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User Profile Friends Calendar |
Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.
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2008.04.01 10.36 14 Days and Counting
Stay tuned... |
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2008.01.09 11.57 Snapecast Episode 26 The Final Regularly Scheduled Episode  |
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2008.01.05 17.36 Who the Hell is Chris Dodd? 85% Chris Dodd 83% Barack Obama 80% Hillary Clinton 79% John Edwards 79% Bill Richardson 78% Dennis Kucinich 76% Mike Gravel 74% Joe Biden 48% Rudy Giuliani 41% John McCain 35% Mike Huckabee 33% Mitt Romney 32% Ron Paul 31% Tom Tancredo 23% Fred Thompson 2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz I found this meme interesting because at least it made me explicitly aware of my stance on some of these 'important' issues. It was also really gratifying to put down an opinion on something and then be able to mark on a scale of 1-10 whether I give a rats ass about it. Sure, I've got opinions on lots 'o issues, but some just don't really warrant much attention and time. It was also interesting to note that there was jack squat listed with respect to education... Also, where these people stand is barely a quarter of the battle. I'm even more interested in who demonstrates great leadership potential and the ability to work the system to get things done and represent this country on the world stage in a less than embarrassing manner. And I have no idea how to get at that. |
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2008.01.01 22.52 HP Fandom Goals for 2008 Because I'm feeling very, very naughty... 1. Become 2. Have journal reported to LJ pr0n police for artistically questionable content. 3. Mastermind a team of sockpuppets to stir up fandom. 4. Letch after young, nubile teenage actor portraying a character in the HP films. 5. Cash in retirement policy for daily tickets to gawk at said young, nubile (and nekkid) teenage actor 6. Post well-known and beloved fanfic on popular but undermodearated archives and claim as my own. 7. Wank like there's no tomorrow. 8. Quit 9. Marry favorite fictional HP character on an astral plane. 10. Get sued by favorite author and large media conglomerate. |
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2007.12.31 21.59 Fanart Year In Review I regret not having done this meme last year as it's such a cool way to catalog what one has (or has not) accomplished artwise over the past twelve months. It's also a really great way to document how one's work changes from year to year, and I think there's been a big change in my fanart over the past 2.5 years that I've been in the fandom. So without further ado, let the meme begin. (Advanced warning, one or two of these are not safe for work, the faint of heart, or the underaged.)  ( Favorite - And My Soul (G: Dumbledore and Snape) ) ( Best - Rumours of My Demise (G: Snape) ) ( Most Under-Appreciated - Watch What Happens to Longbottom's Toad (G: Snape, Trevor, Neville, Hermione ) ( Most Fun To Draw - A Ravenclaw & A Slytherin (G: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert) ) ( Sexiest Art this Year - Detention (R: Snape, Hermione) ) ( Holy Crap! That's Wrong Even for You - Protegé (Hard R: Voldemort, Bellatrix) ) ( Drawing that Shifted My Perception of the Characters - On the Train (G: Sirius, James, Remus) ) ( Biggest Surprise - Stocking Surprise (G: Trevor) ) ( Hardest Artwork this Year - After the Shack (PG: Harry, Snape) ) ( Biggest Disappointment - Snape's Worst Memory (PG: Lily, Snape, James, Sirius, Harry) ) ( Artwork I'm Most Proud Of - Circle of Friends (G: Ginny, Neville, Hermione, Harry, Ron) )Total artwork drawn and uploaded (somewhere if not here) this year: 14 and finally.. Fanart Goals for Next Year - Complete and upload at least 25 pieces of art. - Experiment with different types of paper. - Play around with pontillism. - Explore ink and marker more. - Work on making my work more dynamic. - Practice with light and shadows. - Broaden my scope of characters and/or pairings. (Maybe a little Harry/Draco?) - Draw more smut. - Explore commissions. - Get my shit done on time. - View and comment on MORE fanart! |
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2007.12.28 23.02 Snape's Date of Death and Fred's and Voldemort's and Lupin's and Tonks's as well. Rowling mentions the date of the final battle early on in this video clip (which coincides with Victiore's birthday a year later). I wasn't quite sure exactly on what day the final battle took place, but now that I do, I can throw an honest to goodness Death-day party for Snape! Also, how cool is it to know the middle names of all the children in the Epilogue and beyond! |
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2007.12.23 18.54 The Year in Books - 2007 I started off the year impressed by reading about people who'd made a vow to read 50 to 100 books in 2007. For a brief while, I toyed with the notion of giving myself the same challenge, but I figured (what with planning a wedding, collecting and analyzing my data, writing up my dissertation, going on the job search and potentially moving across country) I already had a lot on my plate. In any case, I did manage to squeak through a few novels and self-help books, and I think the year is far enough along at this point that it highly unlikely that I finish another book between now and the 31st (especially since the next book I've set my mind to read is Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit). In any case, I thought I'd revisit the books I read this year and reflect a little on what I did and didn't like about each. ( Pennswoods' Year in Books - 2007 ) So what about you guys. What did you read this year? And should I challenge myself to read 50 books in 2008? |
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2007.12.23 10.41 Zotero: A Fabulous Tool for Research and Keeping Track of Fest Fics Sometimes all the time I waste surfing the net pays off, like it did yesterday. While I was hanging out over on the Chronicle of Higher Education, I stumbled across a blog entry that mentioned a new piece of freeware designed by a collaboration of scholars that can be used to help researchers collect and store a personal library of references and links to all the articles and books they read (own). This can then be used to put together bibliographies for research papers - something along the lines of EndNote. However, unlike EndNote, this is free and works with the Firefox Browser. It also allows you to insert commentary, take snapshots of accompanying image files or the screen and a variety of other things. This made me think it might also be a great resource for those in the business of running, reccing and keeping track of all the fic and art they read and view in different fests. The tool is called Zotero, and it can be downloaded here. |
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2007.12.21 18.47 Christmas Whine I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some of you guys out there will still be dropping by LJ to post and hang out. We're not going anywhere this xmas, nor is anyone coming to visit us. My DH is absolutely thrilled as he hates traveling more than anything. I'm secretly crushed, but I'm also being realistic. Travel right now would have put too big a dent into both our winter break schedule and our budget. In any case, I hope that those of you celebrating with family and friends find yourselves needing a little quiet online time away from the turkey/ham/pheasant/lutefisk and presents. I'll be checking in regularly and so might Trevor. :D |
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2007.12.11 15.08 Wildly Inappropriate As just about everyone knows, peppermint has a tendency to make toads rather uninhibited. This was unquestionably the case with Trevor, who couldn't help but be mortified when he recalled his first encounter with candy-canes. He was certain that had he not over-indulged, he would never have been caught doing something so wildly inappropriate to the Christmas pudding. The Topsy-Turvy Tales of Trevor the Toad Title: Stocking Surprise Rating: G Note: Who wouldn't want a cute little toad in their stocking for Christmas? This shall be on a number of the Christmas cards I'll be sending out. (It's not too late if you'd still like one, feel free to give me a shout.) ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chaeche wanted to see something Trevor-tastic, and coffee_n_cocoa inspired me with a prompt in which Trevor discovers candy canes. ( Stocking Surprise ) |
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2007.12.09 21.09 On The Golden Compass Unlike most people around here, I'm NOT too busy to enjoy a little entertainment right now. I've only got to write and administer an exam for Tuesday night, and grade said exam and written final project by Thursday night (we have 48 hours from the time of the final exam to submit final grades for each class). I'm actually more busy with stuff around the home and Christmas projects, than I am with academic stuff right now (thank GOD!) In any case, this afternoon, my DH and I took a few hours to see The Golden Compass, the movie based on Philip Pullman's first book in His Dark Materials trilogy. ( Thoughts on the movie behind the cut... ) |
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2007.12.08 21.55 MIL on Etsy I've just discovered that my mother-in-law has a shop on Etsy. She mainly sells hand dyed fabric, good for quilting and such, but some of it is really beautifully eerie. Check it out here. Speaking of Etsy, how many of you guys have a store out there? |
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2007.12.07 14.20 ATTN: Undergraduate Aged People A colleague of a colleague in Taiwan has a graduate student who is conducting survey-based research and is looking for undergraduate-aged (I presume 18 - 25) native speakers of American English to complete an online survey on speech act behavior. I know there are a fair few of you who fit this bill on my f-list *pokes perosha*, so if you've got a few minutes head over here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=RThe password is survey. The e-mail I received soliciting volunteers also indicated a slight financial incentive: For your participation, you will be given $5.00, payable either by PayPal (within 24 hours after you complete the questionnaire), or in cash (by meeting me on Penn's campus at a time we'll arrange). If you prefer to waive the compensation, I will donate it to a charity here in Philadelphia. At the end of the questionnaire, you will be asked if you would like to participate in further study. If you participate in this additional study, which is also likely to be online, you will be given an additional $10. If you would like to complete a questionnaire, please e-mail LanguageSurveys@gmail.com and you'll receive the instructions within a few hours. |
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2007.12.05 09.06 Rumours of My Demise have been greatly exaggerated... This shall be adorning the Title: Rumours of My Demise Dedicated to: those who still believe. Rating: PG Note: The Latin saying on the tomb translates to "While I breathe, I hope." ( Rumours of My Demise... ) |
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2007.12.01 22.08 Snapecast Episode 25 Direct Download the entire episode - 72MB (2:39:12)  |
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2007.11.30 23.21 Prompts for Trevor Tales Although I haven't posted a great deal of thought-provoking stuff in my blog this past month, I have managed to make it to the NaBloPoMo finish line intact. On top of this, I managed to post every day for the month of October as a practice run, so this marks two entires months of daily posts from me. Yeah! Unfortunately, Trevor hasn't made much of an appearance 'lo these many weeks. I need to remedy that. I've got a little Christmas Trevor tale I've been mulling over, but I would love a little help from the Trevor lovers on my flist. Anyone out there got a prompt for a little Trevor tale? If I get enough of them, I just might be able to maybe ring out the old year with 12 Days of Trevor. :D |
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2007.11.29 22.45 Holiday Wish List Me and the rest of the ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} snapecast staffers are taking part in a Secret Snape gift exchange to take place on the greasy one's birthday. To help my "Secret Snape" out, here's a list of things that are sure to make me ( How it works: ) ( My Wish List ) |
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2007.11.28 21.53 Snapefest Is Coming  I hope I'll be seeing many of your at Snapefest in Dallas this summer! We have a heck of a lot of fun stuff planned. Can't wait!!! |
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2007.11.27 23.35 Burnt I am so glad today is over. Tuesdays have been the bane of my existence this semester, and I hope I can get enough of a jump on the spring semester that I never have to play catch up with a class like this anytime soon. Tomorrow, I'm meeting my M/W class for happy hour at a local restaurant so we can socialize a bit and talk about teaching. Thursday's class will be my final class for the semester, and I'm so looking forward for the winter break to begin. Granted, I still have two final exam meetings and have to submit grades by the 14th, but it's so very doable. I just feel like I've been running pell-mell nonstop since August 2006 and I desperately need a break! |
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2007.11.26 10.15 Circle of Friends Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same: Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends . . .friends . . . friends . . .
Title: Circle of Friends Dedicated to: My friends... Rating: G ( friends...friends...friends... ) |
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2007.11.23 23.45 Woe is me I'm still not done with this blasted paper. I screwed around a lot this morning - finishing up a bit of fanart and poking around the Internet. This afternoon, my DH and I picked up our xmas tree (a fake one of course) and I spent a good chunk of the rest of the day decorating, making cookies and generally being Christmastastic. Tomorrow I will finish the bloody paper. I swear. |
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2007.11.22 22.56 On the Meaning of Silence Normally I don't like to post things that are too provocative or upsetting. LJ is really not a very private place, and I recognize that my flist is made up of people with a wide range of beliefs and personal convictions (and this is of great joy to me). However, after finishing off half a bottle of wine with my turkey (the rest of the bottle will be consumed shortly), I'm feeling a bit provocative myself and thought I would post something a little more flavorful than I normally post. First off, I have no respect for Heather Mills McCartney. Woman has wasted the sympathy she garnered for herself these past few months. She's digging her own grave now... Sorry, that was the wine talking. What I meant to post about was the issue of disagreement and how I deal with it. Like everybody out here in cyberspace, I'm full of opinions, some of which are less thought out than others, but still dear to my heart. Those of you who know me well have probably come to recognize that when I disagree with something, I tend to equivocate and avoid voicing my disagreement directly. My fellow snapecasters have noted my tendency to refer to something I don't agree with as "interesting" and others may have noticed my tendency not to dive right in to the wank of the day (however juicy it may be). This isn't because I don't have an opinion but because I don't feel comfortably with a lot of the conflict I encounter online. I also really don't want to draw attention to myself at times. Taking sides and engaging in discussions that alienate people (or draw the ire of the pr0n police) doesn't really serve my purposes in cyberspace. This doesn't mean, however, that I agree with everything I read. I am among those who consider it the height of rudeness to disagree strongly with something someone else has posted in their own journal (unless they have specifically indicated that they want to engage in rigorous debate over the issue). I appreciate, however, that this same position is not held by everyone else online, so I try not to express my offense when someone vehemently disagrees with something I post in my own journal. (This doesn't mean I don't get pissed off by some of the comments I receive.) In cases where someone has posted something in my LJ that I find completely ridiculous, offensive, rude or wrong, I simply do not respond. Of course, sometimes I don't reply to things because I'm a lazy slob, or I misplaced a comment or whatever. This ambiguity of silence is something I cherish deeply as it allows me to implicitly disagree. On the topic of disagreement, if I want to post something that I know is not very popular, I lock the post so no one can see. There aren't too many of these, but from time to time, there has been the occasional fandom kerfluffle that has enraged me to the point that I had to privately lock a post about an extremely unpopular opinion about some completely asstastic behavior or opinions but did not want to share this position with others. (My journal, after all, serves multiple purposes, one of which is to preserve for myself a history of important events, thoughts, and creations that I'd like to be able to go back to.) Perhaps I'll unlock these in the future and someone with a lot of time on their hands can scroll back through to discover my dark side. Sometimes I wish I could come out of my shell to tell people what I really think. But I have too little Gryffindor in my to be that foolishly courageous and too much Slytherin in me to realize my opinion really doesn't matter to anyone but me and that no good would be served by making it public. Perhaps this is a tactic most of you also take. I know a fair few of you appreciate Snape's admonition not to wear one's heart on one's sleeve. In any case, this is my policy, and I'm just tipsy enough and carefree enough to share it with you this Black Friday Eve. |
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2007.11.22 19.54 Turkey Time OMG! It's just about ready, and I cannot wait. *drools* I'm too hungry to be very eloquent right now and list out all the things that I'm thankful for (isn't being thankful that my DH is an awesome cook enough?) but I wish everyone who is enjoying turkey day good eating, everyone who works retail tonight and tomorrow a day free of asshattery, and to everyone else, a most splendiferous Thursday (or Friday depending on what part of the world you happen to be in). *smooches* |
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2007.11.21 13.33 Owl Post!!! It's that time of year again when the post office is overwhelmed by a massive increase in mail, and I, wasteful little person that I am, want to contribute to the deluge. Due to having my head up my ass being a bit overwhelmed by RL deadlines, I know I missed several posts by some on my f-list who were inviting people to sign up for holiday card exchanges. If you're one of them and I missed out and you see this message, please point me in the direction of your post so I can sign up! PLEASE!!! I have to say that one of the highlights of the last holiday season was getting cards and art and drabbles and all sorts of fun stuff in the mail. I myself am hard at work on a few sketches for this year's cards, and I'd love to send them out, so please sign up with your name and address below. Let me know what you're celebrating (whether it be Hanukkah, Xmas, Festivus, Snape's birthday, etc.) so I can personalize it a little, All comments will be screened. |
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2007.11.20 22.41 Long Awaited Job Update As many of you may or may not know, my current job is a visiting assistant professor position, which is a temporary one year teaching intensive appointment. Last year, when my DH and I went on the job search, we were both offered tenure-track jobs at different universities and negotiated with the institutions for spousal positions. We accepted a tenure track position for my DH and a temporary one year position for me at our current institution in part because there was a good chance they would be doing another job search this year. Even more interesting, there was the possibility that my temporary position could be converted to a tenure-track position through a majority vote of the department faculty. The good news is, there is indeed an open position that needs to be filled this year. In a sense, this means that I've been under constant review here - something of a rather long job interview of sorts. I've given two talks and have had my teaching observed on several occasions and had an "interview" with the search committee and several other faculty. Last night, I received an e-mail indicating that by a majority, the faculty had voted to convert my position and are sending their recommendation up to the Provost to sign off on. Nothing is a sure thing, of course. This is always where things can get unexpectedly weird an political, but I am feeling somewhat optimistic and keeping my fingers crossed. It would be a real coup for the both of us to have two tenure track positions in the same department and to not have to up and move again. Wish us luck! |
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