Yesterday I attended a concert on campus. There’s a shy girl in one of my writing classes who came to me, ticket in hand, and asked me if I would come and see her sing. She’s a nice kid, and a diligent student, so how could I refuse? Well, it turned out to be a cappella music concert. You know, where vocal groups sing without instrumental accompaniment (aside from a little beatbox work by some of the guys in the ensembles, and that’s still not really instrumental). Now, it may seem strange to those of you who think of groups …
Category: GENERAL
Display Problems?
A longtime reader sent me this JPG and asked why the text was bring cut off by the sidebar. She’s running Explorer. I don’t have anything with Explorer on it handy, and I’m wondering if anyone else is having this error? (click on the pic for the big, nasty version)
Losing It
Weight, that is. One secretary and two students today commented that I seem to be losing weight. The nice thing is that this must actually be true — my clothing is getting looser, something which I didn’t think was true before but now I notice definitely has been happening — actually, I suspected it when I fit into jeans that, just a few months ago, were uncomfortably tight. It’s enough so that I’ll actually probably have to get some of the pants for my newer suits taken in a little! And given the fact I’ll be adjusting to new water …
Hackers and DOS attacks and Maybe a Jabberwocky?
I’ve been a little, well, uneasy about the fact that I’m connecting to the net through the school server. It’s not that I’m hacking webservers out there or anything — frankly, I wouldn’t be able to do it, even if I wanted to — but it’s just that I don’t like the idea that anyone — even the most sympathetic sysadmin out there in internet-land — can have a look at my internet activity. It’s my own private life, isn’t it? That’s how I feel. So I recently installed an app called anon-proxy. It’s just a little gidget that supposedly …
Scattered Ideas
While I’m waiting for Lime to show up — her shift at the hospital just ended and I have feeling we’ll be watching a few episodes of lost, and having a nice dinner of my own devising tonight — I thought I’d sketch out some of the ideas that have been kicking around in my head as far as back-pocket ideas for the stories I’ll be writing while at the Clarion West Workshop this summer. They’re rough ideas, and I’ll need to do some research, but here are the ones that have been bouncing around most jouncily. A short story …
A Glimpse of Lime
For those of you who cannot read Korean, I usually don’t link to Lime’s page because, well, you won’t be able to read anything there. But this morning, when I opened up my newsreader, I was surprised to find a post she’d written in English. I even called to let her know that I think her English writing has improved a lot. She says she’s not been studying, but that being in a foul mood helps her to write better. For those who’ve heard me mention her many times, but wonder what she’s like, well, here’s a link to her …
Lest You Imagine I’m Bitter…
In case my posts about marking and plagiarism leave readers thinking I am bitter or unhappy in my work, I don’t mean to leave you with that impression. I have had one of those days which, well, which I find come after midterm exams: I’ve been interacting a lot with students, in all kinds of capacities. I had lunch with one student who’s genuinely worried about his writing and wants to get it in shape. We talked about different exercises he could do, the importance of analyzing his readings and reading a lot (and aloud), and of course, the importance …
Weirdest Recipe Yet
My Elementary Writing students were working with forms of organization, and we touched upon the structures of lists. Lists of items in which order doesn’t matter — say, ingredients in a recipe, where we just list with commas and an “and” before the last item, and sequence lists, where we outline a series of steps in a procedure, starting each new step with a word indicative of the new step: “First”, “Second”, “Third”, “Next”, “Then”, “After that,” and “Finally” (plus variations). So I had this bolt of inspiration and asked students to submit recipes to me. The recipes would consist …
On Course
Here’s the update: I’m now 100% definitely going to Seattle for the Clarion Workshop. I’ll fly out on the 17th, and I’m going to try to get a ticket that allows me to stop by my mother’s place on the way back to Korea, six weeks later. I’m now in the thick of marking. It’s just not pretty. But one thing that is really making me happy is that a lot of my students seem to have really picked up what I’ve been trying to get them to learn — things like structure in their writing, or a certain kind …
Quizzically
You Are 50% Evil You are evil, but you haven’t yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though – you are on your way to world domination. How Evil Are You? Okay, I’m only half-wicked. You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you’re from. And while you may have some problems being “normal,” you’ll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it’s epic films, important novels, or vivid comics… Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world! What Type of Writer Should You Be? But I …