Following up

The ignite talk went well.

Things are fine.

Few others have died.

Surgery, misadventure, alienation, jerkitude, but through it all, some singing, some dancing, and some pushing of lead.

(No painting, of course).

Oh and hello.

not that I am going to start shooting bears or anything

"Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement." -- The Bull Moose

So, like, dream big.

The most interesting blog in the world

XKCD: http://xkcd.com/621/

Things that happened in the past 30 days:

- Gabriele's death.

- Mark's death.

- Sam's death.

- Haiti.

- CitizenLab's identification of the hacking attempts on Google and other private companies.

- Google's threatened pullout from China.

- With Jay/With Conan. (Ratings stunt is my guess.)

- Turkish/Israeli diplomatic flap, and it wasn't me visiting TBG's parents.

- SATBG got a show up and is about to do another.

- Much press for The Bitter End.

I'm working, now, not schooling. Currently not flying, but singing. Working largely deals with planning, budgeting, scheduling, timelining, coordinating, ego-salving, bureaucracy-dancing.

I'm not exactly creating anything at the moment, unless you count SATBG. New things going into and out of brain are a rarity. Occasional FB/OPSp status updates in haiku form.

Music: we've got Acappellooza on Sunday the 31st at George Ignatieff Theatre. I'm with the VJs for that one. Cabaret begins rehearsals in late January.

Thinking Work: may present an Ignite-style talk on Citizen Lab. Will elicit Doda's assistance.

Back on my head, now.

Five Millennia Later

LiveJournal. I just kept on hanging on, and I guess I'm still hanging on, but I'm going to claw my way away a bit at a time.

Well, so I graduated in '07. Now I'm working, and flying, and singing, and wearing glasses. I'm acting, I'm living on my own, and I'm so very close to almost being creative.

In short... I'm going to try documenting my life shamelessly again. Welcome! Maybe I'll tidy up the layout too. It's been a while.

It's been too long.

Just this: Happy Birthday, your Holiness.

First post in a while...

Installed the blogger widget on my dashboard.  Well, the "official" blogger widget.  Anyway, just getting a submission done for a project course.  Good stuff.

got it

Here's how I know I'm wasting my time.

I don't think I've get to submit a single assignment, or piece of work (except for the occasional comment in class or answer on a test, which are scarcely considered in the scheme of evaluation) of which I've ever felt proud.

I think this is basically how one figures out that they're in the wrong field. I don't feel good about the work that I do. I don't feel good about myself when I do it. I just don't do this well.

I take no pride in my work. I think that's how I know that I'm doing the wrong work.

tough love

Well. Well well.

That was a marathon of programming right there. Learning new stuff is sometimes as much fun as cramming a shoe into your ear. But sometimes it can be rewarding.

with a little help

Talked to C.

What a difference a friend can make.

this one

I haven't been back to this particular blog in a little while. But it feels like, for the first time in, well, some time, things aren't in bad shape. Except for the myriad ways in which they're not great. But I've finally got some ideas and some tools to work with.

The essay didn't go so well, that one from last semester. I don't want to talk about it anymore, but it's behind me and I'm moving on. For all intents and purposes the coursework in the political science minor is done. I just wish I'd shone like I'd been hoping to.

Math, this semester, is challenging. I have started something of a regimen, one which I hope will actually see me not losing the "easy marks", and I've got a much better rapport with my professor than has ever been the case. This means I don't feel bad asking questions, for instance.

Web programming? That'd be the kicker. The assignment is big, I don't feel comfortable asking or answering questions to or from other students or the prof. And for a while I'd been pretty well stuck as far as tools went -- eyestrain, lack of motivation and time, and grindy, grindy performance from my Main Box.

Right now, I'm in possession of a couple of edges I previously lacked. I've got glasses. I've got a portable computer which works fairly well, far from distractogenic locales. And, if necessary, I can ask C for advice, though I know I'd receive a much longer answer than I was hoping for.

Those two are the biggies. Math and Web. The "smallies", namely music and work (which aren't small in terms of their impact on my life, just in terms of the sisyphean obstacles they seem to represent) are going reasonably well. I'm Treasurer (cf Neil Schweiber: "Tell me about it. I was elected treasurer of my middle school; I didn't even run!") and I am psyched about the new 'ductor. And I'm documentist at work, which I think I can do pretty well.

Web programming. Back to it.

Booked

Well, look at this. I seem to be operating on a new platform.