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Life and stuff, the current report (and a little word neepery)
Sun, Jan. 8th, 2006 09:45 amLots of territory covered in this entry, so I'm cutting it for flist mercy by subject; read or not as you see fit.
Wednesday, I had my first session with my new trainer at the gym. My old trainer, Gina, the adorable little blond 20-something who, though a good trainer, I found it hard to take seriously, has gone part-time and offloaded me to Joyce, who's got something like 20 years of experience and is a little older than me. There was, I admit, immediately more comfort in this arrangement. She worked my butt off and I think we could do some good work together.
Thursday at workshop, we read our holiday challenge stories. Mine, being only half finished, elicited cries of frustration, as I'd only gotten as far as the beginning of the big chase scene. It's been fun writing about 1938 Dresden, doing the (admittedly fairly shallow) research, looking at pictures from the period. Hope I can make this thing work in the end. It probably smacks a little too much of classic Twilight Zone but what the hell. I've been sworn to having the story finished come this Thursday, and I will. The big winner, I think, of the night, was RS's story set in 16th-century Hamburg. I genuinely believe she'll have a sale to the right market, it's so dense and beautifully detailed. I admit to feeling inadequate in light of such a beautifully written piece. I know one should not compare one's work to others; I'm just admitting that I had a moment of weakness.
Started the weekend off with a white elephant party at the home of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twilight2000 on Friday night. I came home with (oh dear) a Win95 version of the Guinness Book of World Records packaged inside a kind of cool cylindrical box from Zingerman's. But I also came home having played a game new to me (Amun-Re, a game hyper-suited to my interest in ancient Egypt and my slowly growing skill with German-style board games) which I enjoyed. I discovered, care of Miss K, that I had not lost my skill or the necessary nimbleness to play cat's cradle. And I came home with a copy of The Christmas Invasion on DVD. It made my little geek heart sing with joy. I'm such a fan-girl. (Fan-girl really does need to be hyphenated, I think. I mean, "fangirl" is fine if you're already familiar with the word, but when I see "fangirl," the first thing I see "fang" and that just takes me places I'm not sure I want to go.)
Yesterday NiFF came by and demonstrated his technical prowess by fixing my poor, busted VCR. Turns out the thing had popped a belt. NiFF fixed the belt, put the machine back together and it appears to be working just fine. As insurance against my further destroying the tape that got caught in the belt-popping mess, NiFF gifted me with a widescreen DVD edition of The Godfather, which is what I'd been watching on VHS when the nasty VCR incident occurred. Bless him.
In a complete indulgence to my fan-girl self, I stayed home last night and created DVD booklets for my Christmas Invasion and Children in Need DVDs. Because my DVD player is too sensitive for me to put identifying stickers on homemade DVDs (as I learned on Boxing Day), booklets seemed like the next best solution. I took advantage of the downloads at the official Doctor Who Website and the rich library of screencaps at Chaotic Creative to put together illustrated booklets that would identify the discs in their jewel cases. I went so far as to write cover copy and figure out chapter breaks in each disc, too. Geek, me. The next thing (I fear) may be creating music videos using iMovie. I found some resources here on LJ that coincided with the completely unbidden thought a couple of mornings ago to try it. Years and years ago, I created Star Trek music videos using two VCRs and my copious spare time; really, making those things lost me full weekends. Don't think I'm quite as vulnerable to it now as I was then, but I may try my hand at one just to see if I can still do it with any finesse. Again, I say: geek, me.
I opened yesterday's mail to discover that the current editor of the smashed-penny newsletter sent me my awards for contributing two articles to TEC News this year. They feature the TEC mascot, an owl, standing by a printing press, with the words "2005 TEC News Contributor." Because I contributed two pieces, I received a smashed penny and a smashed nickel. Had I contributed four, I would also have received the dime and quarter versions. Must do better this year. I already have ideas for at least two articles. I should get crackin'.
For no particular reason, I've been reading a biography of Robert the Bruce by Ronald McNair Scott. Its cover quotes laud its novelistic style, but I haven't found the narrative to live up to such quotes. It feels to me like a fairly dry recitation of the facts. On the upside, it's helped me understand the timeline of events, broadened my (admittedly piecemeal) knowledge of history, and clarified some of the truth behind the cinematic drama of Braveheart. On the downside, I find myself impatient with the fact-fact-fact proceeding of the work. Is it wrong for me to want to know what the Bruce may have looked like or what the landscape of his world was like? Some historians take the time to provide these details; McNair does not. Surely some of the details may be in short supply for this period; I understand that. But it makes me crazy. If I compare this work to, say, Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor of Acquitane, I consider my frustration justified. (On the other hand, the frustration I had with the Weir biography was that she told so much of Eleanor's story through the stories of the men around her, but that, I suspect, is a result of how history was recorded at the time—all about the men more than the women.) Nonfiction often works for me; somehow, this nonfiction isn't quite doing it. Wonder what I'll pick up next. God knows there's enough in this house to keep me busily reading for a lifetime.
I have a long list of things I want to get done today and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet. I should get down to it....
Wednesday, I had my first session with my new trainer at the gym. My old trainer, Gina, the adorable little blond 20-something who, though a good trainer, I found it hard to take seriously, has gone part-time and offloaded me to Joyce, who's got something like 20 years of experience and is a little older than me. There was, I admit, immediately more comfort in this arrangement. She worked my butt off and I think we could do some good work together.
Thursday at workshop, we read our holiday challenge stories. Mine, being only half finished, elicited cries of frustration, as I'd only gotten as far as the beginning of the big chase scene. It's been fun writing about 1938 Dresden, doing the (admittedly fairly shallow) research, looking at pictures from the period. Hope I can make this thing work in the end. It probably smacks a little too much of classic Twilight Zone but what the hell. I've been sworn to having the story finished come this Thursday, and I will. The big winner, I think, of the night, was RS's story set in 16th-century Hamburg. I genuinely believe she'll have a sale to the right market, it's so dense and beautifully detailed. I admit to feeling inadequate in light of such a beautifully written piece. I know one should not compare one's work to others; I'm just admitting that I had a moment of weakness.
Started the weekend off with a white elephant party at the home of
twilight2000 on Friday night. I came home with (oh dear) a Win95 version of the Guinness Book of World Records packaged inside a kind of cool cylindrical box from Zingerman's. But I also came home having played a game new to me (Amun-Re, a game hyper-suited to my interest in ancient Egypt and my slowly growing skill with German-style board games) which I enjoyed. I discovered, care of Miss K, that I had not lost my skill or the necessary nimbleness to play cat's cradle. And I came home with a copy of The Christmas Invasion on DVD. It made my little geek heart sing with joy. I'm such a fan-girl. (Fan-girl really does need to be hyphenated, I think. I mean, "fangirl" is fine if you're already familiar with the word, but when I see "fangirl," the first thing I see "fang" and that just takes me places I'm not sure I want to go.)Yesterday NiFF came by and demonstrated his technical prowess by fixing my poor, busted VCR. Turns out the thing had popped a belt. NiFF fixed the belt, put the machine back together and it appears to be working just fine. As insurance against my further destroying the tape that got caught in the belt-popping mess, NiFF gifted me with a widescreen DVD edition of The Godfather, which is what I'd been watching on VHS when the nasty VCR incident occurred. Bless him.
In a complete indulgence to my fan-girl self, I stayed home last night and created DVD booklets for my Christmas Invasion and Children in Need DVDs. Because my DVD player is too sensitive for me to put identifying stickers on homemade DVDs (as I learned on Boxing Day), booklets seemed like the next best solution. I took advantage of the downloads at the official Doctor Who Website and the rich library of screencaps at Chaotic Creative to put together illustrated booklets that would identify the discs in their jewel cases. I went so far as to write cover copy and figure out chapter breaks in each disc, too. Geek, me. The next thing (I fear) may be creating music videos using iMovie. I found some resources here on LJ that coincided with the completely unbidden thought a couple of mornings ago to try it. Years and years ago, I created Star Trek music videos using two VCRs and my copious spare time; really, making those things lost me full weekends. Don't think I'm quite as vulnerable to it now as I was then, but I may try my hand at one just to see if I can still do it with any finesse. Again, I say: geek, me.
I opened yesterday's mail to discover that the current editor of the smashed-penny newsletter sent me my awards for contributing two articles to TEC News this year. They feature the TEC mascot, an owl, standing by a printing press, with the words "2005 TEC News Contributor." Because I contributed two pieces, I received a smashed penny and a smashed nickel. Had I contributed four, I would also have received the dime and quarter versions. Must do better this year. I already have ideas for at least two articles. I should get crackin'.
For no particular reason, I've been reading a biography of Robert the Bruce by Ronald McNair Scott. Its cover quotes laud its novelistic style, but I haven't found the narrative to live up to such quotes. It feels to me like a fairly dry recitation of the facts. On the upside, it's helped me understand the timeline of events, broadened my (admittedly piecemeal) knowledge of history, and clarified some of the truth behind the cinematic drama of Braveheart. On the downside, I find myself impatient with the fact-fact-fact proceeding of the work. Is it wrong for me to want to know what the Bruce may have looked like or what the landscape of his world was like? Some historians take the time to provide these details; McNair does not. Surely some of the details may be in short supply for this period; I understand that. But it makes me crazy. If I compare this work to, say, Alison Weir's biography of Eleanor of Acquitane, I consider my frustration justified. (On the other hand, the frustration I had with the Weir biography was that she told so much of Eleanor's story through the stories of the men around her, but that, I suspect, is a result of how history was recorded at the time—all about the men more than the women.) Nonfiction often works for me; somehow, this nonfiction isn't quite doing it. Wonder what I'll pick up next. God knows there's enough in this house to keep me busily reading for a lifetime.
I have a long list of things I want to get done today and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet. I should get down to it....