Chestnuts and latkes.

Hey guys, I know you all have time off for the holidays. You totally have time to us know what you are up to. Also: I am looking at your Claire, Noah, Sarina, Julia, and Andrew. And, wait, what the hell. Why isn't Rebecca a strollicker? WHAT ARE EVERYONE'S NEW EMAIL ADDRESSES!

If this is too much thinking, can it be like those annoying surveys I used to see on facebook?

1) Where are you right now?

Three words that describe your:

2) New place of residence:

3) Work:

4) Free time:

In the past six months have you:

5) Started dating anyone new?

6) Began a new hobby?

7) Been happy?

8) Strollicked or ish?

In the past week, what is the most interesting thing you have:

9) Eaten?

10) Seen?

11) Done?

There, I tried.

Ok so, for me. I am silly happy. Chose to be out of work for two months because I hated my part time job, quit, then I realized I couldn't job search in the job wasteland that is Arcata while working on applications. For those of you who have spent lots of time looking for work on the ground, you know: too much of an emotional energy suck. So I picked the applications and just bummed around. Luckily life up there is cheap! Anyway, I am FINALLY done with applications. Just six places, there on each coast. Here's hoping I get a job quick in January.

In other news, Nathan and I are silly blissful. I suspect it's in that a-little-sickening-to-everyone-but-us way, so I'm glad I'm not subjecting you guys to it. Up in Arcata I have been mostly cooking, riding my bike, procrastinating from those applications, and smiling. We left Arata on Sunday just did the beginning of Hannukah with my fam, in SF. A glut of amazing food. Latkes, curry, sushi, Puerto Rican plantain sandwiches. I am spending Christmas with his family in Grass Valley California, which is kind of superb. Less stressful for me than my own family. After that I go back to the Bay Area for Young Friend's New Year's Gathering, which should be a blast as ever.

Last but not least, I miss you all like mad. So much.

That's all I've got, although I will complete my own survey. . .in hope. . .

1) Where are you right now? Grass Valley CA, near Sacramento.

Three words that describe your:

2) New place of residence: Hippy. Nowhere. Redwoods.

3) Work: Does not exist.

4) Free time: Circus. Bike. TV.

In the past six months have you:

5) Started dating anyone new? Nope!

6) Began a new hobby? Circus!

7) Been happy? YES!

8) Strollicked or ish? No. :(

In the past week, what is the most interesting thing you have:

9) Eaten? A steak sandwich where the bread was flattened, fried, garlic plantains.

10) Seen? A two horse drawn carriage.

11) Done? Ridden a racing bike for the first time! It went ZOOOOOM!

<3

More self promotion

I put this page together showing off stuff FCNL has done in the past year. You should check it out if you want to know what FCNL has been doing in the past year or just want to make me look good by increasing the website views (do itttt).

http://fcnl.org/donate/the_fcnl_days_of_christmas/

#self-prostitution

I started a music blog. I know you guys like music. Read it.

welp

now seems like a good time to update you folks on how my life is

The summary is largely "pretty sweet." The big news regards a couple of conversations I had a few weeks back. I was hired into QA for a recent acquisition of IBM's called Sterling Commerce, which is something probably most of you knew. We do supply chain software. I was hired with the understanding that I could eventually switch to development if I wanted to. Later, we (the four new hires, all picked up around the same time) were told that there were three positions in Dev, and we could apply for them around the new year. About three or four weeks ago my manager pulled each of the four new hires aside and told us that, actually, there were three dev positions and one QA position - so three of us were going. Later that week, I was told I was going to be in Dev.

So now I'm in Dev. Still doing training, then I'm going to be fixing defects for a few weeks, then I might actually get to do stuff like code features. I'm a little terrified at present, but I'm slowly getting the hang of things, and hopefully will have a chance to work some stuff out and get better enough to be confident.

Apart from that I've not been doing too much. I've been feeling not terrible about letting video games occupy most of my free time. I've got over an hour of commute every day (usually closer to an hour and a half), and I've been trying to listen to audiobooks with it; I got through all of the Lord of the Rings and the Old Man and the Sea, got through about half of Slaughterhouse Five and The Naked and the Dead (both had defects that made them impossible to finish) and I'm now going through American Gods at full tilt. It's really quite satisfying.

I think a new year's resolution will probably be to do more art. I made a shot at NaNoWriMo this year but fell short, and I'm having trouble summoning the energy to attempt something new - which may mean it's time for more revisions on older stuff. I've also been doing a bit of Aikido - once or twice a week - which is really fun. It's a little bit of a bummer not feeling like I have a social group in either Aikido or work, though; I love the Andrews, and we're making a few friends around here, but I don't really see many people other than roommates I like, which is a little sad. Still working on it, though.

So yeah! Juliaty is coming to visit at the end of the week for winter break, and we'll be taking a trek out to Indiana to have Christmas with my extended family. I think it'll be pretty awesome. We haven't made a lot of plans other than that yet but let us know if you feel like visiting at some point and saying hi!

How's everybody else doing?

6-Month Update!

Guys. Do you realize the 27th is going mark six months since we've graduated? Is that crazy or is it crazy (or am I counting wrong? Maybe the 27th is when I started Bard?)

Also, do you guys realize we went to a fucking amazing undergraduate institution? If so, just how much do you appreciate that? Because the more Sam and I talk to our peers about their undergraduate experiences, the more we're both like, "Oh. Wow. Why is their college more famous than ours?"

FOR EXAMPLE, I mentioned to the dean of the program today that I resented my current research project (a 20-page lit review) because I had done original research in all of my upper-level history classes. I had mentioned this to my classmates throughout the semester (because I complain, therefore I am.) One of my classmates, who plans to be a professor when he grows up, told me he didn't do any of his own research until his senior colloquium, and even that sounds like it was highly structured. A Columbia grad in my interdisciplinary class today said she had never looked at a math journal in her undergrad days. I KNOW, right?

So after class, Ric came up to me and asked me to remind him where I went for undergrad, since it sounded like I had a pretty rich experience. (PS he knows Alice Lesnick, one of the ed profs at Bryn Mawr.)
"Haverford."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I see where you're coming from, then."

Back-patting aside, my second quarter in the program ends as of 12 noon tomorrow. I will have from that time until 6:30 am on January 3rd to work on said lit review and assorted final projects. I am looking forward to filling the time with the printmaking kit Erin got me for our first anniversary.

So what's been taking up my time? Honestly, if I was just taking these classes I'd have more time to update. But actually I also student-teach from the start of the schoolday 'til noon. Then I'm in class until 4 or 5:30. Then I have to do homework (reading two books a week and creating mock lessons and unit plans for my classes.)

Right now I'm student-teaching at this awesome school (the teacher they interview at the 1:30 mark, who keeps saying "holokawst" is a real goofball. I luv him. The school is regents-exempt, their graduate rate is higher than the city average, and their mascot is the "Aggressive" (ie Black) Panthers. I see two sections of a ninth/tenth-grade integrated class: one is general ed and the other is a team-taught integrated special ed class. My mentor teacher is an alumna of my program and is bffs with a professor that I hope to be bffs with one day because she's so damn cool (I call her Yoda and she calls me Luke. Yeah.) I don't think my teacher is an older version of me, but in terms of personality we get along really well. Our planning periods tend to be goof-off sessions.

Today, as the culmination of the first part of my time with them, I taught the last hour of their 2-hour block today. It was a lesson about the kinds of questions historians ask about history (what is true? How do we know the truth? Is it possible to know the truth?) The kids ate that shit up. It was so awesome. I stayed up for hours last night imagining worst-case scenarios and it was totally unnecessary. As much as I'm going to enjoy my time off, I'm looking forward to coming back to work with them.

NSFW... or is it?

I know this isn't primarily supposed to be an image combat sort of deal, but I just found out about a hilarious (old) phenomenon that I just had to share. Have you ever heard of "work safe porn"?

The idea is this: take pornography, then edit the image so that it isn't porn any more.

Like so:


























Now, sometimes this works better others. Patching over images willy-nilly can look contrived.

Like so:


























Or so:
























And sometimes, brilliance!

Anti-pacifism in Cal.

I don't think I've seen anything like this before. Striking.

Any thoughts?







http://sfist.com/2011/11/01/yucky_anti-violence_leaflet_handed.php