Sort of an underwhelmed astonishment. No, not really “astonishment.” I can certainly see how I got here, after-the-fact. Hmmm…? Anyway, not sure if I’m living or being lived lately. Lots of stuff happening. Not ingesting much of some of it. Some relaxing and being with friends, but in a complicated, sort of way. Lots of little “failures,” of the “Am I letting someone else down?” sort.
Late afternoon I sent off my 3rd marked exercise for Information Modeling. I think I was OK. This class is such a (wonderful) dichotomy for me; wonderful in the multitudes of ways in which has been and remains dichotomous. I do believe that I am meeting the requirements and, more importantly, the purpose of the class, but it sure isn’t in the best of ways. It is in effect a “survey” class (of a particular type and level having begun with first-order logic) and I am certainly surveying.
The whole two classes at the same time thing was not my best idea. Far from the worst; but not so great. It’s working; could be better. I’m still missing some of the IML classes even though Classification Seminar is over. Allen had class the previous Thursday while I was stuck in O’Hare. This week I made all of class, but with the tooth and poor to no sleep, I was practically asleep before class was over; just kind of dazed.
I have watched 3 movies since Friday evening. Friday, I watched Steamboy. Yesterday, I watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. I began Kingdom of Heaven last night and finished late this afternoon after sending off my entity relation diagram and exercise.
From 12:30 PM Saturday to about 2 PM Sunday, I drove 320 miles; most of it Sat. Hung out with friends, who had a sleepover out at Lake Bloomington. Tooks lot of fire pics.
I also brought home 5 heavy boxes of books from storage. They’re just sitting in the back “bedroom.” Maybe I’ll have a look over the weekend.
I returned the previously mentioned movies just a bit ago and got 5 more. But by getting them tonight, I get to keep them until Friday at 9 PM instead of Thursday. It’s just me on Turkey Day so I might as well watch some movies. A couple need to be watched before or after, though. Maria Full of Grace seems to not be a Thanksgiving movie. Maybe not Paradise Now, either.
I need some time to think. My adviser and I talked for about an hour today. Mostly it was just catching up; letting her into many of the ‘little “failures”‘ mentioned above. Gesturing toward research/ideas for Carole’s paper, CAS project ideas, independent study for Spring, ….
It was really an odd session; abstract and vague. Although there is nothing wrong with abstract or vague when they serve a purpose, currently abstract and vague is not good for me. This is mostly my fault; seems I can be no other way at the moment.
School is at a really weird point for me lately. I despise the whole semester system, but that’s been a given for a while now. I seem to have hit some sort of a plateau, a stalemate. I’m not worried it is permanent–just a slump–although, I can see slowly moving towards this over time. Possibly.
Kathryn wants me to curl up with all the literature I collected in Classification Seminar; not just soon, but longer term. She thinks my direction(s) will come from there; I think it may well.
In other related news, I now have a CETRC Mentor. [CETRC Mentoring subcommittee.] As some of you know, I passed on the honor to possibly be an Emerging Leader. I have a few reasons; much of it is financial. [I actually know at least 3 of the folks accepted; at least 2 recent UIUC grads. I wish them all the best of experiences with this program!] I had decided to instead apply to the ALCTS CCS CETRC Mentoring Program. I found out a couple days ago that I got accepted and who my mentor will be. We have yet to make contact, so who will remain unnamed for now.
I guess I figure I would rather spend some time learning from those who have (recently) gone before me, before I try running the asylum. In fact, I prefer it as a long term modus operandi. That doesn’t imply I don’t value those who want to. I just prefer a more personal way to learn “to lead.”
And, NO, I do not want a handbag!
Blake has been keeping in touch as LISHost has been getting nailed by spammers the last few days. I get relatively little spam that makes it through to my blog to get caught by Akismet. It stops everything else. Moving to the Cutline template has, for me, drasticaly increased the number that get to Akismet. Still minor. The last couple of days many are making it through to the Moderate cue and some are getting caught by Akismet. Still nothing getting through that I know of. But if I am getting hit this hard, I can only imagine folks like Walt or Aaron. Spammers are in a special level of the special level of hell I have reserved for marketers. So why all the handbag spam?
This is really rough in spots, but it needs to go out. I may elaborate on many of the things touched on here; much of it is my future. This is possibly more for me than others, but feel free to engage me over any of it. I just have mostly questions right now.
5 responses so far ↓
1 walt crawford // Nov 21, 2006 at 11:16 am
Re spam: It runs in waves, and Blake’s server settings are working pretty well. I usually check Spam Karma twice a day, and the count ranges anywhere from none to 100–but today, for example, it was 16 in the last 15 hours. Only one has made it through in the last month (and that briefly).
When there are bad spurts, they’re truly spurts: Usually the same exact message from the same exact sender but posted to each of 40 or 50 blog posts, most of them at least a year old.
And, unfortunately, I still get two or three real comments a month trapped as spam or marked for moderation, so it’s worth skimming over the list twice a day.
2 jenny // Nov 21, 2006 at 1:40 pm
sorry things are confusing for you.
i really expected gartler would be on that list tho maybe he didn’t apply. i also did not because i would have had to be an ala member. also, i have zero aspirational interests within ALA. i really wish other orgs were doing this kind of thing….
3 Mark // Nov 21, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Walt, yes, most of mine have been about handbags lately; certainly a waveful. As far as I know, nothing is making it through.
The numbers are just up, and some are “making it as far” as the moderation queue, where they were all caught as spam by Akismet before.
Certainly not a big amount of work to deal with. And, yes, I must check the spam queue, too. On two different occasions lately, Akismet has grabbed my own comments a spam.
4 Mark // Nov 21, 2006 at 9:54 pm
For instance, the previous comment itself got caught as spam by Akismet. But I think that’s somewhat understandable as it was the first comment I made using recently installed IE 7.0.
If you notice, my name is hyperlinked like anyone else’s would be. But my own links are supposed to be styled with no link. There are a couple floating around like that. Again, it’s livable, but I’m still counting on special levels of hell.
5 Movies I watched in 2006 | Off the Mark // Dec 31, 2006 at 4:14 pm
[...] These and many of the next several movies are mentioned here and talked about here. [...]