laurenisms

Oh good, it’s still here!
Several smallish stories piled up over the last … month.
***
Mentally composed on Monday, September 19: I am cranky because last night I organized my life: figured out hours at my new job (which is the same as my old job), blocked out homework time during every day so I can try to keep it out of my free weekend time, made sure to schedule gym time three days a week. I was excited and energetic about my goals and I was going to DO IT, dammit, and today I woke up sick. Now no gym until I can breathe again; no work until I can move without feeling like my head is going to fall off. I get sick so rarely; did it have to interfere with my beginning-of-the-term optimism about getting things done? Now I may never recover.
***
Mentally composed at some point within the last couple of weeks: Yes, it’s definitely fall now and this means it’s time to reread Jane Eyre* and Ahab’s Wife. For some reason — perhaps the fact that they are full of wind and water and darkness — they remind me of fall and fall reminds me of them.
***
Mentally composed at some point within the last several weeks: Seven thousand fifty-eight flying and driving miles, four states, and ten-ish months later, the fourth and final stage of the extensive project that is meeting all the various combinations of divorced and remarried parents is over. We learned that the interaction between my mother and me at Thanksgiving is not a good first introduction to my mother; that Hawai’i is too hot, even in December, that I have become a (or discovered my hidden inner) dog person, and that three days in different states is bizarrely traumatic; that Wisconsin weather is hard on poor Northwesterners, but that Madison would be lovely if it weren’t so sillily flat and if it would just cool down at night (although then there would be no thunderstorms); and that my Reno family is almost too large to be tolerated, but that drinks in Reno are very cheap. It was a fun and adventurous project, the meeting of the parents, but I am happy never have to do it again.
***
Composed today: I did recover from the cold, physically and in terms of optimism as well. I started going to the gym again last week, finally, and though I couldn’t make it last Friday, I went today, and it’s already getting easier. School is well underway and I am actually getting stuff done. I am almost done with my portfolio; pending a few changes, my advisor will pass it and it will be on the randomly-chosen secondary reader. I got to see my sister last weekend, and we drove to Astoria to take her to her orthodontist appointment. That meant we also got to go to the beach and Shannon’s favorite restaurant and a wonderful fishmonger. I saw Serenity again and everyone else should go see it, too, even though J.W. ruined all my hopes and dreams. Today I applied for a really exciting job that I’m actually qualified for, even though I’d have to be in school full-time and working full-time through December. It might be the perfect job, though, so I am willing to sacrifice those six weeks to misery. In about a year an honest woman will be made out of me. I plan to wear a red dress. So maybe not that honest.

(song: “Question,” Old 97s)
* I love Project Gutenberg. Everyone should use it all the time.

I have just turned in my last paper of the summer — well, my last real paper — almost twenty minutes early! Woo!
I have also: been in Shelby’s wedding (cried); got in more arguments with my mother, who is not so good at rationality sometimes (did not cry); cried about a puppy I fell in love with online but who got adopted by someone else (cried); finally tried dirty martinis (rejoiced) and wondered why I have not been drinking them for years (regretted lost time); gotten fancy shiny new flipflops (rejoiced); had job interviews for two (!) different grown-up jobs (fretted, then was optimistic).

Upcoming: wait to hear about jobs; find another puppy; drink more dirty martinis.

(song: “Portland, Oregon,” Loretta Lynn & Jack White)

O, the writers’ block! truly it will be the death of me!

Yea verily!

There’s a paper due at midnight — well, at 11:59pm. I emailed the last one in at 11:54 and was proud of myself for being early. I don’t know if this one will make it by the witching hour, though. If I knew what I wanted to say, I would be fine; I type quickly enough to plow through more than this paper’s maximum 1000 words in the next six hours. But I’m not sure what it’s going to be about, so instead of writing I’m playing Tetris and downloading The Dark Tower series audio books. I get to start book 3 on the bus to work tomorrow morning!

The bus yesterday morning was quiet and empty. I was the third person on; usually there are at least fifteen by the time it gets to my stop. It confused me. I wondered if I had misread the clock and was an hour off, or if I had forgotten it was a holiday. It’s like being the first to finish a test, which I often was — that always makes me worry that I missed a page or misunderstood directions and answered one paragraph on the essay questions instead of five.
But then at the next stop, the same guy that always gets on was there. He looks friendly and is always reading an interesting book. I was happy to see him because it meant that if I was totally confused, at least one other person was confused with me.
Also I realized that if the bus was empty, I wouldn’t have to sit next to anyone, so I listened to my Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus and was happy.

Anyway:
Of the different methods of evaluating indexing, which come closest to assessing the quality of indexing, and which best suggest how to improve indexing? Please email me if you know.

Edited to add:

• Fix the RSS feed

should have been on the to-do list. Thanks for pointing it out, Heath.

Edited again to add:
Also, thanks, all, for the kind words on the new site. I do want criticism as well (constructive only, please; I can produce plenty of destructive criticism all by myself), though, so don’t hesitate to email if there are things that you consider extremely unpleasant.
Tho’ I suppose I shouldn’t assume that there are more readers than the four who already emailed! (*waves* Hi friends!)

(song: “I’ll Be Around,” Bobby)

I don’t know why it always surprises me that I am most likely to run into folks I know when I’m at the library on campus …
I’ve been sad because of a lack of being on campus and randomly running into people — it’s weird that I got so used to being able to do that, when I couldn’t, here, for at least a year. But today I was in the library to pay my $19 fine (I am a bad person) when I encountered my two favorite Writing Center customers from last year, Adam and Reese. Reese had to run off but I was especially pleased to see Adam, because I learned that he is to be in my Class of Deathly Boredom, aka Management for Information Organizations. I like Adam so am glad we get a class together, but was extra special happy because that means he can take notes for me on the first day.
I have to miss the first day because I am too dumb to double-check my calendar and figure out when class starts before I buy non-refundable tickets to Madison. (Yay, a sixth state to check off! I am a wimpy US traveler.) The first half of the summer term, in which I had one class, ends this Wednesday, and for some reason I thought the second half, in which I have a different class, would start next Monday, but no, it starts on Thursday. And I am leaving for Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon. This is dumb. I am dumb.
But Adam will be there to take notes for me!

This weekend was surprisingly eventful!

Mom’s marriage:
L: “Do you two want to get married?” (It’s the only thing that Washington requires in the ceremony.)
Them: “Yep!”
L: “Yay! Then you’re married!”

Harry Potter:
Finished Saturday night. Interesting. Not sure what I think, actually.

Homemakerdom:
Pulled lots and lots of weeds; did the dishes and cleaned the counter in preparation for a mini party on Sunday night.

Mini party:
Gins&tonic, bourbon, Oban (grâce à Chelle, thanks!!!); delicious guacamole (made-up recipe to be posted on Kitchenisms when I get it transferred); Simpsons, Firefly. Chelle and Tom and John & Laura. Good group!

This week: write a paper; laundry; pack; cash checks; figure out how I can get out of going to the first day of class.

(song: “The New Face of Zero and One,” the New Pornographers. A trail of sisters through New York.)

FINISHED, half-assedly: XML and JavaScript.

FINISHED, about three-quarters-assedly: PHP and MySQL.

ATTENDED: Spring Fling, complete with hay bales, face painting, and bluegrass music. And beer, but not enough.

FINALLY DRAGGED SHAN TO: Christy McWilson show

TO DRESS FOR: Heath’s fancy party tonight, of which I can only stay for an hour.

TO START I mean FINISH because of course I’ve started it,
haha, yes, I have!!: 10-15 page paper about archival cataloging and classification!

TO PACK: Everything I own.

(song: “Valentine,” Old 97s. Murry should sing more.)

this morning i am cranky. i suppose i need to have more coffee and some food. but there were no leftovers to bring for lunch and last time i ate on campus when i was grumpy, i ended up with one of those korean ramen-in-a-bowl, just-add-water things. soup is my default when i am cross, especially salty soup, but for this one i checked the sodium content because i am working on not kiling myself with oversaltedness. it only had 63% of my daily sodium, so i bought it. on the way back to my office i noticed that it actually said that one serving had 63%, and the bowl contained two servings. oops. the bowl also contained several interesting ingredients: “onion laver,” “wel shonion,” “seatangle” (sea tangle or seat angle? i guess we’ll never know).
i ate the whole thing anyway, despite the MSG and the wel shonion and the onion laver and the hot pink pinwheel shaped fish cakes, which are cute but not something that i feel should actually be digested. and it was good.

school is getting to the point where i start chewing on my nails, and my face starts breaking out, and i start going crazy. whee! but at least the househunting stress is over so i can focus fully on the academic stress: on monday we signed the lease for a super cute two-bedroom in wallingford with a fireplace and a basement and a garden all ready for me! i get to start moving in on june 1.

and in the meantime i have to figure out PHP and MySQL and how to make them talk to each other, and write a 10+ page paper, and learn JavaScript so i can fix my flowershop.

(song: “montgomery park,” richmond fontaine)

so i’m sitting at my desk in my office, in front of my computer with my book (discovery and decision: exploring the metaphysics and epistemology of scientific classification, by rebecca bryant), and i’m trying to finish my reading for class at 1:30. i just checked my email so i still had my hand on the mouse when i went back to reading the book. i got to the end of the page and instead of turning the page, I TRIED TO SCROLL DOWN.

maybe i need to spend less time at the computer.

(song: “rain king,” counting crows)

monday i coughed, and tuesday i whispered and sometimes squeaked, and wednesday i croaked, and since then i have been trying to cough up at least one lung. yum.
bourbon helps, though.

i always felt kind of bad, like i was betraying my grammar geek roots, for wanting to abbreviate “though” to “tho” like my mom does when she leaves me notes of the chores that need done while i’m home. but if nothing else, my classification theory seminar has taught me that she probably got it from crazy melvil dewey, who is insane but definitely a scholar, so it’s ok if i do it too. one of the papers we read cited this paragraph of his:

Tho the importance of classification was recognized, the filosofic sistems proposed wer so difficult fully to understand or apply that not 1 person in 1000 cud uze them practically. Decimal Classification simplicity and even more its Relativ Index hav made this work 10-fold eazier. In recent years, use of the sistem has spred rapidly in all civilized cuntries … In its simpl form a skoolboy can quikly master it and keep for instant reference not only his books but every note, clipping, or pamflet.
(from the introduction to the 12th edition of the DDC, p. 10; cited in Miksa, The DDC, the Universe of knowledge, and the Post-Modern Library, p. 39)

etc.
i really like this class. it’s what i thought grad school was supposed to be like.

(song: “i’m the man who loves you,” wilco)

i don’t have anything to be doing at this very instant, and i don’t know what to do with myself. it has been the week-and-a-half of awfulness and misery, but it’s almost over now! last night and this morning i got the last of the final project (currently locked, will be unlocked soon) for government publications done. yesterday i finished my section of the thesaurus. i have another late group project night tonight as we try to throw together the introduction for the thesaurus all at one go, but it actually shouldn’t be too bad. i keep waiting for that class to become unbearable like it seemed to be for everyone else last year, but it hasn’t. i’ve quite enjoyed myself, actually. who knew a group project could go so smoothly?
because i finished a project, i got to have lunch at pies&pints, where i had yummy welsh pretzels - like at the stadium, but better - and spinach and goat cheese salad and a delicious pot pie. yay!
soon it will be spring break. i am looking forward to doing things that aren’t related to school. like riding my bike!

(song: “punky’s dilemma,” simon&garfunkel)

this week, the student chapter of the american society for information science and technology is putting on icareer week, with a bunch of panels and things. this morning i went to the taxonomy panel and it was fabulous. i surprise myself sometimes: sitting there listening to these people who build taxonomies and manage projects and whatnot at microsoft, amazon, corbis, and moss adams, i realized i understood what they were talking about. it was very disorienting, as i still think of myself as being in way over my head here. but i have had a few epiphanies this week about career-type things, mostly along the lines of “i can do this!” and “taxonomy and information architecture are so interesting!” and “i want to work at corbis!!”
(i want to work at corbis.)

knitblog updated with pictures; kitchenisms updated with recipes.

(song: “oppenheimer,” the old 97s *sigh*)