Sunday, November 29, 2009

Giving up on NaBloPoMo and OKC in review

So I've more or less given up on NaBloPoMo. I didn't really get to update while I was at my in-laws, and while I could go back and write stuff, I'm way too lazy to do that. Hopefully, however, I've gotten more in the habit of updating, and I won't just update every few months. (Though, realistically? We'll see how that goes.)

We had a great time in Oklahoma, though, and really enjoyed spending time with the family. With both of Will's brother's there and their significant others, along with two grandchildren, it makes for a full house, which I love the feeling of. The day after Thanksgiving my mother in law had someone come and take family portraits, which was pretty cool.

Highlights of the holiday weekend include:
  • My ridiculously cute 7 month old niece, who was the happiest baby I've ever seen
  • My ridiculously cute 3 1/2 year old nephew, who was constantly chatting, even if he was the only one in the room
  • Watching Will play with the aforementioned niece and nephew
  • Megan's Texas Sheet Cake (or, as it was also called, Chocolate Bomb Cake, because it's da bomb)
  • The UT snuggie Charlie bought for his dad
  • My first custard "concrete", which is basically like a DQ blizzard, but made out of custard, and thicker


For Christmas we're going to Austin to spend it with my family, and I'm equally excited about that. Dani will be back from London, PLUS my mom's pernil, PLUS a likely trip to the Salt Lick. Awesome!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

OKC and Dale Chihuly

For some reason, every time we visit Oklahoma City, we go to the art museum. This might be because there aren't heaps of things to do here. Once you've done the Oklahoma City memorial and the Cowboy Museum, you've done most of the tourist attractions. So today we found ourselves at the art museum.

My favorite exhibit there is this glass art by Dale Chihuly. He has these neat art pieces that are blown art. Once I'm on a legit computer rather than typing this on my phone, I'll post pictures.

Aside from that, Oklahoma is great! Enjoying family time, and we went to a restaurant for lunch where they had queso! I hearted it.

Monday, November 23, 2009

San Fran recap

Flying when your ears are congested might be the most painful thing ever. I mean, I've never given birth so I can't say for sure, but it's pretty intense. I had that reaffirmed this weekend, when I flew home from San Fran and almost started crying as we descended. Dear Lord, that hurt.

Aside from that, the trip was pretty fun. Mary Anne and I went to the Academy of Sciences on Saturday, where we saw some exhibits and then went to the planetarium which was awesome because I am a dork. Though they always make me feel a little small and insignificant. We had Thai at this really great place near our hotel, and then on Sunday we went down to Fisherman's Wharf. The sea lions were there, but smelly.

I failed to take any significant amount of pictures, because I just didn't think about it. There's one from us at the pier, though, with Alcatraz in the background.

Fun weekend, though! However I need to go back there for real, rather than just for a trip that is under 48 hours, which has happened the past two times.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

San Fran!

I'm spending this weekend in San Francisco with my friend Mary Anne. Well, by "this weekend" I really mean "most of Saturday and a bit of Sunday" because that's the way that flights were cheaper. I've only been there once before, when Will's brother and his wife were in town so we went up for another short stint. Apparently I do best in San Francisco if I'm there for under 48 hours.

I'm excited, though, and with any luck will have pictures and whatnot upon my return. YAY taking advantage of living in California!

Werewolves vs Vampires

Tonight on the way home from watching New Moon with some friends (yes, we did go watch it on opening day. Does it help that we didn't watch it at midnight?) we got into a heated vampires vs werewolves debate. (Okay, I suppose that right there ruined any credit we got for not watching it at midnight.)

I find Edward to be incredibly annoying and emo - the only person in the series who is MORE annoying is Bella. Why do I like this series again? I mean, they are the two main characters. So I am obviously more of a fan of Jacob, and am therefore a werewolf girl. It also helps that vampires are always described as being cold and marble-like, and as I am always cold, I would much prefer a werewolf as they are always warm. Granted, I am married to a human, so I suppose that it's a decision I'll never actually be faced with. Marci said that Will looks a little like Edward, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with that information.

Am I really typing this out for public consumption? Luckily, only 11 people read this blog.

Anyways, Marci seems to prefer Edward to Jacob, and Briana said she'd have to think about it. Jen was rather quiet on the subject, and then we got sidetracked and started discussing whether or not we thought that, if He lived today, Jesus would be a socialist. On that I think we found more common ground, deciding that He would probably not get involved in politics, but that His ideals would probably be more in line with socialism than capitalism.

And that was my Friday night out with the girls.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Library Fun Part 2

I'm considering checking out Going Rogue from the library out of sheer curiosity. (Also, why do I keep wanting to type it as Going Rouge? Do I secretly think Palin needs more makeup?) If I do, though, I need to find a good book with alcohol in the title to pair it with, so as to continue confusing the librarians. Perhaps It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita? (Or perhaps not, as the title alone makes me want to rethink ever having kids.)

I actually have a pretty significant list of books that I want to check out, but I think my next one is going to be Escaping North Korea. I've had this fascination with the country recently, and Will and I have watched a couple of documentaries about it - one about an American who defected during the Korean war, and another about two young gymnasts who were preparing for the mass games. It's fascinating, really. And a bit scary.

Also, I just googled "documentaries about North Korea" and am off to add new titles to our Netflix list.

xkcd

Another day with nothing to really post.

So instead I'll leave you with this xkcd comic. While I love them in general (as anyone who is on my google reader friends list knows, since I share them all the time even though most of you probably have them on your list anyways) this is the only one that I've actually printed out and put next to my computer. Because it is SO TRUE. And, as a comp sci major, I am the default computer help person for many people.

[here]

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Going TV-free in January?

Will and I were talking tonight, and are toying with the idea of going tv-free in January. We'd still use our tv for movies, but we'd basically unplug our coax cable. Things we really want to watch we'd watch on hulu, but as I mentioned before we watch way too much tv and it'd be a way to wean ourselves off it.

We actually would need to unplug the coax cable, since my instinct when I sit down on the couch is to turn the tv on, so I'd need something to remind me to stop rather than just sheer willpower. I don't do so well with willpower.

We're not completely set on it, but I think it's probably worth a try. Now just to come up with some board games that we can play instead. And that way we'd actually interact more than just "hey, can you fast-forward through this?"

The Stoning of Soraya M

Today one of my RAs brought to campus the movie The Stoning of Soraya M., which is a movie based on the true story of Soraya Manutchehri, a 35 year old woman who was stoned to death after her husband falsely accused her of adultery so that he could marry a 14 year old girl.

It was a really good movie, albeit a gory one - I didn't watch most of the actual stoning scene, because I have a weak stomach and a tendency to have images stick with me for a really, really long time.

The director was there and answered some questions from the audience. The movie is based on the book of the same name, written by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. The part that I found most interesting was probably the fact that he said that practically all of the conflict that was shown in the movie within any of the men of the village came for dramatic effect, not from Sahebjam's research. In the book, which is non-fiction, there's no conflict from the men in the village - they're all for it. But in the movie, to deepen the characters a bit and in order to keep from villainizing Iranian men, they added some conflict, specifically in the character of the mayor, who ran the "trial" (if you chose to call it that) in which she was eventually found guilty.

Good movie, though it'll stick with you for a while. And don't be ashamed to look away during the actual stoning scenes - I had to.

Monday, November 16, 2009

There's money in the banana stand

Will and I have started watching old episodes of Arrested Development because (a) I've never seen it, but everyone says I need to, and (b) Will saw it a few years ago and said I need to. Everyone who told me I need to watch it was right - I do really enjoy it.

I also enjoy the fact that I'm starting to catch references that I'd never caught before. I think Dani used to have a shirt or something about Steve Holt, one of my lj friends had an icon that was Buster, and facebook groups that I used to just pass over finally have a context.

One of the coolest parts, however, is that it was filmed near where we live. The "bay" in the show where the yacht is (was) located and the banana stand is was actually filmed at a marina about 5 minutes from where we live. Today we went down there and wandered around with the specific intention of relating it to Arrested, rather than just eating Mexican food (which is usually why we go there). We found the spot where the banana stand is, to which Will said "That's exactly where the banana stand is!" And then we went home and watched an episode and, sure enough, that's exactly where it was!

So props to us for recognizing a filming location. If that's not LA life, I don't know what is!

Also, if you haven't watched Arrested Development yet, you should.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Holiday Decorations

Ha! Another clever and creative way of not decorating your house for Christmas.



Since we're limited in space, we'll probably just decorate a mini-tree and put it in our window. Maybe our neighbors will do the ditto thing, through.

12 Dates of Christmas

Last year, Will and I decided that instead of giving each other gifts, we were going to do "The 12 Dates of Christmas," and go on 12 dates in the month of December.

It didn't work.

First I'd like to add the disclaimer/public service announcement that I know that the 12 Days of Christmas are the 12 days after Christmas, leading up to Epiphany. But these are the 12 Dates of Christmas. That's different.

Part of the problem is that we didn't come up with enough things to do in LA, and part of the problem is that we're lazy bums who sometimes like our couches and our computers too much.

I'd like to try it again this year, so I've started looking for things we can do on our dates. One of them will be an at-home date - pizza and FINALLY finishing Secret of Mana. We started this game in 2004 on an emulator on his laptop, and then stopped, and then got it for our Wii and started again, but then stopped again. If we do nothing else this Christmas, we will finish the game.

Aside from that, though, I'm not entirely sure. There has to be some sort of Trail of Lights or something like that in LA like there is in Austin, we just need to find it. And some sort of neighborhood that goes all out with the Christmas decorations, like that neighborhood in the mountain in Austin. The one where some friends of the family decided to go the humorous route and did it halfway, and then put a mannequin up in ladder and then wrapped the lights around him, so that it looked like someone got all tangled up while trying to put them up. It's a clever and creative way of only decorating half your house.

Aside from finding those things, which I am assuming exist in LA, I'm not entirely sure what else we'll do. I'm sure we can come up with something, though. I mean, that's already 3, so we only need to come up with 9 more.

ask for suggestions

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Cooking time! Sesame Chicken

After Lauren posted recipe for Sesame Chicken the other day I decided I ought to try it. I've been a HUGE fan of sesame chicken since I was in middle school and my family used to go to this all you can eat Chinese buffet. Probably once a week I'd tell my mom I had a "craving" for sesame chicken, so we needed to go back to that place. It's amazing my parents still like me, considering how much I used to whine about wanting to eat it.

I was a little intimidated because the picture was just SO PRETTY but I decided to give it a shot and make it anways. Survey says? It was GOOD. So good, that Will even ate the broccoli in order to consume more sauce. Anything that gets Will to eat broccoli is pretty amazing.

I followed the recipe almost exactly, except that I used more vegetable and less sesame oil for the frying, and a dash of sesame in the sauce.

No, seriously, you need to make this. Recipe is here.

Thanks, Lauren!

Improv Everywhere

So recently I have fallen a little bit in love with Improv Everywhere. I mean, how can you NOT fall in love with a group that does spontaneous musicals ?

Unfortunately I can't ever keep a straight face, so I'd never work as a comic actor/improv everywhere agent. But a girl can dream, can't she? And their stuff is way fun, so who wouldn't want to be a part of it?

I think my favorite thing that they did was the surprise wedding reception. And the couple that got it is just the cutest. I mean, if you're going to do the courthouse thing, this is the way to do it.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

NaBloPoMo wears thin

So I went 10 days before I really struggled with what to write. I think that's a promising start, at least, and hopefully I'm getting my creative juices running enough that I won't have to write too many posts this about how I'm not motivated to write.

I actually have about 4 posts in my drafts with ideas of what to write about for days like this, but my main problem is that today I don't really have a desire to write, rather than not having anything to write about.

Three paragraphs counts as enough, right? I will leave you with two things:

a) I named my Droid! His name is R2D2. Will went with Bender.
b) I really enjoy the below scene from the Thomas Crowne Affair. There's some commercial that has music that reminds me of this movie, and as a result I've watched this scene like 3 times in the past week. (*SPOILERS* if you've never watched the movie. Which you should.)

Monday, November 9, 2009

Queso in Cali

Yesterday I had a craving for queso and did some googling and yelping to figure out if there's a restaurant in LA that has a good one. What I discovered is that restaurants in LA lack queso in general, much less good queso. Apparently it's a uniquely Tex-Mex thing, and pretty hard to find in California. Especially now that On The Border went bankrupt.

There was one thread in yelp where someone asked (a transplanted Texan, specifically) and all the results were "um, there are lots of places in LA that have cheese." PEOPLE. QUESO DOES NOT JUST MEAN CHEESE. It is also a creamy spicy cheese dip to be eaten with chips or tortillas.

After some failed searching (the only non-Chili's place I could find was only open for brunch) I decided to find a recipe. I was specifically craving Kerbey Queso, so I went with this white queso recipe that google provided me with. It was fancy with a roux and whatnot, and ended up feeling a bit grainy, but wasn't too bad. However, next time I think I'm just going to go with the Velveeta recipe I got from twitter. Definitely easier, and I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for Velveeta so there's really nothing to lose.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Droid!

I got a Droid yesterday! And I'm super excited about it. I'd been wanting to get an iPhone but kept putting it off and off and just never got around to it. But then the Droid came out and I was talked into it. Verizon works better on campus than AT&T anyways, and I like how customizable the phone is. I've spent way too much time already using it and tweaking it and whatnot, and I'm sure there's a lot of tweak time in my future as well.

Now the REAL question is what to name it. Names I'm considering:

  • R2D2 - for obvious reasons

  • Lal - Data's daughter. I'm a bit hesitant to name it after someone that didn't "live" for more than a week, but I've always been a bit of a fan of the

  • C3PO - but he whines a lot

  • IG88 - but do I want to name my phone after an assassin?

  • something else I haven't thought of?

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Job Search (and do I even need one?)

I hate writing cover letters.

No, like, I REALLY hate it.

Though it's a bit early for me to be making firm decisions on what I'm doing next year, I'm kind of taking a shot at something that I don't think I have much of a chance of getting, and it requires a cover letter. I can usually do relatively well with the 'meat' of the letter - why they should hire me. But the intro and closing paragraphs are a STRUGGLE.

Now assuming this opportunity doesn't pan out, I don't really know what I'm doing next year. Part of me doesn't think I'm quite ready to give up being a Resident Director - I really love my job, my students, my staff, and the school I work at. I'm relatively sure that my last year at this school will be my last year as an RD, and probably my last year in a live-in position, and I don't know if I'm quite ready to give that up yet. Even as I go through the year I tuck little notes away to myself "for next year" - that I should do this or that or tweak certain things. And I'm really loving this year and what I'm able to do now that I'm 3 years into the job. I'm loving the theme community I run, and I feel like I'm really starting to get a hang of my building board.

But at the same time, I don't want to stay, but then be completely over this job by October of next year, and then be an ineffective supervisor or halfhearted coworker. I don't think that would happen, but I don't really know for sure. At this school, most RDs don't stay in the position for four years - last year we had someone stay for a fourth year and he left in December, to a new position across the country. From talking to my cohort it looks like a lot of them are planning on staying a fourth year, partly because of the economy and partly because they just love the jobs. I think I'm the only one that's seriously considering leaving the school. But I don't know if I'm ready to give up being an RD.

And now I'm repeating myself.

Part of me would definitely like to move back to Texas to be closer to family. And have a house. A REAL HOUSE! Or at least an apartment with more than one room, as Will and I are getting tired of tripping all over each other. Maybe a full-sized fridge, and a washing machine? And satellite TV for Will! Wouldn't that be nice? Is it completely pathetic the sorts of things that I get excited about?

But I love my job, and my students and my staff and the university. I don't know if I'm ready to give up being an RD!

In January is when they ask for our letters of intent for work, so I really need to decide by then. So I have another couple of months to do some soul searching. Oh, and talk about it with Will, since he's kind of an important part to this decision making as well. Hopefully by then I'll have a better idea of what's best, not only for Will and me, but also for my career and the next steps and growing up or whatever all that being a responsible adult jazz is all about. And hopefully by then, I'll have a better idea of whether or not I'm ready to give up being an RD.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Hunger Banquet and Oxfam

Last night I went to an Oxfam Hunger Banquet that was held on campus. Oxfam is a confederation of 14 organizations that work in over 70 countries to fight poverty. The Hunger Banquet is an event that happens with the intention of teaching people about the unequal distribution of food resources around the world.

Basically, the way that it works is that when people enter they draw a ticket that has an income class, as well as name and information of a person somewhere on the planet. The income levels are high, middle, and low, and the descriptions briefly talk about themselves, their families, and their financial situation. I was middle income, and had the following card:

I am Deng

I live in Vietnam on a very small farm. During times of drought I must survive on loans from local moneylenders who charge 30 to 40 percent interest per month.


It started out talking a little bit about the distribution of wealth and resources around the world - the distribution of tickets at the event mirrored the distribution worldwide. 15% of the people had 'high income' tickets, and were seated at tables with white tablecloths. In the real world, those of us who fall into the 15% consume approximately 70% of the world's grain - mostly through grain-fed meats. They were served 3 course meals, with water and ice tea, salad, pasta, and dessert.

25% of us were 'middle income' and were seated in chairs around the edges. Most people in the world who are considered middle-income have no property, and education is not that common. We were given water in a cooler and got to eat rice and beans from a buffet line (those of us at the end got mostly rice, because the people in the front ate most of the beans.)

Everyone else (approximately 60% of the group) represented the 'low income' group, and sat on the floor. They were given a few large trays of rice, some brown water, and cups as their only utensils.

As they talked about the different groups what blew my mind was what was considered 'high' and 'middle' income. Worldwide, anyone who makes over $9,000 a year is considered high income. I'd always considered my family more or less middle class as I was growing up, but on the worldwide scale, we were ridiculously high income.

Middle income is anyone from $9,000 a year down to $900 a year. $900! I made more than that as a counselor at Texlake! I knew that the distribution of wealth and resources was out of whack, but I didn't realize that someone who made $1000 would be considered pretty solidly middle income. It kind of blows your mind.

Did you know a child dies every 2.9 seconds due to hunger? How many seconds have passed since you've started reading this? And that women living in poor countries are 250 times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in rich countries? TWO HUNDRED FIFTY TIMES. It's kind of ridiculous.

One of the things that I really liked about tonight was that it was more than just "this is what's going on in the world" - there was also information for action. Representatives from local organizations that fight hunger such as the LA Foodbank were there to talk about how they need help. They gave information on the "Feed the Hungry" that happens on campus every Tuesday afternoon where you can come make sandwiches and then go deliver them. And entry to the event was a $2 donation that goes straight to Oxfam.

So... yeah. That was my evening. And now that I'm done with my preaching, I'll leave a little video for someone else to do a brief 1:08 of proselytizing and then be done!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

TeeVee

Will and I watch a lot of television. Well, if I were being fair, I'd say that I watch a lot of television, and Will sits around while I'm doing it. I don't know why I'm such a tv watcher - I think part of it may be that I consider myself an observer of the human condition, and tv allows me to observe without really participating.

But it's probably not that deep.

There are something like 50 shows on our Tivo Season Pass, and I'm not even exaggerating. (In fact, I just checked, and it's actually 62.) Also, a lot of it is junk. I will totally admit to having The Girls Next Door and Real World Road Rules Challenge. I feel the need to note, however, that the former is one of the shows on my list where Will has stated that "he's okay if I watch while he's around." I mean, he doesn't actually like it or anything, but if I like it and want to watch it when he's around, he's not going to complain. He will complain, however, if I watch 18 Kids and Counting or The View. Those are strictly for times when he's not around.

Luckily, one of the places where our interests converge is Sci Fi. When we grew up we both watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, and when we got married, we got ourselves a joint birthday present that was the complete series, and watched the whole thing. It was deliciously nerdy.

We also were really big Stargate: SG-1 fans, though neither of us really got into Atlantis past the first season. Our plan is to DVD them at some point now that the show is over. We've just decided to give Stargate: Universe a shot, since that's new, and we now have a hole in our Friday nights since BSG is over. (Dancing robots?! Really? REALLY?!) Will was a big fan of the book that Flash Forward was based on, and we think that show has promise, though Will's losing interest quicker than I am.

And our most recent foray is V, which we just watched last night. This one also has a lot of promise, and you kind of have to give a show that has two Firefly alums a shot, right?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Will and I are nerds. So it's lucky we ended up together, or else his wife would all "ew" and my husband would be all "aren't guys supposed to be the ones that like this?"

Though sometimes Will rolls his eyes at me when I talk about my May the Fourth Star Wars parties, so maybe we're not compeletely matched.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Bouchon

Authors note: After I read this I realized how pretentious I sound. Apologies in advance.

Will and I are foodies-in-training. Will would probably say that we actually are foodies, but I'm going to keep us in the "in training" category for the time being. We did eat at Iggys over the summer when we were in Singapore, which was ranked the 45th best restaurant in the world in 2009, so there's that. We are also big fans of Tom Collichio's Craft (though I did get really sad when pasty chef Catherine Schimenti left - to the point that I found out her name so that I could see if she was working somewhere else, because I REALLY miss the Peanut Butter Cup dessert she made), and have gone to Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood a couple of times. The one time we went to Mario Batali's Osteria Mozza we were less than impressed, but we loved Brandon and Moye's wedding reception at Christophe Émé's Michelin-starred Ortolan (we were with them at their initial visit to the restaurant, a year prior to them getting married). Michelin-starred Joe's is another favorite of ours (though we haven't been there in a while - Will, let's change that), and I'm pretty sure I got a glimpse of heaven when we had a 12 course meal at Providience (which currently has TWO Michelin stars). Guys, one of the first courses were these upscale jello shots with liquor INSIDE the jello. And a cheese course! It doesn't GET better than that.

Have I dropped enough big names yet? (The self-conscious part of me wants to point out that we've had 2 1/2 years to do this tour of foodie LA.)

One time, when we were at Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood there was a couple next to us who were probably new to this fancy eating thing (I can understand that, having once been a newbie myself) and I heard one quietly ask the other "Where's the salt and pepper?" I rolled my eyes and whispered to Will "Did you hear them? They're looking for the salt and the pepper!" Because, seriously, you you don't season your food. Your food came the way Gordon Ramsay wanted you to eat it, so eat it that way! And then I was immediately mortified at myself for being such a food snob.

I don't know how these things happen! Just 3 years ago I was irritated that Will took me to Spago when I really just wanted an In-n-Out burger. The last time I was home I was talking about one of my friends about all these nice restaurants we were eating at and she reminded me that before I'd moved out here I SWORE up and down that I didn't understand eating fancy food. I mean, it's only in your system for what, 24 hours? Why not just have a good burger? Oh, how things change.

ANYWAYS. One of the things we've said we want to do is go up to norCal for norCaly-type stuff, but also, The French Laundry. I mean, Thomas Keller's restaurant is pretty well known even among non-foodies, moreso than Per Se, even though in recent years that one has become more popular among some foodies. So when we found out that Thomas Keller was bringing a restaurant to LA, we were crazy excited.

Bouchon is opening the 18th, and after some persistent phone calls, Moye managed to get us a reservation for the 29th. I know it won't be the same as The French Laundry or Per Se (the latter of which Brandon and Moye actually went to when they were in NYC earlier this year), but I'm still really excited to go.

I don't know when I became such a food snob, but I think I'm okay with it.

Oh! And since this is an LA thing, I can even say that this post goes along with the original theme of this blog! Sweet!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Exercise

So you know how this summer was supposed to be "The Summer Of Fitness"?

Yeah, didn't happen.

I guess I just have to figure out what exercise I enjoy enough, or at least get enough out of, that I'm able to overcome the dread that I have every time it's time for me to go do it.

The month or so before I went to Australia my junior year of college I was living at home, since school in Australia goes March-November, as their summer is flipped from the US's. While I was living at home, my mom made me go to Jazzercise with her regularly, which I originally hated her for, but then, in spite of myself, ended up actually enjoying a bit. Which begs the question:

Is Jazzercise the only kind of exercise I will ever enjoy?

At one point I looked up nearby Jazzercise places, and one of them had a picture of women all excited to be doing Jazzercise.

Old women.

Not old like you, mom. Like, really old. Maybe in their 70s.

Am I too young for the only kind of exercise I will ever enjoy?

I suppose I should look at other options. There are exercise classes here on campus that I could look at. Each semester they also have the Try-Athalon, where you (and a buddy or two, if you want) have 3 weeks to do the equivalent to an Iron Man. I mean, between Will and I, we can totally swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2 miles in 3 weeks. Right?

I think we're going to give it a shot. And actually do it this year, rather than just say we're going to do it and then fail to darken the door of the gym for the entire time that the Try-Athalon is happening.

So we're going to do it.

For reals.

Stop rolling your eyes.

Monday, November 2, 2009

My blog

When I told Will I was joining NaBloPoMo, after he checked to make sure I wasn't having a stroke or something, since saying that outloud sounds pretty odd, his next question was "who reads that blog anways?" Well, according to Google Reader there are 6 people using GR on it. My guess is that I have myself, Will, Mom, Dad, and Dani, which makes me wonder who the 6th person is. Unless it's myself, but under my old gmail address before I switched from my maiden name to my married name.

My LJ was totally public for a really long time, and then it went mostly-private and now I don't use it at all (just ignore the fact that it says it was recently updated - that's an automated thingie). Part of it is that I know I ought to watch what I say in case some student I work with or potential future supervisor or someone else comes across it. My facebook is pretty guarded for the same reason - I occasionally have to unlink myself in pictures or delete the posts of friends or random JCers that I think may be inappropriate. So part of it is the question of what I need to do in order to keep it job-friendly, especially since sometimes I think that things that are job-friendly don't appear to be in hindsight. I tried the whole 365 Recipies thing since food is generally generic enough to not be troublesome, but that failed miserably. My hope is that, at one point, possibly years from now, there will be 365 recipes on it.

I've considered snarky book reviews, like BSC Revisited or Sheep Are In. But then I need the time to both read a book AND review it. Food obviously loses my interest. I can't write about entertaining student stories (or, at least, I can't publicly post them) because of FERPA and privacy and whatnot. And my life in general isn't all that entertaining, though Will and I are trying to work on living it up a bit while we're living in SoCal, since we don't know how much longer we'll live here.

So my guess is that this blog will be a bit of a combination of everything. Some cooking, when I get around to it. Snarky reviews of books (and, apparently, movies based on Disney television shows). A dash of work, when appropriate. And a smattering of my life, when it's been entertaining enough to merit it.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

NaBloPoMo

So I am nowhere near the writer to consider doing NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month, where people try to write a 50,000 novel in the month of November. Nor do I particularly have the desire to. However, I've been doing this blogging/journaling/whatnot thing on and off since 2000 when I discovered livejournal as a wee little freshman in college. And lately it's been more off than on. One of the blogs that I follow said that they'd be participating in NaBloPoMo which is a totally ridiculous shorthand name for National Blog Posting Month. Ridiculous name aside, I'm going to give this thingie a shot.

I don't know that I really have enough to say to post every day for the month of November, and this may prove a bit difficult on my busier weeks or weekends, and when I'm out of town, but I'll give it a shot anyways. So, let's see if this lasts a day, a week, or I actually make it through the month!
Related Posts with Thumbnails