankeetest.html

in other news, I'm just shy of 20,000 words for NaNoWriMo, but have to do homework before I can write anymore :(.
 
Comments:
Managing Time requiries skills %%desc%% also mean that you %%desc%% learn new skills.
 
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
  Dinner with the Ambassador
So this morning I got this email.

President F. King Alexander invites you to attend a special address by His
Excellency Ambassador Baki Ilkin, Permanent Representative of the Republic
of Turkey to the United Nations on Friday, November 11, 2005, at 2:00 p.m.
in Wrather Auditorium. Ambassador Ilkin will discuss the current reform
effort at the United Nations and Turkey's accession talks with the European
Union.

Ok, cool, it's a speech. I'll go. Sounds neat.

Then I go to the SGA office, and find a fancy little envelope.
At 6, I'm invited to a black-tie banquet with the Ambassador. How cool is that?

Just thought I'd share.
 
Monday, November 07, 2005
  SAACURH
SAACURH (the South Atlantic Association of College and Residence Halls) was awesome. I usually don't talk about stuff like this on here, but for this conference I'm going to have to make an exception.
SAACURH was one of those things I would never have set foot in when I was in high school. There was a whole lot of "pep" there that would have sent me running. Now, it's just part of the game. I spent the weekend showing more school spirit than I knew I had. And I loved every minute of it.
Seeing people from all across the Southeast (SAACURH is made up of everything south of KY and NC, including Mississippi and Lousiana) all there for the same thing was pretty amazing. I hadn't really reflected on what a larger whole my little Residential College Association is part of. And yes, Murray State is unique with our attempt to bring everyone together under the Harry-Potter system, but that doesn't mean we don't have the same problems as those who don't.
I went to five sessions of around 10 people each, mixed and mingled socially, and ended up expanding the massive facebook list a little further. I got to know my RCA people better, and a few MSU friends as well.
In short, I'm totally behind on everything now, but it was worth every minute.
Pictures are coming soon, I think. I need to update my flickr to get more on here.
 
  Trekkie Christmas
What do I want for Christmas? It's only $2500. Looks like it's worth every penny to me.
Ultimate Star Trek Collection. yay.
 
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
  Another Sad Day for Trekkies
Michael Piller, Star Trek:TNG, DS9, and Voyager writer died yesterday of cancer. StarTrek.com features a well-writtnen synopsis of his career as well as some heartfelt tributes to him.
Mr. Piller, you will be missed.
 
Comments:
Piller not only wrote for all the shows, but he co-created DS9 and Voyager. He was a producer on TNG and really helped it come into its own. He wrote the best hour of TNG ever, "Best of Both Worlds, Part 1"

He will be missed.
 
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005
  NaNoWriMo Day 1
NaNoWriMo Day 1's winding down. Here are the developments:

So, it's the end of day 1 and I'm 1/5 of the way in. Since there's an essay and a project due thursday, niether of which I'm far enough on as I should be, I probably won't be doing much again for a while. This weekend is SAACURH, a Residence Hall conference, so I don't think I'll be writing much again the rest of the week either. That makes me totally on top of things. At best.
I'm going to bed.


(props to ShadowedWhispers on the Nano boards for the fun image)
 
  Blogging in Class
Since I'm doing next to nothing right now anyway, I thought I'd take a minute to catch up. I have 4 until they kick me out of the lab.
I'm still here, still alive. Classes, school, bla bla bla. The daily college grind. I'm not going to share my NaNoWriMo novel on here until after November's over. I want to have a chance to edit it first (and believe me, it will need editing!).
Ok, that's it. Just a little reminder that I am still alive.
I'll try and find something worthwhile to share later.
 
  Tortoise & Hare
NaNoWriMo starts today!
I had to write about it for class, but I thought I'd share a little with ya'll too.
Sorry to all the Hare-writers out there.

I’m one of 43,917 amateur writers registered with the National Novel Writing Month website, NaNoWriMo.org. Between November 1st and November 31st all 43,917 people are striving to write 50,000 words.
That’s about 1,667 words a day.
Someone on NaNoWriMo compared writers to Aesop's Tortoise and Hare. I've been pondering that a bit, and here's my interpretation of it:
The Hare’s process is the most direct, and many find it to be the most simple. A Hare-writer has massive spurts of creativity followed by long spells in which little or nothing seems to happen. Some writers use those restful times to reflect on what they’ve written and evaluate their next goals. Others just ignore the story for a few days or weeks before coming back to it. With short pieces I’m often a Hare. There’s a continuity to writing in one sitting that is difficult to capture otherwise.
The Tortoise writing approach is much more methodical. I practiced it for the first couple of weeks of October, and am embarking on it again now. With the Tortoise, you sit and write until you have your number of words per day. Some days this takes hours, other days it may get done in just a few minutes. Since I have several days in which I will be nowhere near a computer, no matter how much I’d like to be, I’ve set my minimum daily word count right at 2,000. This means that at the end of the month I should have 60,000 words or more written. With a convention this weekend and Thanksgiving later, I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but having a budget of 5 days off makes the going a little easier.
Some Hare-writers will use “day markers” to track their progress. They’ll see that since they’ve written 20,000 words in their first few days, they can take the next few off. These days off are when the Tortoises catch up.
So the Tortoise has a set number of words per day. Next is the outlining. This began 3 weeks before the contest for me. Each character has an 8X5 inch profile card filled with all kinds of relevant information about them. The basic plot outline is written –scene-by-scene–, and then each scene is graphed on a scale of 1-10 for emotional intensity. Once the graph lined up with a model flow for pacing, I examined my theme. My particular story examines conflicting loyalties between different characters, and how it affects their relationships to each other and their families. I’m a minimalist when it comes to scenes and especially dialogue. If part of the outline doesn’t somehow add to the theme, it’s cut immediately.
Once the outlining is done, it’s time to re-evaluate. Does everything fit? Is it a plausible story? And, most importantly, is there room for change? Everything changes once the words start hitting the paper. This is where the Hare-writers tend to get the lead on the Tortoises. They’re blitzing through with wild abandon, and letting intuition drive the story. When they stop, it’s often because they’ve worked their story into a situation they hadn’t expected and now have to find a way out. With the Tortoise approach, you want to see every snare coming. And if one sneaks up on you, then you want to be ready for it. Knowing your characters is the key to this. If you’ve spent enough time outlining them and really getting to know every aspect of the character, you can imagine how they’ll react to any situation. Try to think of as many situations as possible before Day 1 so you’ll have an idea of how they’d solve things before they face them.
When day 1 rolls around, everything changes. The commitment to a daily minimum is a lot harder than simply stating that you’re going to get it done and then working when you have the time. But this steady devotion to the daily word count and patience through the rougher spots will not only get you through the race, it’ll give you a way each day to examine and improve your own process.
Slow and steady wins the race.
 
Welcome to the vacuum in which my various thoughts emerge, fight, and ultimately sink once more into obscurity.

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