1. Graded, prepped, and taught the appropriate number of classes.
2. Reading Last Temptation of Christ still. Slow going; making myself read 50 pages a day.
3. Got Night Elf Hunter to level 50. Draenei warrior is now at 48. Feeling very smug and pleased.
4. PBS had a production of Company that had cast members doubling as the orchestra which was really cool; I'd have liked to have been in it. I hadn't seen the play before; it made rather more sense to hear "Being Alive" in context.
Netflix experiment: I had always wanted to see the original Sister Wendy programs on art history, and they came up in the queue this week. Co-Vivant looked at me like I was a crazy person trying to kill her; I suggested she watch one and, if she didn't like it, I'd watch the rest by myself. Halfway into the third show, she said, "Okay, this isn't bad. I'll watch these with you."
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
2/19: What I Accomplished Today
1. Finished The Namesake. At book group last Friday, we watched the movie and discussed them both. Now I'm reading The Last Temptation of Christ. It's a slow read for at least two reasons: a) I've read several religious books recently, and I may be about done with them for a few months; b) this will seem strange, but I've borrowed the book from a friend in book group. It's an old paperback, and it smells musty. I don't like reading this book because it smells funny.
2. Prepped, taught, and graded the requisite number of classes.
3. Earned all timely Pogo badges.
4. Had Presidents' Day off. Hurray! Hurray for Presidents' Day!
5. Read some magazines.
6. I've gotten the Night Elf Priest to 45; she was the last character to get there. I've got the Night Elf Hunter (and her little owl friend) to 49.
7. We had an ongoing mystery get solved this week very anticlimactically. About seven or eight years ago, we were watching an episode of The Bob Newhart Show. It was an episode in the third season in which Emily has redecorated the apartment and Bob hates the new look (which is the name of the episode, "The New Look"). When Bob first comes into the apartment, we see a collection of items on the wall; it's hard to tell if it's one item consisting of a number of other miscellaneous objects fastened together or a number of small objects placed close enough together that they look fastened. I don't know if I particularly like the aesthetics of the piece, but it's interesting to look at. Emily references the wall and says, "It took Ellen three days to find that..." and then she seems to say the word "accio" (which I believe was a spell in Harry Potter). Or maybe it's ochsio. Co-Vivant was watching on Tivo, and we went back to that point and listened carefully dozens of times. Sure did sound like accio.
I looked up the various spellings we could think of in every dictionary I could find, every dictionary that I owned, every dictionary that I could access in a library. I spent hours in the Oxford English Dictionary. No go. We kept the episode on the Tivo, and every now and then, we'd listen again and try to come up with new possible spellings. ("Auchzio?") Then I'd try to look up the new variants. I've looked in visual dictionaries.I've looked in dictionaries for other languages. While I myself am not a furniture person, I've had friends who enjoyed antiquing; I spoke to some of them about what this word that seems to refer to a hodgepodge of items attached to each other and then to the wall might be. No go.
A few years ago, Co-Vivant discovered the captioning button. Back to the episode of Bob Newhart; at that point, the show had not be captioned, so we didn't have that option.
I have searched eBay for the script to that episode. No go.
I have asked at Bob Newhart's website. No response.
For Christmas, Co-Vivant got the third season of Bob Newhart on DVD. We realized it was captioned, so earlier this week, we played the DVD with the captioning on to learn what this elusive, mysterious word could be.
"It took Ellen three days to find that ox yoke."
And sure enough, up above the miscellaneous hodgepodge of items hung an ox yoke. The ox yoke was the only item on the wall which did not physically belong to the clump of stuff we thought was this mysterious "accio," which we have now learned is a word we made up to name an item that doesn't seem to have a name; we had simply misheard the name of the one item on that wall we could have identified had we taken the time.
All together now: D'oh.
2. Prepped, taught, and graded the requisite number of classes.
3. Earned all timely Pogo badges.
4. Had Presidents' Day off. Hurray! Hurray for Presidents' Day!
5. Read some magazines.
6. I've gotten the Night Elf Priest to 45; she was the last character to get there. I've got the Night Elf Hunter (and her little owl friend) to 49.
7. We had an ongoing mystery get solved this week very anticlimactically. About seven or eight years ago, we were watching an episode of The Bob Newhart Show. It was an episode in the third season in which Emily has redecorated the apartment and Bob hates the new look (which is the name of the episode, "The New Look"). When Bob first comes into the apartment, we see a collection of items on the wall; it's hard to tell if it's one item consisting of a number of other miscellaneous objects fastened together or a number of small objects placed close enough together that they look fastened. I don't know if I particularly like the aesthetics of the piece, but it's interesting to look at. Emily references the wall and says, "It took Ellen three days to find that..." and then she seems to say the word "accio" (which I believe was a spell in Harry Potter). Or maybe it's ochsio. Co-Vivant was watching on Tivo, and we went back to that point and listened carefully dozens of times. Sure did sound like accio.
I looked up the various spellings we could think of in every dictionary I could find, every dictionary that I owned, every dictionary that I could access in a library. I spent hours in the Oxford English Dictionary. No go. We kept the episode on the Tivo, and every now and then, we'd listen again and try to come up with new possible spellings. ("Auchzio?") Then I'd try to look up the new variants. I've looked in visual dictionaries.I've looked in dictionaries for other languages. While I myself am not a furniture person, I've had friends who enjoyed antiquing; I spoke to some of them about what this word that seems to refer to a hodgepodge of items attached to each other and then to the wall might be. No go.
A few years ago, Co-Vivant discovered the captioning button. Back to the episode of Bob Newhart; at that point, the show had not be captioned, so we didn't have that option.
I have searched eBay for the script to that episode. No go.
I have asked at Bob Newhart's website. No response.
For Christmas, Co-Vivant got the third season of Bob Newhart on DVD. We realized it was captioned, so earlier this week, we played the DVD with the captioning on to learn what this elusive, mysterious word could be.
"It took Ellen three days to find that ox yoke."
And sure enough, up above the miscellaneous hodgepodge of items hung an ox yoke. The ox yoke was the only item on the wall which did not physically belong to the clump of stuff we thought was this mysterious "accio," which we have now learned is a word we made up to name an item that doesn't seem to have a name; we had simply misheard the name of the one item on that wall we could have identified had we taken the time.
All together now: D'oh.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
2/11: What I Accomplished Today
1. Prepped a class, graded three classes, taught a class.
2. Television and Pogo badges.
3. Almost done with The Namesake. Very good.
4. Took a character through the Love is in the Air sequence in WOW. No experience, and the final reward is soulbound clothing; I don't think that's particularly worthwhile, and I don't think I'm doing it eight more times.
2. Television and Pogo badges.
3. Almost done with The Namesake. Very good.
4. Took a character through the Love is in the Air sequence in WOW. No experience, and the final reward is soulbound clothing; I don't think that's particularly worthwhile, and I don't think I'm doing it eight more times.
Monday, February 11, 2008
2/10: What I Accomplished Today
1. Valentine's Day WOW was supposed to start today and didn't. Wonder what's up.
2. Night Elf Priest to 41.
3. We watched one of the commentary tracks on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The actress who played Lucy was astonishing (and it's really her movie, so she needs to be), so she needed to be on the track, so the director had a track with the kids. Kind of cute in the right mood. I suspect that, for the two younger children (who played Lucy and Edmund), that track will end up being the equivalent of naked baby pictures on a bear rug: something brought up by parents on Prom Night to humiliate you if you're note careful. They did a pretty credible job for 10- and 12-year-old kids. On the other hand--they're 10- and 12-year-old kids, and intelligent enough to do a pretty good job in a movie which they were largely going to have to carry by its very nature. By definition, certain elements of their personalities will render them unfit company for people for longer than a few minutes (although they're utterly delightful for a few minutes).
(Yes, yes, my opinion would obviously be different if I'd spent more time with children. Maybe. I did enough babysitting that this pattern held pretty well.)
4. I forget to mention that yesterday I caught up on my magazines and read a good chunk in The Namesake. More in the book today.
5. I've put it off long enough; now I must pay the bills. In the months in which there is plenty of money to do this and still have some left, this is fun. In the months where there is not plenty of money and you have to tap into what was left in a previous month, the fun quotient is considerably lower. This month would be one of the latter. Blech.
2. Night Elf Priest to 41.
3. We watched one of the commentary tracks on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The actress who played Lucy was astonishing (and it's really her movie, so she needs to be), so she needed to be on the track, so the director had a track with the kids. Kind of cute in the right mood. I suspect that, for the two younger children (who played Lucy and Edmund), that track will end up being the equivalent of naked baby pictures on a bear rug: something brought up by parents on Prom Night to humiliate you if you're note careful. They did a pretty credible job for 10- and 12-year-old kids. On the other hand--they're 10- and 12-year-old kids, and intelligent enough to do a pretty good job in a movie which they were largely going to have to carry by its very nature. By definition, certain elements of their personalities will render them unfit company for people for longer than a few minutes (although they're utterly delightful for a few minutes).
(Yes, yes, my opinion would obviously be different if I'd spent more time with children. Maybe. I did enough babysitting that this pattern held pretty well.)
4. I forget to mention that yesterday I caught up on my magazines and read a good chunk in The Namesake. More in the book today.
5. I've put it off long enough; now I must pay the bills. In the months in which there is plenty of money to do this and still have some left, this is fun. In the months where there is not plenty of money and you have to tap into what was left in a previous month, the fun quotient is considerably lower. This month would be one of the latter. Blech.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
2/9: What I Accomplished Today
1. Ran the last through characters through the Lunar Festival.
2. Watched trashy movies on Sci Fi while doing this.
3. Television and Pogo badges.
4. We watched Good Night and Good News and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this week. We watched the little pop-up video thing on the latter tonight. Irritating things: the bubbles didn't show up if you had it even in the slowest fast-forward, so you had to watch the movie at regular speed to see them--but there weren't enough of them for that to be particularly worthwhile, and many of the ones that were there were redundant (I believe we were told three times, in various combinations, that Tolkien, friend of Lewis, had been one of the readers of the manuscript and hadn't liked it because of the mixtures of mythologies). Elf had had much better integration of the extras into the movie, and I've read that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I got for Christmas but haven't done my thing with yet, also has good integration of this.
5. You may have noticed (probably not) that for awhile in the summer I had various Potter-related work I was doing, but then school started. I thought I'd work some more in October, but that computer wouldn't boot, and it hasn't booted since. This month, Co-Vivant took it to a tech to either pull the files or fix the computer. He was hoping to have it on Tuesday, when she sees him for a meeting; he told her then that he didn't have it yet, but it looked like the computer would be able to boot stably, so that's good news. I wish it weren't this month (financially, this isn't shaping up well), but I'm beginning to be a little excited about getting back a computer I'd despaired of being able to use more.
I have some demos to play now.
2. Watched trashy movies on Sci Fi while doing this.
3. Television and Pogo badges.
4. We watched Good Night and Good News and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this week. We watched the little pop-up video thing on the latter tonight. Irritating things: the bubbles didn't show up if you had it even in the slowest fast-forward, so you had to watch the movie at regular speed to see them--but there weren't enough of them for that to be particularly worthwhile, and many of the ones that were there were redundant (I believe we were told three times, in various combinations, that Tolkien, friend of Lewis, had been one of the readers of the manuscript and hadn't liked it because of the mixtures of mythologies). Elf had had much better integration of the extras into the movie, and I've read that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I got for Christmas but haven't done my thing with yet, also has good integration of this.
5. You may have noticed (probably not) that for awhile in the summer I had various Potter-related work I was doing, but then school started. I thought I'd work some more in October, but that computer wouldn't boot, and it hasn't booted since. This month, Co-Vivant took it to a tech to either pull the files or fix the computer. He was hoping to have it on Tuesday, when she sees him for a meeting; he told her then that he didn't have it yet, but it looked like the computer would be able to boot stably, so that's good news. I wish it weren't this month (financially, this isn't shaping up well), but I'm beginning to be a little excited about getting back a computer I'd despaired of being able to use more.
I have some demos to play now.
Friday, February 8, 2008
2/7: What I Accomplished Today
Guess I haven't done this in a few days.
1. Graded, prepped, and taught the requisite number of classes.
2. Finished reading Angelica for Literary Society tomorrow. Started The Namesake for book group. It's hard to put down. Don't think I've read many magazines.
3. Finished six recipes in Cooking Mama.
4. WOW. Got the Druid to level 45. Today I got three characters through Lunar Festival. I've adapted a list of the Elders because the complete list is meant for level 70's, so I can't get to most of the suckers. Assumptions: soloable at 45 (which eliminated instances, the Plaguelands, Burning Steppes, Horde cities, and a few others), minimal death (fine for normal play, but not for this). Here's the plan I've come up with:
a. My people are parked in Ironforge. Introductory quests. Ironforge elder.
b. Swing down to Khoranos and get that guy.
c. Run back to Ironforge, fly to Thelsamar, and get that guy.
d. Fly to Southshore. Ride mount to the Sepulchre in Silverpine Forest.
e. Ride north past Undercity to Brill and pick up the guy there. There's a 20-something wandering the road here. Now of course you could kill him, but it looks like he's considered a guard, so that will activate your PvP. I don't want that, so I just ignore him; he can't hurt me.
f. Ride back to Southshore. For characters with the Aerie Point flightpoint, fly there; the others are just riding there. Get the flight point if you don't have it. Get the guy here. (The rogue and warlock had no problem with this; the warrior did.) (One of my characters is 40; I'm not even going to try to bring her here yet.) (Some characters had a Stormwind quest for here.)
g. You can run back to the flight point or hearth; one way or the other, the goal is to end up in Stormwind. Get the dude here.
h. Run to Goldshire and get that one.
i. My lag in the Trade District is so bad that I've just been running to Westfall to get the one at Sentinel Hill. The alternative is to run back to Stormwind and fly here.
j. Fly to Booty Bay and get that one.
k. Take the boat to Ratchet and get that elder.
l. (Rogues and maybe druids in cat form will be able to do Crossroads, Durotar, Camp Taurajo, and Bloodhoof Village. At 45, I'm not sold on anyone else. Watch your PvP flag.)
m. Fly to Gadgetzan. Get that one.
n. Run to the Thousand Needles Raceway and get that one. Some of my characters had turn-ins or pick-ups to do here. (Apparently not everyone had done the goblin indurium distraction quest.)
o. Run back to Gadgetzan and fly to Thalanaar. The Lariss Pavilion one is not terribly difficult at 45, but the 40 will not be doing it.
p. Fly to Astranaar and pick up that one.
q. Ride the mount to Emerald Sanctum. Then go north and pick up the elder. You will be attacked by a high-level wolf, but run in, get the elder, and turn around, using whatever you've got at your disposal to do this. Both my rogue and my warlock survived this. (I didn't have the warrior do it because I was tired.) (Again, Little Miss 40 isn't doing this.)
r. Fly to Auberdine and get the elder.
s. Fly to Rut'theran Village. If you don't have the quest for Hinterlands, pick it up. Then run through Darnassus to Dolanaar (yes, I skipped the Darnassus elder) and get the Dolonaar fella.
t. Back to Darnassus. Get the elder, and use the invitation to go to Moonglade.
u. If you don't already have this flight path, get it; it's south of the lake. Then run to Nighthaven, do the turn-in, and buy what you want.
v. Hearth back wherever you wish to be.
About two and a half hours. (It took the rogue longer because she was the scout. Freepost is out of the question at 45; peppered with guards.)
(I know, that was very self-indulgent, but I'm pleased with it. Humor me.)
Observations:
a. There was speculation on the message board about whether you'd be able to revisit elders you'd visit in previous years. I was able to visit all elders, even those I had to have done last year.
b. Blizzard did not put a timer on these tokens; I still have mine from last year. I was expecting to see an "expires in ten days" or whatever like many of the Halloween items had, but there still isn't any. That means I can keep the tokens for next year, by which point I should be offered the tailor patterns (see next point).
c. There was speculation about the Tailor patterns. At 45, my characters are offered four things by the fireworks lady (small fireworks plans, large fireworks plan, cluster rocket plans, launcher plans). The other seller guy has dresses (but not patterns), pant suits (but not patterns), dumplings, candles, and the summons for Omen (which there's no possible way my people can do successfully, so that's interesting). All the engineer plans except the last are BOP, so only the engineer needs to buy those. The dumplings heal 4% a second of both health and mana for 25 seconds--tada! The whole she-bang! Very groovy.
d. I understand there being no draenei ancestors, or undead, but it seems the Blood Elves have been here long enough to be represented. I wasn't paying a lot of attention, granted, but I only noticed dwarves, tauren, and night elves. No humans or gnomes or trolls or orcs? Sometimes, I guess they feel like motherless children. (Something in the back of my mind is saying that lore dictates that they were all back in the first two Warcrafts, which wasn't precisely in these lands. The only gnomes I can remember in the first two Warcrafts were the suicide bombers, and there were also dwarves there as gunner units, so I'm not sure I'm remembering that right.)
e. Triggers. There are people who will behave in idiotic ways if they are called certain names to try to prove the labels do not apply. The ones I've noticed are "noob/newbie" and "Care Bear." Care Bears are people who stick to PVE and do not participate in PVP. I am a Care Bear; other people attacking me while I'm trying to do my quests would really piss me off. I've been playing over a year (almost exactly a year; when I did the Lunar Festival last year, I don't think I'd created all my characters yet), and I have eight level 45's and a level 40--but by game standards, I'm still a noob. I have no level 70's; I obviously haven't seen the two most advanced battlegrounds at all; I don't participate in the Arena; I have no horde characters yet. It rankles a little, I won't lie to you, but I understand that, on the grand scheme of things, I am, in fact, a noob. If I am called this (and I haven't been yet), I will try not to do stupid things just to prove it's not true (and ironically, most of the things people do to disprove the label tend to prove it).
Okay, I have Literary Society tomorrow, so I'd better get some sleep.
1. Graded, prepped, and taught the requisite number of classes.
2. Finished reading Angelica for Literary Society tomorrow. Started The Namesake for book group. It's hard to put down. Don't think I've read many magazines.
3. Finished six recipes in Cooking Mama.
4. WOW. Got the Druid to level 45. Today I got three characters through Lunar Festival. I've adapted a list of the Elders because the complete list is meant for level 70's, so I can't get to most of the suckers. Assumptions: soloable at 45 (which eliminated instances, the Plaguelands, Burning Steppes, Horde cities, and a few others), minimal death (fine for normal play, but not for this). Here's the plan I've come up with:
a. My people are parked in Ironforge. Introductory quests. Ironforge elder.
b. Swing down to Khoranos and get that guy.
c. Run back to Ironforge, fly to Thelsamar, and get that guy.
d. Fly to Southshore. Ride mount to the Sepulchre in Silverpine Forest.
e. Ride north past Undercity to Brill and pick up the guy there. There's a 20-something wandering the road here. Now of course you could kill him, but it looks like he's considered a guard, so that will activate your PvP. I don't want that, so I just ignore him; he can't hurt me.
f. Ride back to Southshore. For characters with the Aerie Point flightpoint, fly there; the others are just riding there. Get the flight point if you don't have it. Get the guy here. (The rogue and warlock had no problem with this; the warrior did.) (One of my characters is 40; I'm not even going to try to bring her here yet.) (Some characters had a Stormwind quest for here.)
g. You can run back to the flight point or hearth; one way or the other, the goal is to end up in Stormwind. Get the dude here.
h. Run to Goldshire and get that one.
i. My lag in the Trade District is so bad that I've just been running to Westfall to get the one at Sentinel Hill. The alternative is to run back to Stormwind and fly here.
j. Fly to Booty Bay and get that one.
k. Take the boat to Ratchet and get that elder.
l. (Rogues and maybe druids in cat form will be able to do Crossroads, Durotar, Camp Taurajo, and Bloodhoof Village. At 45, I'm not sold on anyone else. Watch your PvP flag.)
m. Fly to Gadgetzan. Get that one.
n. Run to the Thousand Needles Raceway and get that one. Some of my characters had turn-ins or pick-ups to do here. (Apparently not everyone had done the goblin indurium distraction quest.)
o. Run back to Gadgetzan and fly to Thalanaar. The Lariss Pavilion one is not terribly difficult at 45, but the 40 will not be doing it.
p. Fly to Astranaar and pick up that one.
q. Ride the mount to Emerald Sanctum. Then go north and pick up the elder. You will be attacked by a high-level wolf, but run in, get the elder, and turn around, using whatever you've got at your disposal to do this. Both my rogue and my warlock survived this. (I didn't have the warrior do it because I was tired.) (Again, Little Miss 40 isn't doing this.)
r. Fly to Auberdine and get the elder.
s. Fly to Rut'theran Village. If you don't have the quest for Hinterlands, pick it up. Then run through Darnassus to Dolanaar (yes, I skipped the Darnassus elder) and get the Dolonaar fella.
t. Back to Darnassus. Get the elder, and use the invitation to go to Moonglade.
u. If you don't already have this flight path, get it; it's south of the lake. Then run to Nighthaven, do the turn-in, and buy what you want.
v. Hearth back wherever you wish to be.
About two and a half hours. (It took the rogue longer because she was the scout. Freepost is out of the question at 45; peppered with guards.)
(I know, that was very self-indulgent, but I'm pleased with it. Humor me.)
Observations:
a. There was speculation on the message board about whether you'd be able to revisit elders you'd visit in previous years. I was able to visit all elders, even those I had to have done last year.
b. Blizzard did not put a timer on these tokens; I still have mine from last year. I was expecting to see an "expires in ten days" or whatever like many of the Halloween items had, but there still isn't any. That means I can keep the tokens for next year, by which point I should be offered the tailor patterns (see next point).
c. There was speculation about the Tailor patterns. At 45, my characters are offered four things by the fireworks lady (small fireworks plans, large fireworks plan, cluster rocket plans, launcher plans). The other seller guy has dresses (but not patterns), pant suits (but not patterns), dumplings, candles, and the summons for Omen (which there's no possible way my people can do successfully, so that's interesting). All the engineer plans except the last are BOP, so only the engineer needs to buy those. The dumplings heal 4% a second of both health and mana for 25 seconds--tada! The whole she-bang! Very groovy.
d. I understand there being no draenei ancestors, or undead, but it seems the Blood Elves have been here long enough to be represented. I wasn't paying a lot of attention, granted, but I only noticed dwarves, tauren, and night elves. No humans or gnomes or trolls or orcs? Sometimes, I guess they feel like motherless children. (Something in the back of my mind is saying that lore dictates that they were all back in the first two Warcrafts, which wasn't precisely in these lands. The only gnomes I can remember in the first two Warcrafts were the suicide bombers, and there were also dwarves there as gunner units, so I'm not sure I'm remembering that right.)
e. Triggers. There are people who will behave in idiotic ways if they are called certain names to try to prove the labels do not apply. The ones I've noticed are "noob/newbie" and "Care Bear." Care Bears are people who stick to PVE and do not participate in PVP. I am a Care Bear; other people attacking me while I'm trying to do my quests would really piss me off. I've been playing over a year (almost exactly a year; when I did the Lunar Festival last year, I don't think I'd created all my characters yet), and I have eight level 45's and a level 40--but by game standards, I'm still a noob. I have no level 70's; I obviously haven't seen the two most advanced battlegrounds at all; I don't participate in the Arena; I have no horde characters yet. It rankles a little, I won't lie to you, but I understand that, on the grand scheme of things, I am, in fact, a noob. If I am called this (and I haven't been yet), I will try not to do stupid things just to prove it's not true (and ironically, most of the things people do to disprove the label tend to prove it).
Okay, I have Literary Society tomorrow, so I'd better get some sleep.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
2/2: What I Accomplished Today
1. Went to Costco.
2. Took home the lady who cleans the house and went to Target.
3. Night Elf Druid is now level 43.
4. Reading Angelica for Literary Society. I'm curious where it goes; it's interesting.
5. I'm really not much of a celebrity hound, but several weeks ago magazines were talking of how the Scientologists are courting Will Smith, and several magazines I've read this week have indicated they are succeeding. I hope they're wrong. I have respect for a wide variety of philosophies and religions (including no religion at all, done for reasons other than fashionability or lack of thought), but Scientology is just silly twits helping silly twits remain silly twits. A few months ago, the attempted courtship of the Beckhams failed. If all of these rumors are true (and heaven only knows), that means that, on some level, Posh Spice has greater moral fortitude and integrity than the Fresh Prince. I wouldn't have foreseen that equation. I hope, whatever the truth in these allegations, that Jada beats him with a rock until this nonsense ends.
6. We just learned that a friend of ours showed up at the registration at the nearby university to register for graduate school. No application six months before, no GRE's, no letters of recommendation, no transcripts, no chosen classes or field or profession or even thoughts of a teaching assistantship or fellowship--just waltzed in off the street to register for graduate school like it was a Continuing Ed Photography workshop. Now fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), it was after registration closed, so she was turned away for that reason. Because they gave her the date excuse, I don't really think she knows what a strange, bizarre, inappropriate thing she has done. (I'm wondering how hard the people in the registrar's office laughed when she left. We know what "guess what happened today at work" story many of them told at dinner that night. If this weren't my friend, I'd think this was hilarious, but it is my friend, so it sort of gives me knots in my stomach. For heaven's sake, why didn't she talk to somebody with a clue first?)
Now I have been to grad school. Also, at a time in my life when I was between jobs, it became my job to coordinate law school applications for a friend who was graduating from college. I didn't do any of the work, but I'd tell him what pieces he needed ("I need one personal statement that emphasizes this and another that emphasizes that; I also need paragraphs about your beliefs about X, Y, and Z, and letters from faculty emphasizing A, B, and C"), and he'd get them, and I collated them and prepared his packages for 15 law schools. I don't know how many he was accepted for, but he and his family were very pleased with my work, and the last time I heard, he was an L.A. County ADA, so he did okay, I think.
So I'm trying to decide if I offer to help this friend. I think I could be useful. If this is really a thing she wants to do, I could help her figure out what needs to happen and draw up a timeline and all that stuff.
On the other hand, she hasn't asked for my help. My Co-Vivant says this friend is intimidated by me; I think that's a polite way of saying, "She doesn't have that much respect for me or what I do" (and I think it's interesting that those can apparently be synonyms). There's also some question about how serious she is or whether she really intends to go through with this.
So I'm not going to offer to help just out of the blue. If she asks me for input, of course I'll give some, but I'm not going to volunteer it.
The other sticky part in this situation is that this person is one of the people who was really a condescending jerk about Co-Vivant's birthday party a few months ago, and I've asked myself several times: what action or lack of action of mine indicates true support, respect, and caring for this person? Am I keeping to myself about this because it seems to be what she wants, that she wants to do this, if she does it, on her own without my help, or am I merely being a jerk back? I hope I'm not (Co-Vivant says that the fact that this occurred to me indicates it's not the case, but I think that's too facile).
2. Took home the lady who cleans the house and went to Target.
3. Night Elf Druid is now level 43.
4. Reading Angelica for Literary Society. I'm curious where it goes; it's interesting.
5. I'm really not much of a celebrity hound, but several weeks ago magazines were talking of how the Scientologists are courting Will Smith, and several magazines I've read this week have indicated they are succeeding. I hope they're wrong. I have respect for a wide variety of philosophies and religions (including no religion at all, done for reasons other than fashionability or lack of thought), but Scientology is just silly twits helping silly twits remain silly twits. A few months ago, the attempted courtship of the Beckhams failed. If all of these rumors are true (and heaven only knows), that means that, on some level, Posh Spice has greater moral fortitude and integrity than the Fresh Prince. I wouldn't have foreseen that equation. I hope, whatever the truth in these allegations, that Jada beats him with a rock until this nonsense ends.
6. We just learned that a friend of ours showed up at the registration at the nearby university to register for graduate school. No application six months before, no GRE's, no letters of recommendation, no transcripts, no chosen classes or field or profession or even thoughts of a teaching assistantship or fellowship--just waltzed in off the street to register for graduate school like it was a Continuing Ed Photography workshop. Now fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), it was after registration closed, so she was turned away for that reason. Because they gave her the date excuse, I don't really think she knows what a strange, bizarre, inappropriate thing she has done. (I'm wondering how hard the people in the registrar's office laughed when she left. We know what "guess what happened today at work" story many of them told at dinner that night. If this weren't my friend, I'd think this was hilarious, but it is my friend, so it sort of gives me knots in my stomach. For heaven's sake, why didn't she talk to somebody with a clue first?)
Now I have been to grad school. Also, at a time in my life when I was between jobs, it became my job to coordinate law school applications for a friend who was graduating from college. I didn't do any of the work, but I'd tell him what pieces he needed ("I need one personal statement that emphasizes this and another that emphasizes that; I also need paragraphs about your beliefs about X, Y, and Z, and letters from faculty emphasizing A, B, and C"), and he'd get them, and I collated them and prepared his packages for 15 law schools. I don't know how many he was accepted for, but he and his family were very pleased with my work, and the last time I heard, he was an L.A. County ADA, so he did okay, I think.
So I'm trying to decide if I offer to help this friend. I think I could be useful. If this is really a thing she wants to do, I could help her figure out what needs to happen and draw up a timeline and all that stuff.
On the other hand, she hasn't asked for my help. My Co-Vivant says this friend is intimidated by me; I think that's a polite way of saying, "She doesn't have that much respect for me or what I do" (and I think it's interesting that those can apparently be synonyms). There's also some question about how serious she is or whether she really intends to go through with this.
So I'm not going to offer to help just out of the blue. If she asks me for input, of course I'll give some, but I'm not going to volunteer it.
The other sticky part in this situation is that this person is one of the people who was really a condescending jerk about Co-Vivant's birthday party a few months ago, and I've asked myself several times: what action or lack of action of mine indicates true support, respect, and caring for this person? Am I keeping to myself about this because it seems to be what she wants, that she wants to do this, if she does it, on her own without my help, or am I merely being a jerk back? I hope I'm not (Co-Vivant says that the fact that this occurred to me indicates it's not the case, but I think that's too facile).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)