elanya

I stayed up too late last night for no real reason, and had a hard time waking up this morning as a consequence.

I did do a bunch of cool stuff once I got to the museum though. We recorded a walkthrough of me going through the VR Longhouse - I mostly wanted it to take screencaps from, since we didn't have any from this iteration of the program. But apparently they might use it for some other things, like... virtual virtual tours? or a commercial? There are some students from the local community college who are putting together something, anyway, plus something about some kind of partnership with Microsoft for skype tours? Anyway, then had some interesting discussions about the Database of Doom, and its future and uses.
Came home, did a teensy bit of writing on Space Swap, and helped with dinner. Tonight was knitting, and I got a bunch more done on my second sock for Pretentia. Going to watch the end of season 2 of sw: rebels here in a bit :3

The weather here today has sucked - it was sleety hail and snow this morning, followed by gross cold rain. It started pouring on the walk to the game café where we have the knit night, and I was chilled and cold after that. Probably the chocolate milkshake didn't help, but it *did* have bailey's in it. It wasn't raining on the trip home at least (though we managed to catch a bus), but the wind had turned bitter, and now it is thundering outside. But at least we aren't getting freezing rain and snow like other parts of the region!

I emailed the plot running types to see if I can find out what is going on with my LARP character, who volunteered to be hostaged off to some fey at the end of last game. I'd initially emailed on Monday, and hadn't heard anything back, so I sent a gentle poke. The next session is only a week from Saturday, so I don't think I'm being too pushy to at least have them tell me what to expect! I could NPC if I can't play her, and that's fine, but I would like to know :o

Despite being awake and staring at my computer until almost 3 AM yesterday, I somehow managed not to make an entry. I am really bad at making and keeping habits. I am totally the person who will do something everyday for a year and then just miss it one day with no reason. I wonder about my brain sometimes :p Sometimes I wish you could just get brain scans or whatever without having a specific need, just to have a baseline for comparison. But that would be pointlessly expensive. And there are people in my life who need them for more legit reasons :/ I admit I am sometimes paranoid that there is something wrong and it just hasn't been noticed yet, but I know that is not really rational. If there was a real problem, I would know by now, not just wonder. Everyone's body does weird things from time to time, so I shouldn't get all hypochondriac, especially when I have seen what more serious symptoms look like.

Anyway.

Yesterday was decently interesting. I didn't get to scan anything, but I did compile exit surveys from the VR exhibit. It gave me surprising feels! Partly to see the number of older women (over 40 and over 60) who'd tried it and loved it. They said a range of heartening things, like that ii was immersive, that if gave them a sense of emotional and spiritual connection to the history, that they were pleased to be able to participate in this wave of new technology, and so forth. I am also amused at the mid-twenties dudes complaining that the vive headset was too heavy when women old enough to be their grandmothers were all 'no complaints, it felt fine!' It was nice to be even tangentially involved in the project, anyway. And I did a minor bit of tech supporting for the equipment while I was there as well.

Then last night, among other things, I was knitting, and managed to work the tip off one of my Karbonz, because of course I did. I'm pretty sure these are the ones I already had to replace (my US 4's). But maybe I'm using my 5's? Anyway, this is a new issue, but also a resolvable one. I just superglued it back on. Luckily I was near the end of the row. If I didn't love everything else about these needles so much I would probably stop buying them. But honestly I think the problem is me :p Meanwhile, have a pic of my work in progress on this scarf!

( Pic! )

This morning I got dinner in the crock pot, then has my "post-board review" with the HR person from PC. It was informative, mostly in the sense that it confirmed a lot of stuff for me that I suspected. i am terrible at having examples, and need to elaborate more on my answers, and take more cues from the questions. In these kinds of interviews, they aren't allowed to prompt for further explanations, so it is all on me and how I answer things. It seems like on some of the most-relevant questions I did quite well, but fell down in a few key areas. Part of having not great examples is a matter of experience, and part of it is not being vicious enough to past employers, and part of it is not being able to explain myself well when I do. As I said, it was helpful, if a little depressing. They interviewed less than ten people, though and since it was an open call I know that to make it that far I had to pass a lot of benchmarks. But in the end, I didn't even make it into the hiring pool, let alone make it to the top. Ugh. He was very encouraging though, and aid I should definitely continue to apply for other collections type positions with the agency. I'll keep an eye out, but they don't come up that often :p Meanwhile, I hope I didn't screw up my SA interview as badly. Ugh. At least they *know* I'm awesome. Right?

There than that I managed to get some laundry started, change the sheets on my bed, and do some general room tidying. I might try to put up the poster I got from the art show on my wall... I have the print tacked up just to get it out of the way, but I'd really like to get it framed. I'll keep an eye out for something nice for it. karanguni asked my for a pic, and I took one - it isn't super great, because the print is in a plastic sleeve and there is some glare, but it gives a pretty good idea!

( The Cat by Justin Erickson )

I have a bunch of other things I'd like to do today - mostly writing stuff, at this point. I did my EI report and subsequent phone call, but was only on hold for about 15 min this time, so not too bad. And I should go switch the laundry too... But I want to touch up my chocolate box, and work on the Thirteen story and maybe do some other little chocolate box thing? We'll see how my afternoon/evening goes, I guess.

This mornign I helped with the media day for the new VRachaeology exhibit that is openign at the museum where I volunteer. Mostly I was there to help wth technology and to be someone to talk to to kill time between the actually important people. I also took some pictured for the museum's social media accounts.


Tomorrow, the exhibit opens to the public, and also there will be swarms of schoolchildren. I'll be on deck for that first day, since I know the most about it of the people who will ever really be monitoring visitors. I also have to go in early to help put up the vinyl lettering, which was supposed to have come in yesterday and which actually was maaaaybe finished late this afternoon.

Here is a video from the local Free Press, taken from the media day, wooh!

and now, Clone Wars o'clock :)

It is one hour until Hannibal. I actually watched it yesterday, but longpig is a super-invested fannibal and likes to watch the US airing on a stream and livetweet, and I join her. This week's episode is intense and amazing!

It has been a while since I've done any kind of major update.

I still have no job. I have been dooing very poorly at applying for jobs.

For the past two weeks I have been volunteering for two afternoons a week at the Ontario Museum of Archaeology. It's been.... very nice actually, even though I have done much that is particularly complicated or anything. Just getting out of the house and having something to work at is nice. I've done some re-boxing of artifacts and last week got to play 'where's Waldo' with a bunch of lithics that a donor wanted returned. The collection had been removed from its mounts with permission, but then the donor recanted about one particular show piece, so we had to find all the points (mostly points) on the original mount based on one picture, and then remount them. I got to do a lot of both of those things. They keep saying they are going to get me to write a blog on nautical archaeology, but we'll see. The commute is about an hour each way, including wait times for buses. I've been getting quite a lot of knitting done in that time, to the point that i am trying to plan my next bit of bus knitting.

This weekend was Nugsy's actaul birthday party, which was held at the local Children's Museum. It was dinosaur themed, and went quite well overall. He was a bit distracted for the activities but he loves the employee who was hosting for us, who was very good with him. And then when it was done, they all went off and played in various bits of the rest of the museum.

It was also a treat for me, not only because naryrising? and forthright came up, but also because they brought me my vey own tablet! I now have a piece of actually portable modern technology :V I am greatly appreciative! Forthright is very good at making the point buy system for Shoppers Drugmart, and basically managed to get it for free/by buying lots of dishwasher tablets on sale. Because that's how he rolls. They've gotten several other tablets and similar electronics the same way, and I am very happy and grateful to be the recipient in this case! To be fair, I am pretty sure that Nary wanted me to have it so we can stay in even closer contact, but I am quite okay with this! London has theoretical free wifi downtown, and I have been going places like McDonalds with Longpig and the kids where it will be very nice to be able to have some way of communicating with the saner outside world ;) Plus it gives me another device for using skype.

Hmm, what else. I have been doing a little bot of clickwork, but I'm not terribly good at it. I was writing adverts for car rental places in Germany, but they want them all to be very distinct and it is just not worth the time/effort/annoyance! i mean, I knew that's how ti would go. You don't get a reasonable wage for the jobs. But there is a line, I think. We'll see. It might just be more of a learning curve or a matter of experience. I am getting better, but I've yet to have enough of my work approved to make it worth while, either. I'm not giving up on it, but we'll see.

I keep running in to things that make me regret some of my life choices, or make me feel deeply ambivalent, anyway. For example, there is a conference on maritime archaeology and maritime landscapes in Britain this year that dovetails so perfectly with my interests that it is still a little painful. or trying to explain to people why I'm in London, and so on. Part;y bad luck, partly bad choices, partly.... I don't know. On the one had, there have been a lot of circumstances I couldn't really control, but I am often left feeling like I could have done more to mitigate them if I had *really* wanted to succeed. And then I look at how basically content I am in my life currently, and wonder if maybe I didn't actually want it that hard. And if that's the case, then what was I doing with my time and energy, and what do I have to show for it? And of course, always, where do I go from here?

On that note, I have been plotting with Curtana to trying and write some niche-market original stuff for self publication, to see if we can have any success with that. I guess we'll see. I think we have some solid ideas, but we still have to make them into stories before we can even really try and do anything with them.

I also had the independent thoughts that I could try and get some arch field work work, but that I would need good boots (and possibly other gear), and also that I'd kind of like to NPC at least for the local Underworld LARP branch (Ralinwood), but that I would need, at the very least, good boots. Something to consider, as I did finally get my last check from A&M.

So life update - wavering between contentment, ambivalence, and existential crisis. But today I had a very nice day.