elanya

I have posts I keep meaning to make and have not been making.

But I ordered the copies of my diss for the archives and I'll send them off once they arrive. I have some emails I need to send as well, and will try and do that tonight. And hopefully work more on my article as well.

And, oh godohdgod, get more hammered out for my LARP! I really need to get the characters fleshed out better and start working on some more props and interactive stuff >.> I have less than a month and I am not fast at these things! Maybe I need a notebook so I can work things out a little more visually before I write them up :p

The other thing I meant to say over here is - is anyone else out there on The Twitters? I'm elanya72 if you are interested in following me, but don't feel obliged! If you've got a feed you think I might be interested in, whether it is yours or not, please tell me!

I am amused, because at first I found it really overwhelming, but no I am seeing what mousme said, and finding it really easy to follow and keep a handle on. So far it isn't as overwhelming as tumblr, at lest :p Possibly because I am following more people I am actually interested in for more than just one aspect? I would also take recommendations on better ways to use/filter it, granted that I'm only likely to access it from the web, because I can do so at work, and don't have a smartphone. Or a cell/mobile at all.

So it seems like, despite my intentions and my greater flexibility of time lately, I haven't been able to get myself organized to post regularly during the week. This is a shame, as I have been thinking about a lot of things lately!

( Dissertation things, Ficthropology things, Ramblings about gender issues )

I woke up early with all these *plans* and then I sat down at the computer and now it is going on three hours later. Bah!

I had some ideas for pirate-meta that I want to write up. In addition to talking about Black Sails, I may be going to do some conversational narration stuff for an Assassins Creed IV Let's Play with my bro-in-law. I have some things I'd like to talk about for the show though specifically - anyone have any preferences as to whether I talk first about Ships, or Wrecking?

I also had some ideas for what to do with my dissertation, article wise, which is that i want to write something that is looking more just at "here is what i can tell you about Harbour Island from the archaeology I did" and leave the big question theory for something else. I did some outlining while it was still in my brain, but it is hard for me not to hop into the theory >.>

I also had an anxiety dream last night that I was totally unprepared to run the LARP I want to do for Webercon. I don't think that it was really *about* the larp, per sey, though I do need to start working on it more seriously, but more about how I am a social fraud, and of course my RL friends mostly only tolerate me, some of them actively dislike me, etc. although the people who didn't like me in the dream were not relatable to actual real people, though there were actual real people that I know appearing in the dream, so that's something :p Either I don't know who doesn't really like me or they don't exist, I'm not sure. Even in the dream I was more concerned about the people I did know being disappointed, I think? Anyway, I am really a fairly confident person, but I'm also terrible at socializing with people. I don't participate in conversations the same way, or something? I don't know. I played pool with some t=friends on Thursday and despite it being people I know I was mostly quiet while other folks were chatty, and it left me feeling a little marginal and I think this has affected my subconscious. Which I almost wrote as 'self conscious'. Oh, brain, you ain't subtle :p I do think that I am *differently* socially awkward than most of my friends, and that does make it hard for us to connect sometimes.

Anyway, I *should* start working on something. I have other things I'd like to do today, or at least this weekend, as well, like laundry, baking, maybe even *shock* tidying my room.... I can find the floor, sure, but everything else is covered in things (mostly clothes and paper) that need to be put away :p

Oh and in other fun news, we definitely have a pipe issue of some kind in the bathtub. we thought it was water getting on the floor (for a variable configuration of 'we'), but it happened (or, at least, I noticed) again today and that was definitely not the case. I emailed lukoni but I'm really not sure what the best solution is going to be :/ No showers, anyway, I suspect, until we have a better idea what's going on. Yay?

In other mild annoyances, I ordered yarn for my sweater the other day, but the company emailed to let me know that they didn't have enough skeins in the same dyelot (I had asked for them all to be the same). They were really super nice about it and offered to backorder, but that was going to take eight weeks+! (Not their fault, that's just malabrigo for you >.>). I cancelled the yarn, but am still getting needles from them, and am now yarnhunting elsewhere. Even though they didn't have what I wanted I was really pleased with their customer service and will definitely be looking at getting other things through them again.

To end on a high note, though, I did at least get my prompts all finished for the Invisible Ficathon, and I am very happy with all of them! Now I just need to finalize my offers... Aftwer I go out and get some kitty litter!

Megan challenged me to get a hold of a friend of mine who knew a good self-printing service that I could use to get printed copies of my dissertation. And I did! I even went as far as signing up for the site and trying to upload a PDF of my dissertation so I could order a test copy... Unfortunately i need to rotate some pages first, and I have to do that at work since I don't have the right software. So... tomorrow then! However I sort of thing that I'm going to have to get it printed in colour rather than Black and White, so that the charts will be legible, which suddenly makes it a *much* more expensive project... Going from about $15-30 per book to $60-80 :/ I guess the next step is figuring out where all I need to send a hard copy - I know I want at least two, possibly three... /o\

I also started re-reading my dissertation to try and get ideas about how I can usefully cut up the material, and what I can do with it - both the stuff I already write and also other ways I can use the data. So we'll see. It was still a little painful, but I think I'm in a better place than when I first tried.

In other news, I have 6 rows to go on my night vale socks before it is all over but the end weaving. So probably I'll finish them tomorrow. Tonight is for going to bed early :3

I passed! Yaaaay! And I got an adorable art commission, and some gorgeous handspun yarn and a pirate snake, and chocolate covered strawberries :D

Now I am drinking cider and then I am going to catch up on sleep. Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement :D

Defending tomorrow! Last minute room change! No one I know can come, wheee! Or at least if they can they haven't told me about it ;p

It will be fine. I feel ready. I am going to bake muffins tonight, and I am geeting a lift in the morning from my chair and his wife (this is at least partly because they want my dog ;p). I will get coffee made and get the room set up. There will be snacks, but not too many because I really don't think there will be that many people there. I have practiced the crap out of my powerpoint and gotten some further excellent advice on how to improve it. One (well, at least one) of my committee members was only reading Chapter II this afternoon when I talked to him. I have no idea what will happen after the presentation is over and my throngs of supporters are booted out. Wheee!

Is next week! /o\

I put it on the grad list and on FB, soI may as well put it here too:

I would like to welcome everyone interested to attend the public segment of my dissertation defense next Wednesday, May 29th, in Glasscock 300 at 9:00 AM! The topic of the talk will be "Harbour Island: The Comparative Archaeology of a Maritime Community."

Thank you!


...I'm just starting to feel a little stressed about it now. I'd feel better if I had my presentation more together, but I am procrastinating pretty hard on it. But I have all weekend, right? D: I do have it started.... Why is it so hard to sort out the history bits?

I'm sure there must be people out there who wonder and don't know, right?

Well, I am officially defending my dissertation on May 29. I more or less printed out the committee copies and will distribute them on Monday. Then I just need to write the abstract and acknowledgments. Oh and the defense presentation, I suppose :p

After that... I'll have about a week or so before I start my new job! Wooh! I have a one year position at the Forsyth Gallery as a cataloger. The way I am thinking, this will give me a year to try and do things like get syllabi together, maybe get an article published, submit my dissertation for publication (maybe), and basically try and get everything I can ready to be more eligible for the academic job circuit. Everything except teach, anyway :p And this way I'll have some decent museums experience under my belt and can start looking at those sorts of positions as well, or at least have other options if I can't find a decent academic job or risk falling into the adjunct trap after a few years.

I think that is really all of the big news. I'm still living in the same place. The pets are well. I'm still writing little bits and pieces. Maybe this year I will also make more serious efforts to get some fiction published? I think I may try and revive some of my older works in progress as well, or at least see if I can't bring them to some kind of reasonable conclusion (mostly thinking about my Romulan fic). If I intersperse it with other things I'm working on I think that will help me keep momentum all around, and then I can be producing stuff that maybe someone will be more interested in reading than my other stories. I like to think I am a pretty good writer, I'm just terrible at writing to capture audiences - if only I would write things people actually want to read! :p But maybe that is just an excuse :p

Um... I think that's about it, really. Finishing the Diss should be a bigger deal, but it really doesn't feel it. There have been moments of adrenalin rush and anxiety, but mostly I am relaxed to indifferent. Maybe it just hasn't settled in? Maybe its because I never isolated myself socially as much as some people finishing up, so it doesn't feel like as much of a release? I feel like I should feel more accomplished, I suppose.

I think part of it is that I fear a similar reaction to my fiction writing, where I think it is good and interesting (I also don't hate my topic as much as I've been told I should at this point), but no one else is interested. I guess we'll see. I'm interested to hear comments from my committee, at least - I'm not completely disengaged, or anything, but it mostly feels like the end of an inevitable process rather than overcoming any kind of challenge. Maybe I just don't feel like I have been challenged enough - my chair's comments were almost entirely copy-editing notes (and they were not extensive). I don't have that much faith in my brilliance though. Enh.

I feel like I should reward myself for getting it printed out today, even if I didn't get it turned in. I thought about ordering pizza, but I have pulled pork in the crockpot. Maybe I'll just make Nutella popcorn again.